As I explore what I will do next with my life, after I retire from my current teaching job, I made a promise to several people helping me as I explore - including both my wife and Parker Palmer - that before I decided on any possibility I would make a brief retreat. I had hoped to do it at Pendle Hill, the Quaker study and retreat center in suburban Philadelphia, but they were booked for this weekend.
And I needed to be on retreat now, as I will shortly explain.
Instead I write these words from a cabin at Shenandoah Crossing. We have owned here for a quarter century. There is lodge, a place for RVS, horses, a golf course, some more updated accommodations. I chose a cabin, not too far from the lodge. It is not isolated, nor are its amenities all that spartan - I did spend more than 20 minutes in a jacuzzi last night, at the end of which I was totally loose, for which I am grateful.
Obviously I have internet access, or I would not be posting this. But I am largely disconnected. Last night, and then when I arose about an hour ago, I sat out on the deck in front, listening to the sounds - I could hear ducks and geese, and the insects and the wind moving through the leaves of the many trees.
It is a chance to let go of normal things, and let my mind flow freely. It is a way of unchaining myself from the normal concerns of life and giving myself time and space to connect with the deeper parts of myself, what really matters.
I have always had something of a monastic streak. I am not a hermit. I have a preference for the coenobetic setting of others. I spent a summer at an Episcopalian Benedictine Monastery with which my father-in-law has a long connection. I have made three trips to Mount Athos, each time being based at Simona Petra, a monastic community which became almost a second home to me. I have visited other monasteries in New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, and a convent of Orthodox Nuns I knew in upstate New York.
I have also over the past two and half decades periodically come here as a place of escape and reflection. I am not totally isolated - Charlottesville is less than a half hour drive, and sometimes I will go and simply sit on the Downtown Mall, watching people go by.
Or I will drive up to the mountains and walk along the wooded slopes in Shenandoah National Park.
Or go sit by the lake here, perhaps walk across the dam.
This past week I visited a charter school that is run by a foundation and serves African-American children from the poorest parts of DC, some of whom have already had encounters with the legal system. It is a very different place than where I have previously taught. There are several people at the school with whom I have worked elsewhere or in one case all three of whose children I have taught. I respect them.
They think they would like me to come to work with them, although it will be at least another week or so before they would formally make me an offer.
I told the woman who asked me to apply, who was my first principal back from 1995-1998, that before i decided on anything I would have to take some time to go on retreat and reflect. Because an offer in another field might be forthcoming in the next week, I found this weekend to be a good time to get away and reflect, to be sure that I want to continue to teach, especially in a setting that will challenge me.
I sit in a room with only a light over the stove turned on. As the night darkness and morning fog begin to lift, additional light comes through the many windows of this cabin. There are the mechanical noises of the heating system, I can hear the occasional car door close. If I go outside on the deck I hear some voices as people head to the restaurant in the lodge for breakfast. I chose to boil water for coffee and toast several english muffins.
Were I home I would probably sit in my local Starbucks to write and reflect. I would have the distraction of the people coming and going, few of whom I actually know, but many of whom would be familiar faces from previous Saturdays - I am not the only creature of habit who frequents that particular store.
Instead I sit at a table, or walk through the woods, or lay back on a couch.
Unlike at home, there are no cats crawling on me.
If I want connection, however weakly, with other humans, I have to go outside, because otherwise they will not cross my path.
Thus I am alone with my thoughts and my reflections.
As I should be - this is, after all, a retreat to sort out parts of my life.
I told a friend who was about to spend some political capital to try to create a job for me to hold off - because if this teaching position were to come through I thought I would be more inclined to take it than to work for him, unless he absolutely had to have me: he knows he can make that demand upon me and I would honor it. His response was that a great teacher always turns to teaching.
I do not know, despite my awards, that I am a great teacher. I know that even on a less productive day I am usually at least a good teacher.
I know that I could move in a direction to make a positive difference outside the classroom.
But I also know that I did not begin to really blossom until I became rooted in the classroom.
When I talked with my wife after visiting this school, her response was that she was hearing fire in my voice for the first time in months. Even as I explored other opportunities related to education, she knew I could do them and do them well, but she wondered if they would fully engage me the way dealing with students does.
I often think of a line repeated in a Clint Eastwood movie, that "A man's got to know his limitations."
I have always known there were things i could do well, but that did not mean I should do them.
As I have grown I have come to understand that whatever I do it must be of service to others.
I will soon be 66. I think given my druthers I know what I want to be when I grow up, if I ever do.
I want to teach.
Perhaps this job will not materialize. That does not matter. Whatever else I do must have me functioning primarily as a teacher.
There are other things I could do that would be far more remunerative, and require far less time and energy.
But if my role there is not the empowering of others, challenging and assisting them to do more than they thought possible, then perhaps I should leave it to someone else.
My teaching does not have to be in a formal classroom.
It might be through writing.
It might be through living.
It might be working with adults, perhaps even partly as a community organizer.
For better or worse I know at least this much of who I am.
I am a teacher.
Now I just have to figure out how to live as a teacher, the form my vocation will take as I go forward.
My retreat has another day to run. I will leave here tomorrow morning, drive down to Charlottesville to attend Quaker Meeting for Worship, probably the 11 AM sitting, perhaps have lunch, then drive home.
I feel somewhat at peace with the idea of accepting the job at that charter school if it is offered. Now instead of wrestling with that, I will let it sit as I go through a day with nothing specific to do. Instead I will read some, I will sit or walk in silence. I will be, I will let my inner self have time and space to speak to me.
And I know this.
I must do this more often, at least several times a year.
It helps keep me sane.
it results in my being a nicer person, because I am being more truly myself.
Have a great weekend.
Peace.