We say
We say that water is taken up into the roots of plants, into stems, that it washes down hills into rivers, that these rivers flow into the sea, that from the sea, in the sunlight, this water rises into the sky, that this water is carried into clouds, and comes back as rain, comes back as fog, back as dew, as wetness in the air.
We say everything comes back. And you cannot divert the river from the riverbed. We say every act has its consequences. That this place has been shaped by the river, and the shape of this place tells the river where to go.
Susan Griffin offers to see ourselves in the mutuality in the shape of things. That we remember that “every act has its consequences.” That we recognize each moment. Feel the sacred. And remember that our passing through is not momentary but eternal.
Some teachers feel that they work in a linear cause-and-effect world shaping their students as students shape them. They zip through their classes, period after period, one day after another, one week, one term, one semester, one year. They thrust ahead, hardly noting the fleeting moments, fleeting actions. They proceed on to the next, the next, and to the next in their same place, their classroom.
What if we, teachers, everyone, comprehended Griffin’s “everything is moving, and that we are part of this motion?” We would remember that every action has consequences and that our actions have consequences on us.
And life is too precious to rush through mindlessly, thoughtlessly. Griffin lets us know that each breath is special, each moment, each hour, each day, seeing it as “the shape of this place tells the river where to go.” And for teachers, their students shape where their classrooms will go.
For teachers, their students before them will soon be gone, perhaps never to be seen or heard from again. What will they take away? What will teachers take away from them? Griffin writes, “We say everything comes back.”
Griffin’s wisdom is for all of us. How will you know?
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forward” (Kierkegaard)
I write to bring ideas and methods from my life as a teacher in the latter half of the 20th century to help teachers and the public to “live forward” in this century. My latest book, Teacher in the Rye: Doing It My Way is available on Amazon. And I welcome comments here on my Blog or by email at frankthoms3@gmail.com.
