ME AND BROTHER NORMAN

                                                       (From my biography)

Brother Norman was my teacher at Clinton Christian Day School the first three years of that school's existence and my last three years of school. It was his first teaching job. I remember how he stood before us on that first day and told us with a little nervousness, that he was a new teacher. He was friendly, down to earth, and a serious Christian which showed every day. Friendly yes, but not a buddy. He was the teacher, and his friendly dignity never broke down.

He told us only a little of his family, being one of 15 children in Montana, far out West. He was married to a local young woman. But I new little more. I knew that he became a deacon at some time. He was a Mennonite and I was Amish, so we met little outside of school functions.

I remember how he could prod students to study. He was consistent in a memory program of Scripture. Every Monday he would assign a group of verses. These we practiced during the week and by Friday we wrote them. There would be anything from 5 to 14 verses. We memorize the book of I John and the 4 chapters of Romans- 5-8. The longest stretch for a week was John 1:1-14. Then there were many other individual verses. Did we memorize the Sermon on the Mount? I don’t know, but it has always been very familiar. It did not seem laborious for me.

But there was one thing I could never memorize. When he asked us to memorize the circulation of the blood in the human body, I was staggered, and said I could never learn that. Everybody else I suppose, learned to say it, but I was the last and then needed some help to get through. What the difference was with that and Scriptures, I don’t know, except what I put my heart to, I could do, but not what I didn’t feel able, was impossible.

Brother Norman had a way of saying something that would always stick with me. Some were sayings like, “Wait (weight) is what broke the wagon down”, (possibly as an antidote to causing delay) which I repeated to my children for years before they fully comprehended it. He always said that there are always two alternatives to every problem, something I recalled many times when my family thought there was not even one way out of a dilemma. He even claimed that he can prove that a hill was a lazy dog: “a slow [p] up.”

He had other ways to make a point. One time when I had trouble getting to class after recess, he had me and another student with the same problem write an essay on “Choice, Not Chance, Determines Human Destiny” I don’t know whether the other student took that seriously, but I did and wrote up a page of my thesis. He had a reason for making me do it.

One time, perhaps soon after the above essay, as I wrote before, I’m not sure, he summoned me into the office and asked me point blank, “Are you a Christian?” I was probably about 15 at the time. It didn’t help him to say that I hope so, or wanted to be. He

wanted to know if I WAS then; or to make me think on that issue. I don’t remember how that conversation turned out but I never forgot the question. He had that kind of concern and when I responded then at Brunk Brother Revival invitation, about that time, I knew the salvation Scriptures a little better than the person ascribed to help me reach a conclusion. Brother Norman was really concerned about important matters.

So he was also concerned about self-control. When I discovered a girl sitting near me in the class room who was willing to listen to me anytime I said something, he noticed that. He had us stay in one recess and allowed us to talk all we wanted, which wasn’t nearly as much fun as in school time. I suppose his watchful eye spoiled everything!

Brother Norman really fostered a love of music in many of us. He led in chorus practice and in many school programs. He noticed my harmony singing and once asked several of us to sing a song for the group to help them hear what it should sound like. We sang many kinds of music, of course all religious. He made hymn singing enjoyable for all.

After I quit school after the ninth grade, I still asked to accompany the class on a trip to Kentucky and he allowed me to go. I enjoyed that for many reasons including that by then I already admired Loretta and it didn’t exactly please Brother Norman that I wanted to be around her, like for traveling or when ever it came up. I don’t remember any details of his displeasure, only that he wasn’t very comfortable. After all, I was no longer in school and I made it awkward for him to do much about me.

I always admired Brother Norman for his persistent tutorage and concern for me both in my education and Spiritual development. His character was so consistently Christian and his dedication to teaching so clear. It was then a bit of a disappointment that when I left school, I also lost familiar contact with him. When we would see each other at school functions, I admired him more than he considered me a special person. He was special to me. Perhaps I was a problem to him some times, or he couldn’t be close to all his students. But to me he was a noble mentor, one of the most significant teachers I had in my first nine years. I will always remember Brother Norman as one who went before me when I needed a model for my life.

