! ! The Teacher

I wish I’d known him better. But our respect for him was such that you only spoke to him when you needed to. In a way, that was to know him truly. You wouldn’t notice him, passing him in a crowd; and yet, two paces on, and you’d feel you had just passed someone who walked in their own space and left space itself quite unaffected. To meet him, in the corridor, say, early in the morning, was - what? - awesome, refreshing, vitalising: there was a sense that overnight, he’d dived into some deep ocean of sheer bliss; and emerged like a morning seashore, washed with freshness, full of deep thought, and his eyes full of an understanding kindness which stayed with you all the day. What was extraordinary – of the many things about this gloriously ordinary man - was that although no-one ever saw him looking at his watch, he was always in the right place, and at just the right time, yet never in a hurry – almost as if he had some satellite navigation system built in. And he always looked so genuinely pleased to be just where he was. I don't think his facial muscles knew how to pretend.. And so this spread to all of us around him – and of course, he never put this into words; yet love surrounded him; and we just loved to work with him. Though there were some, new to him, who could barely handle such goodness when they met it – wanted to challenge it, find some reason to pick holes in such perfection, although it was unboasted. But these, he seemed to know instinctively, and why they were just as they were; one day, he and they would be involved in some unusual and difficult situation – even on occasion, dangerous - and they’d be friends with him for life. It was said by those who had known him well in earlier years that extraordinary and miraculous things happened to him – visions, angels, future things revealed, revelations of some law beyond all laws; we never talked of this; the story was that when one older friend had questioned him of this, he’d said, he always knew it would in time be what he needed to pass on to others. And there the matter rested. I’d say, for me, for life he redefined the nature of true love. for S.S.