Unwitting Mentors

I wrote down some rather obvious choices-a teacher, a minister, a boss. Mrs. Whittlesy was my sixth grade teacher, and the best I ever had. She was engaging, warm, friendly, funny. She inspired me to excellence in all my work-I remember her sincere enthusiasm over my project on the goddess Athena. I can still picture her reading to us after lunch, books such as A Wrinkle in Time and The Island of the Blue Dolphins. She had the class vote on the books she would read, but I recall her gently steering us away from the likes of the supermarket book on the making of the movie Star Wars. She made it known that she expected better of me when I joined my classmates in teasing the skinny, greasy-haired girl in our class, yet she was subtle rather than preachy. I think that's what I hold most dear in my memory of her. She was cool in our eyes-the first teacher I remember who used slang-but she let it be known that it was not cool to make fun of people. "Dear Julie," she wrote in my autograph book at the end of the year. "I hope that you will keep in touch so that I don't always have to wonder, Where's Julie? What has she done with her life?"

I didn't keep in touch. Within two years, my family moved half-way across the country and I found my next mentor when I joined a church youth group. Jack Skiles was the associate minister of the church and the youth group advisor. Through my adolescence, he helped me through the delicate days of middle school and high school. He always made time for me, and listened without judgement to my self-absorbed ramblings. His time, his words, his listening, and all the simple ways that he treated me as an important person, helped me to see a whole world beyond the somewhat unsatisfying social dynamics of high school. Considering my chosen profession, it is not hard to imagine his lasting impression on me.

The third mentor to immediately come to mind was my boss in one of my first jobs out of college. David Pohl is also a minister-and one whom I credit with transforming me into a Unitarian Universalist. I worked for David toward the end of his long tenure as the Director of Ministry at the Unitarian Universalist Association. Though at the time I knew little about this religion, I came to see it embodied in this person with whom I had the blessing to work closely day after day. David is gracious, wise, compassionate, and very, very funny. He has taught me by example. Through him, I have learned that even in a society that so values work and "getting ahead," there is beauty in holding one's family and loved ones in highest esteem. He has also shown me that, even in a society that honors the gregarious, there is dignity in introversion, introspection, and serenity.

What exactly is a mentor? The word comes from a father figure in Greek mythology. In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus asks his friend Mentor to raise his son Telemachus while Odysseus is off at war. Mentor does so with love and wisdom.

In his book Mentoring, Gordon F. Shea defines one as "a trusted advisor, friend, teacher, and wise person." I would add that a mentor is a person who expands one's life or thinking in some way-a person who can help one see oneself or the world in a new way.

Professional and collegial mentoring have come into vogue of late, and I think for this reason there is a tendency to think of the mentoring relationship as being a formal one. Or, perhaps the mentors who come most readily to your mind, as they did to mine, are those in a traditional authoritative role-teacher, minister, boss. But I would suggest that there are mentors all around us. We are surrounded by mentors-those who are trusted advisors, friends, teachers and wise persons, those who expand our lives or thinking in some way.

Given this somewhat broader definition, I count many other mentors in my life. I think, for instance, of Jane and Doris-two women I met in my twenties when I was not long out of an all-women's college and filled with the heady belief that strong women were outspoken and edgy. Well guess what: I was not particularly outspoken (okay, I wasn't outspoken at all). And you know, I don't think many people would describe me as "edgy" either. Then I met Jane, and later Doris, who each were highly competent yet humble, nurturing, thoughtful, and seemingly very comfortable with who they were. They helped re-shape my thinking of what a strong woman is.

I think of Gary, a person I have come to know in my thirties and who has modeled for me what it is to live life with sincerity and humility, and with a healthy dose of humor.

I think of my friend Barb who, in the time since I've known him, has begun to identify himself as a transgender person. He has challenged not only my views on gender, but also my attitude toward a people who are marginalized, misunderstood, and mistreated in our society.

These are but some of the people who have expanded my thinking or challenged my world-view, or who have inspired me to live my life a little differently.

But why call them mentors? Why are they not simply role models, or teachers, or people with whom I've been lucky enough to cross paths?

The mentoring comes, I think, from the relationship. Like you, I've had many teachers in my life, some very good ones. But without a personal connection, their teachings become scattered in my mind… remote and unlived. But when a personal connection is made, one such as I had with Mrs. Whittlesy, I become more open to receiving all that she has to teach me, and I can truly absorb it and let it live in my bones. Similarly, I have attended lectures by transgender folks. I have read some of their stories and engaged in meaningful dialogue with several. They have been teachers in that I have come to an intellectual understanding that some of my past assumptions were wrong. But only through my relationship with Barb have I been transformed. Only through knowing Barb, not as a transgender person, but as a thoughtful, witty, warm, and wise person, have I been able to absorb the wisdom that he, unwittingly, had to share.