                                                             TOO MUCH HELP?*

It seems that from a long time, people have been very helpful in giving me information and guidance in abundance. From the time my mother gave me endless instructions on right behavior, and tried her best to cull out misbehavior, down to my retirement years when my wife is constantly pointing out my misspeaking and misjudgments, I have had an array of endless assistance in going down the path of prudence and wisdom, let alone practical directions. Recently I have been mulling over this phenomenon of my life and tried to understand just what might be behind all this.

It may just be that I have been surrounded by people who really care about me, far beyond what many people experience. My mother tried to show her love by trying to make me an obedient and decent boy. She tried so hard, my sisters once agreed privately to each other that I was the one who received more spankings than any of the other children, topping out all 9 siblings. Why she singled me out for this concern is beyond me. It was the same in school, not with spanking, but with teachers who were desperate to keep me from expressing my thoughts and feelings privately during the class hour. Once a teacher kept me and an attractive girl in at recess time and said we can talk all we wanted to. It was not nearly as fun as it should have been, for some reason. It seems they always had me in their watchful eye. As a married person I worked in a factory where I was also surrounded by people who gave me a lot of attention. They observed my work, and urged me to “work a little faster if you can stand it”. They tried to help me be a super worker, a drive that has never fully left me. And as we as a family would be on the road, sometimes my wife would watch the road more carefully than I, telling me when I was catching up with the car in front of us; or when pausing at a stop sign, telling me there was a car coming down the road just as I was starting up after surveying both directions. Who knows the accidents she spared us from by her constant co-watching traffic and the road for us, noticing even if I drove too close to the center of the road, or the edge. One just can’t have too much caring help in such dangerous ventures as driving on roads fraught with all kinds of potential pitfalls. Yes, I have always been surrounded with a multitude of caring people to assure that I would survive securely to a ripe old age in the best of shape.

Another reason for receiving such an abundance of help in my life may simply be that I take life so casually. Few things were hard for me, whether studying, building a house, graduating from college, supervising supper for a dozen kids, or minding my own business. Driving a car was a more common thing to me than riding a bicycle as an adult, and much easier. It was just automatic, sitting there, talking, and hands lightly on the wheel. Once I discovered on a family trip in the Wild West, that our station wagon could hold the road for over a mile, with my hands actually only inches above from the steering wheel. My fingers were right there, but not close enough for some family members. My son told me recently that I was careless, not minding to things carefully. Probably often I could not have cared less about focusing on something that I had done a thousand times, and knew exactly how carefully I had to be to make things come out in a way satisfactory to me. Ah, there’s the rub; while others spent 110% of the time necessary to do something perfectly, I do a 98% job in half the time. Like sweeping the living room rug, which with a bunch of kids around will look the same in an hour, whether I do things my way, or others spend twice as much time on the job. Life is too short to do a perfect job on only half the things that should be done. Better do all that needs doing at 98% perfection than half at super perfection. Or I recall how my teens felt I was not very excited when they were facing crises with no way out as they saw it. I just remembered a teacher who taught us that there were always two choices in everything. Just sit down and think, and choose the best solution. That I why I never faced a crises as a dead end; there are always two ways out, even out of this life. So, many people not knowing that life can be taken casually, and we can accomplish far more by concentrating and considering the essential next moves; or the cost-effective way of work, or job, more than getting all steamed up about minute details, they think I just take things too casually and want to help me in ways not really necessary.

There may be a third reason people have been so helpful. Besides seeming so casual, I also appear very vulnerable and defenseless. I don’t project myself ostensibly or pretentiously; I am just me- confident, quiet, and a very safe person to help. I appear somewhat easy to heap help on, needed or not. Most people want to help the helpless and vulnerable. It makes them feel good to help the weak, and besides, there is that satisfaction of being benevolent. It also makes people feel one up on the person helped. So appearing vulnerable to help, it is safe, gratifying, and gaining self esteem to do something good for those like myself who appear weak, helpless, and vulnerable.

These are some of the reasons people may have offered me so much help in my life. Some just care so much; some mistake my confidence and casual approach to life as careless, and some find it is safe and gratifying to help me as I will not be able to defend myself against their help- which, taken all together, is just a little too much help.

*Hint: Take this essay with a half grain of salt.