Living the Dream

In my last post I mentioned that I consider it a privilege to be surrounded by my fifteen and sixteen year old students and how I am essentially living a dream. As I say these words, I feel quite cheesy and feel like I am being contrary to my cynical side which I feel quite comfortable with. But, if the truth be told, in reality I really am living a dream. About five years ago, I was 30 years old and living the “good life” in K-Town. I had a decent job and was making quite a bit of money. I had a beautiful new house on a nice piece of land. I planned on having this house paid off in ten years by paying extra payments every month. While I didn’t hate or dread this job that involved sales and management, I was by no means satisfied with it. During slow periods, say on many weekdays, I would stare out the front window into the parking lot and daydream. I dreamed about standing in front of a classroom of high school students and teaching them about history and about life. The students were nameless and faceless, but they were very real to me.

During this time, there were several factors that led to me making drastic changes in my life. As I had begun to become increasingly disillusioned with the nature of church and the ministry I became open to new paths for my life. For some time I had been having a recurring dream. I regularly dreamt that I was back in college and was taking fifteen hours. Time and time again, I would get down to the last couple of weeks of the semester, and it would dawn on me that I had forgotten to attend one of the five classes. The dream used to wake me startled and agitated and the dream stayed persistent for several years.

In addition to this dream, I stumbled upon two powerful quotes that refused to leave my consciousness. The first quote is “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” I knew that a sales and management career might ultimately lead to financial gain, but I knew that I would be starved and parched by remaining in that field. I wanted to teach and impact the lives of kids, but it didn’t seem possible at the time. I began reading another book and read the following quote from T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia): “All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the morning to find it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they dream their dreams with eyes wide open, and make them possible.” This quote both inspired and haunted me. How could I remain in the “easy life”, when I was being called to something else? I knew that I had to begin closing the gap between the dream and reality. I had to become a dreamer of the day and make this vision possible. This was difficult because it required not only a career change, but the relocating of my family and a venture back to college, something I was not exactly thrilled about doing. It also involved financial sacrifice, and more importantly the postponing of the dreams and passions that resided in the heart of my wife. Nevertheless, it came down to sucking it up or living a life of frustration and discontent. Perhaps, the Almighty gave me the courage to choose the former. After several years of schooling (much of which was bureaucratic bullsh*t), I have begun to see the fruit of my labors.

I can now say that the recurring dream stopped years ago. The faceless now have faces, the nameless now have names. They are my kids and I care deeply about them and their futures. Do they drive me crazy at times? Absolutely. But, how can you beat bluntly telling a girl several weeks ago that she was selfish and having her respond “You’re right.” Since then she has befriended a new girl that gets on her last nerve and has encouraged another girl to come after school to get extra help with me. How can you beat having a lazy, unmotivated male do nothing all year and then come after school and diligently bust his butt for two and a half hours to get caught up? I read the following words from Anais Nin last week that reminded me of this young man: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was greater than the risk it took to blossom.” He is so close to realizing his potential, the greatness that lies inside him, and if I can just play a small part in pulling that potential out, if I can just play a small part in helping that blossoming to take place than how can I not be ecstatic? How can I not feel vindicated in having pushed through and followed the dream to its fruition? How cannot I not feel humbled that my obedience has lead to helping others discover their talents and passions? While I am beginning to fulfill this dream, I feel that new ones are welling up in me. Their fulfillment may be years down the road, but I have confidence in knowing that they are possible. I have gratitude in my heart knowing that I live in a country that affords me the opportunity to fulfill these dreams, when many people all over the world cannot fulfill the longings of their heart, due to poverty, etc... Gratitude, and yes guilt because it doesn’t seem fair. I don’t know what to do about that though. In any case, I guess I will continue to strive to do what I can do to make this world a better place. (O.K., I think I’m going to go vomit now, as this is too sappy and hopeful sounding! What is happening to me, ugh!)

Unsung Heroes from History

I am at that point in the year with my World History classes where we head into the 20^th century. We begin with Imperialism and then cover World War I, the Russian Revolution, Between the Wars (Great Depression included), World War II (Holocaust included), the Cold War, and other issues such as Indian independence and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Sounds quite encouraging, doesn’t it? I told these tenth graders of mine that we were going to be covering some pretty heavy stuff and that I would be informing them of some historical facts that are not necessarily mentioned in their textbook. I told them my purpose in doing this was not to be sensational but to explain accurately the “losers” side of the story. I also told them that I was going to strive this year to try and bring out more of the positive contributions that were made by unsung heroes in regard to many of these human rights abuses that have taken place over the last one hundred years.

Today, I lectured about King Leopold II and the Belgians “colonization” (insert rape and/or theft here) of the Congo. After discussing, the European reasons for seeking to get a “slice of this magnificent African cake” (nationalism, raw materials for industrialization, social Darwinism) I went into an explanation of how the Congolese were taken hostage and forced to extract the hardened sap from the abundance of rubber trees that existed there. Women were taken hostage until the men came back from arduous labor that involved climbing trees often a hundred feet high. The women were then sold back to the men (after having been raped), if and only if they returned with their quota fulfilled. If quotas were not fulfilled, consequences were often dire and included severe beatings with a chicotte, and even severed hands and feet. Small children were often not exempt from such punishments either. For a detailed discussion of these and other egregious atrocities, and more so for a compelling story overall I recommend reading this.

While this barbarity was transpiring, not everyone turned a blind eye. Enter one Roger Casement, a British consul stationed in Leopoldville. Casement began exposing the human rights abuses that were taking place in the Congo. His discoveries would lead to parliament taking control of the Congo from Leopold. To make a long story short, Casement’s eventual involvement with the movement for Irish independence got him into trouble with the Germans and he was captured and put on trial for high treason.

In his last days, he spoke in his own defense saying, “Self-government is our right. A thing born in us at birth; a thing no more to be doled out to us or withheld from us by another people than the right to life itself- than the right to feel the sun or smell the flowers, or to love our kind…. Where men must beg with bated breath for leave to subsist in their own land, to think their own thoughts, to sing their own songs, to garner the fruits of their own labours… then surely it is braver, a saner and a truer thing, to be a rebel… than tamely to accept it as the natural lot of men.” And in one of his last letters Casement wrote: “I made awful mistakes, and did heaps of things wrong and failed at much- but… the best thing was the Congo.”

I went on to talk about how all men die, but not all men truly live and I spoke about how Edmund Burke said that the only thing needed for evil to triumph was for good men to do nothing. I praised Casement’s courage and showed him to be an example for all of us.

For the first time in four years of teaching I saw 15 year olds that were completely riveted and hanging on every word I spoke, as I talked about how each and every one of us in that room had a responsibility to find out what drives us and make us tick. I implored all of us to live our lives in such a way that we could take our last breath and know that we had lived as Casement did in focused pursuit of righting wrongs and helping others. I told them that I didn’t just want them to become better students, but to become better people aware of what is currently going on in the world related to human rights abuses. It was reinforced to me through this class that it is a must that I regularly make dead people come alive and inspire purpose and hope in this next generation. I consider it a privilege to be surrounded by these kids as I continue to live a dream (more on that later).