The Teacher Will Come

It has been said, “When the student is ready, the teacher will come.” 

Many people have been my teachers.  Not all of them worked for schools.  Some of the best teachers I have ever had were people I hated – or just couldn’t stand for one reason or another. 

I was always fortunate in my school teachers and later in my college professors (I went back to school in middle age).  I had wise men and women who challenged me to work as hard as I could at learning to think.  They taught me not just facts, but to realize that I didn’t know everything, and for the things I didn’t know, how to find out, and how to check sources of information for reliability. 

The one or two professional teachers I had that were not good at teaching taught me something else…patience, and how to glean what I could from someone who knows a subject but not how to teach it. 

Many of my teachers taught me to love learning…I still love it.  My curiosity will probably die after I do….and maybe not even then. 

But back to those people I hated…or simply couldn’t stand.  What did they teach me?  One of the most important lessons of my life…they taught me the things I hated and couldn’t stand about myself.  I saw reflected in them things I did not like seeing in me.  It is very hard to remember that in the midst of dealing with someone who drives me up the wall.  When I am in fit spiritual condition, my sense of humor rescues me and I can put together in my mind a cartoon of myself overacting in the manner the person I am dealing with acts.  With my perspective restored, I have choices:  withdraw, ignore, or engage.  I can act upon life, rather than reacting to it. 

I once attended a seminar entitled “Working with Difficult People.”   At the time, I worked for litigation attorneys, some of them … ah, “difficult.”  The teacher was an amazing person who stalked out on the stage, threw back his head and whinnied like a horse.  He then stomped his “hooves” and stared at us as if he were about to jump off and pound us into the ground, huffing and blowing and pawing the wooden floor.  Just as suddenly, he relaxed and smiled.  He then said, “That is all I have to teach you.”

We stared at him.  We had just paid this guy over a hundred dollars each so he could imitate a horse?  We looked at each other.  We looked at him.

He said, “The next time someone bullies you, picture them doing what I just did.  You will be amazed at how your reactions to them change.”  We then spent a couple of hours practicing being the horse and being the grown-up.  It was great fun.  And my bosses never knew why their tantrums didn't get to me. 

Obviously, there is more to working with difficult people than just picturing them as ridiculous.  Obviously, there are more kinds of difficult people than just bullies.  What about emotional “vampires?”  Or actual, physical abusers?  What about people who won’t let you get a word in edge-wise?

My point is that you can’t let yourself get sucked into your own emotional reactions to the detriment of your peace of soul.  Let me restate that:  I can’t let myself do that.  If I do, sooner or later I will act badly and need to make amends.  Worse, sooner or later I will want to take a drink.

I could hide all alone in a hermitage, I suppose.  But I would never grow up.  I would never have to have my sharp edges knocked off by living in the real world with real people in real situations.  And I do from time to time retreat to the hermitage of my “cell” in St. Ciaran’s House of Prayer. 

But no one gets to the Kingdom of God alone.  We all go together.  And so I take my silly self out and act the fool and laugh at myself, we all have a little fun, and we all get to be happy all the way to the Kingdom.  Sometimes we worry together or weep together or whatever seems appropriate.  We teach one another to live and to love.  And we hope we can be more than a bad example. 

So here’s to all the teachers in my life.  May God richly reward you and fill you with happiness, joy and peace.