1946 + 61 , so indulge me!

I will post this shortly after midnight, as I welcome in the beginning of my 62nd year.  And of course I will read any comments anyone might choose to post in response.  But I am writing this mainly for myself - this is for me a necessity - using milestones to take account.  If you are not interested in my musings, please stop reading now.  If you continue, you cannot say you were not warned.

A 61st birthday does not carry the weight of its immediate predecessor, but at this stage in life somehow the natal dates seem to appear more frequently.  Perhaps it is because my life this past year has been so full, I have attempted to do so much, and I have not stop for sufficient reflection. 
As I look back at the past year, there is much of which I can feel satisfied.  I worked very hard on behalf of Jim Webb, saw him win a primary and then an upset win, was able to greet him the day he was sworn in, and have been more than satisfied at what he he has done since.  I had the experience of yearlykos, which in some ways was even more overwhelming - meeting people whose response when they realized I was teacherken made me realize that I am not as isolated as I may at times feel, but also that I have an equal responsibility for the words I express online as I do with the students in my classroom.  My students have minimal choice at interacting with me, but those who absorb my words online do so from choice.  Both are serious responsibilities.  And as I should listen to my students, for I learn so much from them, likewise I need to read and absorb the comments made in response to what I post online. 

I am completing another year of teaching- my twelfth, and possibly the penultimate year of my time in a classroom.  That makes each moment that much more precious.  So far I can still teach with some integrity, but it becomes increasingly more difficult.  It is not just the effects of NCLB, although those are severe.  It is that as see this nation in increasing crisis I find myself likewise more drawn to want to focus on what I might be able to do on a larger scale.  But then I remember that if there is going to be a future for this country, we cannot devour our seed corn - I must help it - or rather them, the young people in my classroom - grow to the fullest potential possible.

And I find that even as I attempt to reflect back on a period of 365 days I cannot disconnect it from things still ongoing.  I look at the decision on Iraqi war supplemental funding and find again that I both despair and feel anger, just as I did last fall when the Senate passed the Military Commissions Act.  On this my birthday Monica Goodling will testify before Congress and it will remind me of testimony in past months that showed us other parts of the abandonment of the principles of justice and equity, replaced instead by the corruption of seeking personal, economic, or political advantage on behalf of a select few. 

No, I cannot separate the disappointments I encounter now, that I will encounter as this year unfolds, from those that have happened in the past twelve months.  In the past the disappointments and shocks served only to make me more determined to make a difference.  For all my failings as a person and as a teacher, despite how thinly I spread my time and energy this past year, I believe that my students got a real sense of the importance of involvement.  Perhaps seeing a sharing in some small way my commitment towards making things better inspired or challenge a few who might otherwise not have been as inclined to be involved?

I am too tired most nights to think clearly.  I come home from school and begin to wade through emails on educational policy issues, people who want my advice. I craft messages to Congressional staffers about aspects of educational policy.  And to avoid being too isolated while my spouse works late I interact with others online.  I regret not only how little reflective time I have had, other than in postings like this, but also how little reading for pleasure.  Most of my reading has had to be for a purpose.  I have seen few movies, gone to no concerts other than those of my students.  I rarely have time for piano. 

I stop after writing the previous paragraph.  Then I realize how lucky I am.  I have a wife who tells me multiple times per day "I love you."  There are five felines in this household who are delighted to cuddle up if only I will let them.  Despite my lack of appropriate exercise I am healthier than many of my contemporaries.  And I have choices.  I can choose to be active, or to withdraw from participation in some of my activities.  And, given that I am writing this in a political context, I have a certain amount of access.  Living in the DC area is part of it - I regularly encounter well known and often influential people.  I am pretty good at recognizing people, even some who may not be as well known to the general public.  Thus I have been able to build some connections simply by proximity. 

And my online writing helps.  Sometimes I am speaking to someone and I get "so you're teacherken!"  That happened Saturday in a conversation with a man I had met before and who had a vague sense of who I was.  It was a political event, and nowadays I do not put Ken Bernstein on nametags, but rather "teacherken."  Governor Kaine looked at my name tag, his face lit up and he said "so you're teacherken!" 