In his meditation entitled "Heaven in a Wildflower," David Rankin writes:

She stared out the window and smiled.

Miss Sweeney was almost gone. A wisp of white hair, two brown eyes, small thin lips, and a quivering body were all that remained.

She stared out the window and smiled.

After 48 years of teaching-and 87 years of life-and six years paralyzed from the neck down-Miss Sweeney seemed to be part of another world.

She stared out the window and smiled.

Miss Sweeney was tied to the bed. She could no longer speak an intelligible word, or move her head from side to side, or even chew her food.

She stared out the window and smiled.

After she died, I returned to her room to collect her belongings. From the bed I could see the expanse of sky and the single limb of a tree. A robin was nesting in Miss Sweeney's world.

I stared out the window and smiled.

At this point in my sermon writing, I begin to feel a little uneasy. I feel compelled to reflect upon what I've written and conclude that I cannot exempt myself from this assertion: as humans, we all have a special wisdom to share. It is not lost on me, after all, that most of my mentors would be surprised to hear me describe them as such. Isn't it at least possible that I, too, have been a mentor to someone without knowing it? Isn't it probable that you have, too?

In their book Mentoring: The Tao of Giving and Receiving Wisdom, Chungliang Al Huang and Jerry Lynch suggest that mentoring occurs at "that particular crossroads in life where what you have to offer meets the immediate and future needs of another. Therein lies the enormous exultation that is yours-that of giving your gift of wisdom and having it graciously appreciated and received by others who then carry the gift to all those within the sphere of influence."

It makes perfect sense. The gifts that I have received from my mentors are just that: gifts. I can in turn pass each of these gifts along to someone else at precisely the time that he or she is open to receiving them. The gifts pass through me. I am but one in a succession of people to receive the gift, or the wisdom, live with it and perhaps reshape it somewhat, and pass it along to the next person.

This year, we have offered a mentoring program for the youth in our church. It is called the Up and Coming UUs program. Each of the seven participating youth has been paired with an adult member of the church, with whom they work on projects and discuss theological, spiritual, and church issues. The mission of the mentors is to assist the youth in coming to a deeper understanding of what it means to be a Unitarian Universalist, and to be a member of the First Religious Society.

At the mentor orientation in the fall, some of the mentors expressed the feeling that this didn't really feel like genuine mentoring. I tend to agree. Given that it is necessary these days to have rather strict parameters around one-on-one meetings between youth and adult, and given that there is a virtual "to-do" list for them to check, it is difficult for spontaneous or even natural interactions to take place. It would appear doubtful that real relationships could be built-relationships that are necessary for true mentoring to happen.

It has been heartening to hear the mentors acknowledge this need for relationship. They know that it would not be useful to anyone for them to simply impart their knowledge and wisdom on their mentees. They seem to have an innate knowing that mentoring is a two-way relationship; that they need to be open to the possibility of being mentored even while mentoring.

I am encouraged that, despite the restrictions, they are building relationships. When I met with them recently, both mentors and mentees expressed an interest in doing more group activities-fun ways to get to know each other better and build community. I look forward to the upcoming months as being a time of growth and learning for them as a group and as individuals. They each have much to offer one another.

We each have much to offer one another. We each are called to mentor another who needs to receive our special wisdom.

In the earlier reading, Victoria Safford asks, " . . . if you had to name a few worthy things to which you attend well and faithfully, what, I wonder, would they be?" What, I would ask, is your wisdom? What is your truth? How are you living your life so that you can share this truth with others? For somewhere, someone is waiting to be a witness to this truth. Someone needs to know it.

In Honey from the Rock, the Rabbi Lawrence Kushner writes:

Some seem to be born with a nearly completed puzzle.
And so it goes.
Souls going this way and that
Trying to assemble the myriad parts.

But know this. Not one has within themselves
All the pieces to their puzzle.
Like before the days when they used to seal
jigsaw puzzles in cellophane. Insuring that
all the pieces were there.

Everyone carries with them at least one and probably
Many pieces to someone else's puzzle.
Sometimes they know it.
Sometimes they don't.

And when you present your piece . . .
To another, whether you know it or not,
Whether they know it or not,
You are a messenger from the Most High.

Amen.

Julie Parker Amery