Starting To Say Thank You

A few days ago I explored the idea that throughout our lives we have mentors and teachers. Some of these are real people. Some are fictional characters. Others are animals, our environment, or things we experience.

Last month Christine Kane wrote an article about gratitude in which she described two exercises in experiencing gratitude. One of these entailed keeping a gratitude journal. Every night you write down five things for which you are grateful. The second was a meditation on gratitude. As Christine put it:

1. Sit quietly, close your eyes and breathe.
2. Bring into your mind something for which you are profoundly grateful. (If I�m in a bad place and can�t think of anything, my cats or dog always do the trick.)
3. That feeling, that smile that arises in you. That�s the feeling of gratitude. Let it build up.
4. Observe that feeling as an entity unto itself. Or, take you out of the picture. Put on the invisibility cloak. And let the feeling of gratitude become all that�s left of you.
5. Try to hold that energy and keep practicing it.

The things for which I am most grateful in my life are my mentors and teachers, whether they know they’ve played this role or not, whether they exist in the physical world or not. Some of these include:

• First and most obvious, my Mom and Dad. They taught me my love of reading. They took the time to take me camping, hunting, and fishing, even when they didn’t have the time or the money to afford it. They taught me a love of the natural world, and they taught me to look within myself for answers without taking the voice of authority at face value. Thank you.
• Mr. Tresemer. He was my math teacher in seventh, eighth, and ninth. When I was young the thought occasionally crossed my mind that he was following me through school. He is still coaching basketball in the Northern Illinois area to the best of my knowledge. Thank you.
• Mr. Johnson. He was a math teacher I had in high school. He took me with him to a math/computer conference in Iowa when I was in the eleventh grade (For you younger people, this was before the age of the PC. I first started learning programming with punched cards on a mainframe). Mr. Johnson helped open my horizons. Thank you.
• Katie Dukes. Katie was in her late 60s or early 70s when I met her in Tampa, where I was stationed when I was in the Air Force in my late teens and early 20s. She allowed several of us from the base to visit her in our time off, read from her library, talk, and explore spirituality without religiousity. She helped me learn that the physical world isn’t the be all end all while helping heal some of the scars left from being raised in a fire-and-brimstone Baptist church. Thank you.
• Robert Heinlein. As most of you know, he was a science fiction author and sometimes political commentator. When my son talked about joining the Marines I gave him a copy of Starship Troopers to read. After he actually joined, he told me the book was on the recommended reading list for the Corps. I learned a lot about self-reliance, the importance of love, and not becoming too much of a specialist from his books. Thank you.

These aren’t my only mentors by any means, but its a start. In the weeks to come I’ll tell you about more of them.

Who has helped shape your life?

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