Last month, googling around led me to the high school reunion page for the kids that I had gone to grade school with, my childhood friends that I had not seen since I had moved away more than 45 years ago. There was a list of the kids with contact emails. And suddenly I had the opportunity to bring full circle something that has hung on me for many years. So I sent the following email (and received from her a gracious reply).
Greetings from Mr. Bond’s 6th grade class a half century ago.
I came upon this WaHi class reunion webpage this morning and realized I could send an acknowledgement across the years.
One day in 6th grade, you and I were working together on some assignment and I happened to look up at your face and into your eyes and within your eyes I saw the most beautifully radiant light I had ever seen. In describing this moment to others, I always use the word “smote” for it accurately describes what the beauty of your light did to me. I quickly looked away but in that split second, the beauty of your light smote deep into my soul. It was a special moment I have carried ever after – along with a regret that something within me made me turn away so quickly from something so beautiful.
Many years later, my wife, Alysia, and I created Chrysalis Charter School. Nine years into its history, I had a class of eighth graders in whose eyes I saw the same beautiful light. I wanted them to learn to appreciate this gift. So eyeshine became something we began talking about, sharing with one another. Magic happened with that class. One thing that happened is we teachers realized how fundamentally important this magic was and we changed the school’s mission statement to “encouraging the light within each student to shine brighter.” That change made a profound difference within the school. Every parent knows when their child is shining or when something is dimming their light. And a teacher can see that too – if the school encourages/permits them to use that light as the feedback to guide all interactions. Encouraging the light within (as opposed to focusing on standardized test scores) has led to a very special school, one we are still exploring the possibilities of. So many of the parents of children who transfer in from other schools say, a few months into the school year, “Thank you. I have my child back again.”
So across the years, I send you a thank-you for the gift of beautiful light you gave me – and a meditation on the mystery of life – how your “glance” has changed the lives of hundreds of kids two generations later.
May your light grace all those around you.
Second story
Each Wednesday morning we have a Tree Assembly where the whole school (135 students) come together at the beginning of the day to share time together. Before we sang this time, I told the following story. (Our theme for January is “I can make a difference.”)
“I want to tell you a story from my childhood. Back in fourth grade, we had a music teacher who would come in once a week to teach us music. One day, she had us singing a song. I was singing away because I enjoyed singing and I looked over at Dick Ashmore who was sitting there (I pointed in the direction because I remember where he was) and he looked at me with eyes that said, ”How pathetic that you are singing. Don’t you know boys don’t sing.” In an instant, my throat muscles tightened like an iron band and my singing shut down. I remained that way for 25 years until I met Alysia and she helped gradually loosen that tightness in my throat.
“That tightness for 25 years was really sad because singing is a great joy. The Buddhists say something like we are given three great mysteries: our body, our mind, and our voice. And to shut one of those down is really sad. Dick Ashmore made a difference in my life. It wasn’t a good difference and he wasn’t aware of what a big difference he made but he did make a difference. You, too, can make a similar difference but in the other direction. As we sing, you can shine your enjoyment of singing. And maybe there are a few here who, like me, have been cut off from their joy of singing. If so, you can let them know with your eyes that it is safe here for them to undo the tightness and begin to sing again.”
When I pointed to where Dick Ashmore had sat, my “felt sense” stirred so somewhere in the middle of this talk I improvised something like. “It was only a second and nobody else knew and I didn’t know how to tell anyone else – and this makes me realize that all of us are probably walking around with these life-changing moments within us that other people never know about and we don’t even know how to talk about.”
Which is the main idea I want to communicate here within Cairns – this mystery of our individual selves, unknown to others, and how, within our lives, much of it flows on but every now and then, something happens, eyes look into eyes of another, that goes far deeper and possibly within a second, we have been altered. Or, from another perspective, that life seems to flow along at a certain volume but at any unpredictable time, it can suddenly deepen and change can happen at a rate far beyond that which we assume, based on other times.
P.S. My sharing this experience opened the school to greater singing. Two of our teachers said it invited them to sing more fully after a lifetime of holding back and the kids singing is definitely more spirited now.
Leave a Reply