#300: The American English Teacher Gets His Courage Shit Together

“This shit works” –heard in conversation with Rick, and then later with Paul or Jeff, one or both of whom attributed it to Parker Palmer, perhaps apocryphally.

20 years ago
I thought to myself
there’s no way I can do this
for another 20 years.
I would need the strength
of a half dozen supermen,
the fortitude of a freight train,
the stamina of a great white or
a killer whale. I would need
the selflessness of a Gandhi,
a Jesus, and a shell as thick as
an armadillo, a turtle, a tank.
I have acquired none
of these things, and yet,
here I am, 20 years later,
still teaching. All it required,
apparently, was to get my
courage shit together,
to work the heart muscle
in such a way that enabled
me to live in the tragic gap
without going certifiable,
to listen with full attention,
to learn to love the questions,
to befriend, no, to fall in love
with the stillness of silence,
to talk to myself, honestly, alone
and in the company of strangers,
to trust in a process that invites
and nurtures that shy finch, that
wild doe, that obnoxious but
nevertheless beautiful clover,
that creeping and persistent shadow,
that most illusive of mythic and
magical creatures situated right
around in here somewhere.
For lack of a better word,
I call that the soul, an unruly
but steadfast little beast I first
encountered on the courage way,
20 years ago.