But it is of little use for me that people know me through my writing.  I am not seeking a job for myself, not so long as I can continue to teach with integrity.  I have the option of exploring other opportunities because I can continue teaching, but I could also about 12.5 months from now retire with a relatively small pension and go do something else. I have choices, and that makes me far luckier than others.

So of what value is it then that people know me from my writing?  Perhaps they will listen to me on an issue, or perhaps I can use that recognition to help connect someone who does not have that recognition ot the person of influence. It might empower me to speak on behalf of those who otherwise would lack voice.

There are a couple of images that help me understand my role in life.  It is not my calling to be a Senator or a city councilman, although I have held office in many organizations throughout my life  I am usually of greater value when I am helping others.  Do I have a responsibility for some level of leadership?  Perhaps, but if so in the model of what Robert Greenleaf called ":servant leadership."  I am reminded that one of the titles applied to Popes is that of the servant of the servants of Christ - that is, the role of the head Catholic Bishop should be less of ruling at the top of a hierarchy but of being the ultimate servant - the one who serves those who serves others.  The washing of feet on Maundy Thursday is perhaps the best illustration of this role.

Politically I would prefer another image, one I think has been misunderstood, that of eminence grise, the gray eminence.  The term was applied to a man who stood behind Richelieu and the Cardinal stood behind the throne.  Here I would prefer to drop the power aspects, because sometimes this is called the power behind the power behind the throne.  Rather than see it as power, see it instead as the willingness to offer advice and assistance in the shadows, sometimes not even speaking with the person who actually will make the decision, embody the policy.  Of course, since as teacherken I am no longer anonymous, when I write online I cannot be that much in the shadows.  But when I offer advice to a staffer of a Senator or House member, I am at that same remove, and then maybe I can become a good faith advocate of a position I believe to be correct.

I am of course drafting this as my 61st year comes to a close.  The clock has struck 11 times, an hour before midnight.  On XM pops the sounds of Gorecki's 3rd Synphony, something that can elevate me or wring me out.  I am most sensitive to music, then to nature, then to food, and only then to words.  I am probably  far superior as a cook than I am as a writer.  Ask my wife, who regrets how little I cook nowadays.  And perhaps that, like playing the piano however badly out of practice I may be may have to become more substantial parts of my life if I am to sustain myself, to not burn myself out.

When I was a child I used to play a game called Careers or something like that. John Bers, now an  professor of the Practice of Management Technology at Vanderbilt, owned it.  You had to set your targets for some mix of fame, fortune and love. I would always tilt far too heavily towards the last, setting a target that I could never win.  Consequently I rarely won the game.  And for much of my life as much as I wanted love and wanted to love I was afraid of it.  At some points in my life it was as if I were trying to replay those games with John Bers, only now I was trying a different mix -  perhaps if I were to become accomplished enough or famous enough people would love me  But respect - especially when given grudgingly - was not the same as love.  It has taken me most of my life to learn that love is a gift that is not earned, but rather is freely given.  One can learn to love, to be sure, but what one is learning is to surrender, to become vulnerable.

I am not a theologian, but in the past I wrestled with theological ideas.  Within a Christian context there was an absolute limit on the power of God - He could not force a free creature, man, to love Him.  Love is the gift of a free creature, and cannot be compelled.  If the creature is not free, it cannot love.  Man's freedom consisted precisely in his ability not to love God.  And it is perhaps this that is a bit of clue, at least for me.

Perhaps as I age I come to realize that the young Kenny as I was called in those years so long ago in Larchmont, more than 5 decades past,  was wiser than he knew, or than he was willing to admit for many years.  Ultimately all the money and all the fame could not make up for living without love.  As i passed through life I would occasionally fantasize about winning some amount of money - from  Readers' Digest, Publishers' Clearing House or in a lottery.  But then i realize something - in my fantasies, once I started down that route there was never enough money, because there was so much more I wanted to be able to do.  Surprisingly it was only minimally about things for me.  No, it was all the places to which I wanted to give money, as if that would prove I cared.  And there would never be enough money for that.

But there was one thing that could not run out.  As I began to let myself learn to love, I found that that more I loved, the more love I was capable of giving.  It seems contradictory, but the act of surrender, of freely giving, seemed to open me up to places in myself I had never known had existed.

