Inspired by - the Professor

I started a series of thoughts about a year ago in which I mentally isolated certain individuals in my life that had left a profound impact. These were people that contributed to the defining moments that shaped me as an individual and they are also the people that I credit largely for getting me to the position in life in which I find myself today. In continuation of this thought process, I thought that I would turn attention towards a person who taught me more about life, happiness and spiritually than anyone I know…

The Professor:

I’ve known the Professor my entire life…I knew him back before he was officially the professor but even then he was always teaching me something.  One of my earliest memories of him was when I was sitting in the child’s seat of a supermarket basket, my stubby toddler fingers resting on his knobby knuckles that gripped the handle of the cart. That day I asked him a question that every child wants to know and one that every child needs to hear the answer.

Do you love me?

The response was prompt and reassuring.

Yep, love you to pieces.

Following this reply I broke out in giggles, with the image rolling through my brain of my little body being scattered in little pieces.  The Professor didn’t make it a joke (he was rather solemn back then you see), just smiled and continued to assure me that he spoke the truth about his love for me.  That was the day that I learned something about love.

Years went by and the Professor continued to teach me. He was the one that encouraged me to dream big dreams. I didn’t understand what he meant at the time but that conversation was carefully tucked away for a later time to appear. That was the day I learned something about setting high standards and foreseeing a purpose for my life. The Professor is also the one that confronted me with how stubborn I was and he insisted that if I could only make myself teachable and center my stubborn streak in the center of God’s will, then no power on earth will be able to move you. That was a day that I learned about inner strength that comes only from God.

He managed to use frankness and humor just when I needed to hear it the most; I credit the Professor for being the one to stress that laughter and joy was such an important part of living. He retains so much knowledge about life and about the Creator of life and he was always finding ways to correlate life lessons with a heavenly meaning.

As a child I feared and loved him at the same time. As an adolescent I know I frustrated and infuriated him. As an adult I continue to respect and honor him. It wasn’t until I was a young adult, and going through a difficult crisis of spirituality and identity, that I realized things the Professor was teaching me had a purpose…his teachings that were sinking in were having an impact in my life. In that crazy and stressful moment in time…

…I was inspired.  

Inspired by all the late night discussions, all the heated debates, and by all the quiet moments when we just sat and existed in the same place.

I know now that I don’t always have to agree with everything the Professor teaches me, the student after all makes sense of what they learn in their own way.  No matter what my opinion is of what he teaches, I have always managed to glean pieces of the Professor’s wisdom and apply it to my own life. 

Fortunately I still have contact very often with this source of inspiration. He drops in from time to time to entice me to either go fly fishing with him or to run wind sprints down a country road, or to just sit on the steps and chat. He’s not just the Professor, teacher, Biblical scholar and author that everyone else and myself knows him by…

…he also just so happens to be my father.

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The Professor with part of his entourage several years ago.