Once students

The relationship between teachers and their former students is, I find, an awkward one. The student moves on to use what the teacher imparted, the teacher stays behind to share with new students. What happened between them was important when it happened but impossible to recreate.

It's possible for teachers and students to become genuine friends, even lovers, but  I don't see exactly how. We wish each other well, of course, but there's a fundamental asymmetry in the relationship that must be put deliberately aside for any other relationship to grow.

Yet what can and often does happen in a classroom is as close to magic as anything we can experience, and both parties know it (then or later) and stand in awe of the memory of it. This may be why when I meet former students, we're both a bit embarrassed--I've had many students since, they've have other teachers--but there was that time...

It may be that my focus on encounters in the God-in-love framework is grounded in such powerful classroom moments. There have been times after class when I have marveled at what ignited among us. I can remembered feeling afterward as if I'd been a bonfire, and this not just a private impression, judging by the words and the faces of the students leaving. These special moments pass as all moments do, but nothing is more real than these were.

A former students sent me a book recently about her country; today, I'm planning to try something similar with a once-student who works nearby. I've been wanting to encourage him with a book, but I've not known what exactly to give him or quite how. He told me Friday about his children; perhaps I can give them something to read, and he can dig into the books along with his kids.  A little history, a little science, a little biography (with pictures), a young adult story of a girl in England: let's see if this selection is 1. effective in helping, or at least 2., not lame.