Whispers

            By now in this month of June, many of us have rejoiced with friends or loved ones, as we watched them graduate from high school or college.  We watched, as they culminated years of study and discipline.  I taught high school English for ten years, from 1968-1978, and from a teacher's perspective, this graduation season still grips me with a hint of regret, even 35-45 years later.  I chose another career after those ten years in education, but even so, it bothered me as I gradually realized in the years following that I would have had so much more to offer those students in my forties and fifties, than I had in my twenties and thirties.

           One poignant revelation of this came after I first watched the film, Dead Poets Society.  One morning, Mr. Keating, an English professor at a prestigious male eastern prep school, leads his students out of the door of the conventional classroom setting into the school lobby, where there are glass showcases containing trophies and pictures of past graduating classes.  He asks these young men to look at the faces in the black and white photos from many years past. Then, as he asks them to peer in even closer, he speaks for those in the photos with an audible, haunting whisper from the past,
"C.....a....r....p....e......D.....i.....e....m.  Sieze the day boys.  Make your lives extraordinary."  I loved his unconventional teaching style, and his use of the dramatic whisper.

            Sometimes,  we are best taught by listening for whispers.    I Kings 19:11-12 tells us of a time when that was true for Elijah:

    The Lord said, Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.  Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.  After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.  When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.. 

          Is God whispering something to you, while you listen for a shout ?

          In my early years of teaching, I wanted to be so creative, and sometimes I succeeded.  But brief, thought-provoking journeys like the one the Professor led here, would have been so meaningful.  I just think that I hadn't yet lived enough of life to teach others how fragile and fleeting it can be.  But even now, years later, I still need to remember to listen for Spiritual whispers.

         (This is my first attempt to include a video in a blogpost, so please accept my apologies if it doesn't work properly.  If it doesn't, please go to Youtube and access the brief "Carpe Diem" segment of the film. )