I have to answer the question I don’t know how to ask before
I can write something I want to give my students before they take their final
exams.
For years now, ever
since at least 2010 when we lost two people in one class, I have given my
students lucky rocks at the end of the semester as tangible evidence of my
gratitude for our time together and my good wishes for their future.
We usually begin
Final Exam day with stories and rocks (and for a bit there was a picture thing and
once or twice I wore my Harry Potter-looking Ph.D. stuff), but that always left
out the student who tiptoed in 3 minutes late, or the students who were so
genuinely wrapped up in memorizing the parts of the Treaty of Paris (1898) they
were unable to listen. I don't blame them.
I would not want any student to feel left out, so this year
I will give them something to read (this).
One of the reasons I love rocks is they
remind me that I have a choice in what I keep and what I leave behind.
I hope that you all take pieces of this class
with you, the good parts, the parts that meant something to you.
If
there were times in the semester when you felt frustrated at me or disappointed
in yourself, I hope you choose to put that rock down.
One of the things that makes us human is our
ability to question things and to invent stories. Rocks cannot tell you about the 1968 election
and connect it to both the Nixon Doctrine and Watergate.
No matter how hard they try, rocks can’t tell
stories. Rocks have other uses.
Do rocks worry about being useful? Successful?
Important? Lost?
Would worrying help the
rocks get to where they are destined to go?
Can rocks fly? Did this rock come from outer space? Was it part of a meteor once?
I do not know.
I did read once that humans
are made of stardust. Stardust pulsing though our veins, connecting us to things
that have been and will become. Perfectly amazing.
I don’t know how high these rocks can fly,
but your rock has flown from where it was and then will end up exactly where it
is intended to be, at exactly the speed it needed to go.
There. Question answered.
Now something else. When I bought the rocks there was tag on the bag
with was a notice smaller than a fortune cookie that read, “Not for children under
14. Not for food.”
I shook my head.
Who needs to be told that????
What horrible person would be giving rocks to
kids? Or think rocks are food?
Still, there must be a reason for them to
have taken the resources to have printed and affixed those particular rules to
these rather rock-like rocks.
I choose to practice radical acceptance, so I’m
going to practice believing that those two rules are crucial.
Rule #1: Do not give rocks to children.
Whoa. YES! Best rule ever. Brilliant.
Profound, even.
If you give a child a rock, they might cry. They
were hoping for maybe candy or your Netflix password or to use your wireless
headphones.
You can’t always tell if someone is a child
or not based on their age, but you will definitely know if a person is ready to
believe rocks are magic and that you are offering them treasure.
If they don’t want your treasure, leave them
to the universe to learn what they need to learn on their wisdom path today.
Rule #2: Rocks are not for food.
Yeah. Right! Anyone who has heard the fable
about stone soup knows that rocks can be the key ingredient in making a
community feast.
I am aware that more than one hundred
students are waiting for me to finish
writing this and post exam grades, so for expediency sake, here is a recap of
the story à
Our service projects this semester have been
our stone soup. Each student has chosen
to use their talents to contribute to a greater mission resulting in something
bigger and more awesome than we each could have made on our own.
But OK. Still. I had agreed to agreeing to the two rules and
I’m breaking my rule to follow the rules.
Good
thing I don’t have an editor to answer to. Good thing I don’t have to worry
about getting a grade on this essay.
Rocks are not for food. This is probably the
stupidest rule ever.
If we are at the point where people are
eating so many rocks that there are rock shortages and rock overdoses lets
reconvene and figure out what bad choices lead our society down that to that path.
Was it Yalta? Was it Perestroika? Can it
be connected in any way to blaming Mexico for forcing us to join WW1?
Wait, I am still not agreeing.
Radical acceptance might be against my
nature, so I have to practice harder than other people. Here we go.
Do not eat rocks. Be careful what you ingest,
be careful that it isn’t toxic or harmful.
Practice kindness to yourself, you are treasure.
Do not
feed rocks to people. Do not feed anything harmful to other people. They, also,
are treasure.
Wish for
yourself health and protection; offer the same wish for everyone else.
Now I see it.
The people who bagged these rocks took the
time to wish their rocks would do no harm.
Bless their hearts.
I’m almost ready to finish this story and
grade that stack of exams that looms next to me on my desk, but not until I
answer the question I’m still figuring out how to ask.
(continued)
(there are only 3 parts, then I really really have to grade.....)
