This is a good week to discuss the life-renewing energies, earlier discussed in this e-zine, that are released from the dance of mutually giving-to and receiving-from each other— in families and also in mentoring relationships.
The headlines of my hometown sports page today report that “Glavine’s door is open.” The reference is to Atlanta’s veteran pitcher Tom Glavine now back with the Atlanta Braves after five seasons with the New York Mets.
The article mentions that very few young professional pitchers have 300 game winners to whom they can turn for advice. It reports that Tom Glavine is letting Atlanta’s younger pitchers know he’s available to guide them in their pitching careers. Glavine is quoted as saying, “I would not consider myself to be an extremely outgoing person, but I try to portray a personality that I’m approachable and you can come up at any time….I’ve told most of them I’m not going to come to you…, but if you ever want to ask a question or you ever want me to watch a side session, just tell me a time and I’ll be there.”
We’re told that Braves pitcher Jo-Jo Reyes is one who has asked. There it is! if it is not literally a “match-made-in-heaven,” it is, at least, a match “made in the bull-pen.” It happened because someone offered; someone asked and an organization (The Braves) provided the system to make the match.
In my own adult career, which includes directing a college career counseling center, I have been convinced by research reports and by observation, that the mentor-student relationship can be vitally and equally crucial to both—even though each person is in a very different career stage.
I know that teachers and other professionals who have had their lives’ gear-shift levers set on “coast” and complacency—who assumed they were on the down-hill part of their careers-- have been revitalized by becoming mentors. Getting-up-in-the- morning and going to work became exciting again! Once again they were “on-purpose” and challenged!
Also, I have observed (not always; but often) students whose lives were stuck in idle or reverse, who came unstuck because they or their parents or grandparents asked for help from the school system or from an after-school program or community club. Thank God for relief systems and bull-pen people and the invitation to “ask and receive.”
The title of this e-zine article, of course, alludes to the Great 1984 movie about mentoring The Karate Kid. The teen-ager Daniel and the handy-man, Mr. Myagi are “providentially matched” and explore the ground rules for a disciplined relationship--which moves through the inevitable disillusionments and trials that all relationships experience. Get the video. Review the process! Discover the result! Providence is poised to provide such matches!
In 1990, when our daughter Cara, then fifteen years old, won the national “Written and Illustrated By” Contest with her book originally titled “Stone Prayer” her adventure was just beginning. To see it through to final publication, she and we necessarily entered a contractual arrangement with the publisher, artist/author and mentor, the late Mr. David Melton. The relationship was that of editor-to-author; senior-to-junior. It was two different personalities and perspectives relationally and providentially joined. The result was the inspiring book The Stone Promise. (Information on both the contest and the book can be found at www.nationalcreativesociety.org.)
The book itself tells the story of a vagabond orphan boy in medieval France who finds care-takers and mentors who help him to see beauty and bring beauty as a growing artist. The orphan made a promise, in return. It was, particularly, that he would eventually return to his village of Colliure to help others there see and bring beauty, too.
The National Creative Society’s mission is to offer an effective and adaptable model that provides one context in which to honor and bring together young artists, with each other and with older mentors, for the purpose of seeing and bringing beauty to their communities. It was therefore a great privilege, while representing NCS at the Savannah Youth-At-Risk-Conference, to meet the current United States “Teacher of the Year” Mrs. Andrea Peterson.
After hearing Andrea sing beautifully and observing her way of offering her own gifts to evoke creative beauty and artistry from her primary school students, I quickly went back to our NCS’ exhibit table to get a gift copy of The Stone Promise to present to her. For she told her audience that, after this year of national speaking as “Teacher of the Year” her heart is set to return home to her little Oregon town to make an offer that she hopes others will accept: the nurturing of young lives and bringing beauty!
Creatively and Carefully,
Charles E. Reichel
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