People often ask why I did not become a teacher sooner - I was in my late 40's.  I made the decision to change careers in the summer of 1992, after my 25th college reunion.  At that point Leaves on the Current and I had been together since September of 1974, married since December of 1985,  and I was beginning to learn how to love.  I am still learning.  Teaching, at least for me, requires me to be able to love.  I have to open myself up.  And as I have learned how to do so, at least more than I could before, I have become a better teacher. 

Love should never bind or enslave.  It should liberate.  If I freely give my love the one to whom it is given does not thereby become obligated to me in any fashion, otherwise it is not a gift freely given.  I am sorry if this does not make sense.  But it is the core of what I should be about.  Absent being able to love, to give myself freely, I have no purpose.  All the knowledge or skill I might have accumulated avails me little, even if I am able to pass it on to others.  I become more whole by taking the risk of being hurt.  I cannot learn unless I am open, I cannot experience love, a gift freely given, unless I am as open by myself giving freely.
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I participate in electronic discourse because I want to make a difference.  And ultimately the difference I can make will come not so much from the cleverness of my expression, the acuteness of by observations, but rather from the connection that is made from caring.  Perhaps the reason that some of my electronic writings have impact is because by my being vulnerable, by exposing my own insecurities and incomplete musings, I connect with others who are themselves in similar places.  Mind, that does not in any way make me a superior creature, far from it.  I am petty, prone to anger and spite, far too quick to resort to the clever verbal retort.  That is surely a part of me, flawed person that I am.  But when one loves one does so as the creature one is, and by being open then becomes capable of growth, of going beyond one's limitations.

I am not wise.  I struggle to be vulnerable.  It is still easier for me to attempt to give love than it is for me to accept it, or even to accept friendship.  I feel so flawed, so much unreal so much of the time, that I fear if people really knew me as I know myself they wouldn't be able to stand me, or would mock me.  Perhaps one reason I enjoy being a teacher is that my adolescents see right through most of my defense mechanisms, and because I know that if I am going to connect I have to be vulnerable, they challenge me to be more trusting, of them and of myself.

I have been blessed to know many loving creatures.  Many have been four footed.  Some have been more like me than I used to acknowledge.  They were flawed human beings who decided to take the risk, to be vulnerable.  They opened their hearts to me when they did not have to do so.  They expressed that in the best way of which they were capable.  Too often instead of accepting it, I at least have been prone to try to pick it apart, to find what was wrong or insufficient, only much later realizing that such action on my part was the rejecting of a gift freely given, and that had I responded in kind we would both have grown.  I am tempted to say there are aspects of this lesson that apply in the political parts of our lives, but I am not sure that I have the skill to express the connection in way that those feeling badly hurt by recent political events would be willing at this moment to accept.

Some of those who offered me such a gift at crucial points of my fragile past have themselves now passed on, others may now be quite elderly.  I think of an AP History teacher named Thomas Rock, a music professor named John Davison, an Orthodox Abbot name Aimilianos,  And of course I think of a person almost 11 years younger than me, who was 17 when our relationship began back in 1974.

I have been given much by others.  Such a gift, that love, is freely given.  It places no obligation on me towards them.  And yet, because it has empowered me, how can I do ought by try to emulate what they gave me in my actions towards others? 

I am now 61 years old.  I am still learning how to love.  And any action that I do that does not stem ultimately from the willingness to be open to others is an action that is not worth the expenditure of what limited time and energy I may yet have left to me.  Perhaps surprisingly that fuels my involvement in political affairs as much as it does in teaching.  I seem them as akin - seeking to empower others for good things.

So now, if by some miracle you have persisted, you have continued to read my disjointed musings, I thank your for your tolerance, patience, and kindness towards me.  I don't  know of what value the experience may have been.  For me writing this was a developmental process.  That is, when I started I did not have a clear idea of what I was thinking, much less what I would write.  This is not intended as a coherent or focused piece of writing. I warned you I would indulge myself.  It is ultimately a shared piece of personal reflection.

But then it is my birthday.  I am entitled to indulge myself a little.

Peace.

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