Ah, a cool, inviting 65 degrees this morning. Well, the dark, pre-dawn streets are for me one of the most sustaining and invigorating spiritual places I know. Power walking on the asphalt outside gets me to my inside where I confront my faults, think of the ultimate goals of my life and work, remind myself of the core principles I want to live by and the values I wish to guide me, and see how I am doing so far. I do all that not to change others, for that I know I cannot do; I do all that to change myself, for that I know I can do. That place, reinforced by my randomly selected "word for the day," places my ideals unflinchingly before me and tells me the vision I have and the goals I strive toward. The fact that Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, that is coming upon us tonight only drives me deeper.
The central prayer of Yom Kippur, what's called the Un'taneh Tokef, reminds us of our frailty, our mortality, and the painful uncertainty of living in the coming year. Don't I know that. I have had another year I feel I should not have had. I've been granted a profound gift of plenty: Susan, my sons, their wives, my grandmunchkins, my friends, my colleagues, my students. For each day, I am humbly grateful. Why not. After all, these High Holidays are more of a looking to a coming year unplanned and of a time of "who knows what is to come." Each day, then, is like a two-handled urn. One handle is the anxiety of tomorrow. The other handle is one of rejoicing today. Now, it is difficult if you pick up the urn solely with one handle or the other. The urn was designed to be lifted by both handles. The urn and handles are metaphors for everything--everything--in life. No one's professional or personal or social life is either all anxiety or all rejoicing because no one's life is that straight, smooth, uniform, and predictable. It has inevitable obstructions, windings, dips, bumps, and bends, as well as ups and downs. Life often hands us the unplanned, the unwanted, the unprepared for, the uncontrollable. If you pick up the handle of anxiety, you will become too fearful and frustrated, maybe even resigned and cynical; everything will live up to your expectations, and you will experience overwhelming sadness and grief. If you pick up the handle of joyousness, you'll become euphoric, dreamy; you will have your head in the clouds; you will totally idealize; nothing will live up to your expectations, and you'll become jaded.. But, if we pick up the urn as intended, we'll expect and accept the uncertain twists and turns of life. How we deal with and adjust to the detours will determine our inner strength, the depth of our appreciation and gratitude, and the richness of our lives.
There's a lasting lesson in Yom Kippur for us academics. As academics we hold ourselves up as "masters of the answers;" we don't like ambiguity; we think we can control. But, I say that the proclamations of "I am certain" or "I know how," the assertions of "I've got it" or "I'm there." close minds, shut eyes, and clog ears. Such arrogant exclamation marks can be a deadly cholesterol that obstructs the heart; the finality of such periods can lock doors that both shut people in and shut people out. The need to know, the drive to be sure, the desire to have the question answered, creates an unyielding, and often self-devouring pressurized quest for order that doesn't allow us to live patiently in the unanswered, unordered, and sometimes "you just don't ask" now. We can't stand the "non-answer." Maybe that is the crux of academia's problem: all knowledge is prepared, that which we help students find has already been found; all experiences are prepared, for all experiences have been experienced; all problem solving is known, for all problems have been solved. And yet, there is so much "yet to be" out there. We prepare the students' orderly minds loaded with book learning; do we prepare their whole selves for the unknown, for the slings and arrows, for the ups and downs of disheveled living that will render their book learning obsolete?
So, while I admit there may be a sense of uncomfortable and humbling powerlessness in uncertainty, there is also reassuring power. Uncertainty can also mean living with grace and hope in the face "possibility," and exercising choices to convert possibility into actuality.
That is the courage to teach! That is "spiritual heroism!" Do you know what I mean? It's not imposing control. It's not asserting authority. It's not knowing. It's not the answer. It's not a guarantee. It's not safety. It's when you walk into that classroom, or anywhere for that matter, living gracefully and hopefully each new day in the face of unexperienced and uncontrolled "newness." We mistakenly believe that good teaching equals riskless certainty. It does not and cannot. We think good teaching means errorless performance. It does not and cannot. We think good teaching equals that sure-fire method or that magical technology. It does not and cannot. We assert that good teaching is teaching by the assessment numbers. It is not and cannot. Good teaching equals faith, and it's the exercise of faith that makes us "spiritual heroes." It's faith! It's a faith that gives us the courage to teach with uncertainty and possibility, being at ease welcoming the constant stream of "strangers" we call students into our midst, being in the same room with constantly "living questions" we call students. It's the constant question, "who are you," not the answer, that leads us to be curious questers, to ask, to search, to experiment, to venture, to strive, to reach out. It's the question, not the answer, that offers us the choice to open ourselves up and teach with deep awareness, otherness, and service. It is the question, not the answer, that allows us to take our hands out from our pockets to reach out with empathy, compassion, and connection. Reading student journals, engaging with students, I have learned that when we establish a connection in the classroom, that connection becomes sacred. It is then that we are doing what truly matters, then that we return to our highest selves and bring our values into both our and their lives; and then that we cut pathways to gratitude, deep satisfaction, inspired action, increasing joy, significance, meaning, integrity, and just living well. And, when we caringly do all that with each student, we acknowledge her or his dignity, her or his uniqueness and worth, and that we truly care.
When Yom Kippur ends tomorrow at sundown, my good friend, Sidney Morris, will blow the shofar. It is a long, coiled ram's horn. Sidney will have control over his lips and breath. He has no control over the inner structure and outer curves of the shofar. If he adapts the shape of his his lips and the pace of his breath to the twists and turns of the shofar, the ordinary air he blows into the small hole at one end will emerge as rich, piercing, trumpeting, "soul music" at the other end. It is soulful because you feel its vibrations deeper than just in your ears. We hear the shofar in our hearts, in our souls, under our skin, with our eyes, in our brains, in our guts. It is a metaphor of whether we handle or can't handle the natural and inevitable unforeseen twists and turns of life. Teaching, like life, is no different.
To my Jewish friends, may you be inscribed & sealed in the Book of Life for the coming year.
Make it a good day
-Louis-
Louis Schmier http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org
Department of History http://www.therandomthoughts.com
Valdosta State University
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