Dear former teachers,

Thank you.

I am tempted to stop there. A simple “thank you” seems enough. But let me expand.

I was amazingly blessed to have had years of wonderful teachers before I ever sat in front of you in a Lambuth classroom. Those inspired and inspiring teachers prepared me well, so I was able to take advantage of all you had to offer. And you offered much.

You opened my eyes to new ways of seeing things I already new. You taught me how to express myself more clearly and deeply (although this letter may not reflect that teaching!) You challenged me to engage with new ideas, new ways of seeing the world, new material, and you pushed me to engage in those things more deeply than I had thought to do before. You showed me that simply learning the facts was not enough; I had to make those facts mean something. You led me to connections, to realize that what was happening in history or science dovetailed with what was happening in literature and art and music. You forced me to stop taking things at face value. My education was truly liberal.

I learned to appreciate all manner of things: the human body, art history, aesthetics, French humor, movies, simple math, contemporary choral music, classical choral music, British history, Donne, Milton, Wordsworth, Yeats, Hawthorne, James, Faulkner, Whitman, social issues, theological issues . . . .

Perhaps, though, I learned more from you outside of the classroom. You taught me compassion by being there at one in the morning when a roommate had left a suicide note and disappeared. You showed me understanding by accepting an assignment late because my personal life had suffered a big hit. You led me to laugh at foibles — my own, my friends’, yours. You encouraged me to look again — at books I had shunned, at people I had dismissed, at issues I had resolved. You allowed me to sing and act and lead — and to make mistakes. You fed me and housed me and employed me whether I deserved it or not.

I graduated and moved on. I had other teachers who shaped what you hewed in me. Occasionally I have had contact with some of you in these intervening years, but not often. But you have never left me. You have never moved on. In all that I do, you are here. For that, I thank you.

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