A conversation

I have been an assistant catechist in my local parish for almost half a year. It has been a fruitful journey in teaching those children the word of God and the teaching of the Catholic church. There are a whole bunch of homework to be done before I can actually go out there and teach my students. You have to get the facts correct, you have to gather information and most of all you have to share with them what faith is.

I consider myself a young teacher and my students young as well. They are a group of fourteen lovely Form 2 students, boys and girls ready to grow into fine young men and ladies one day. Our age gap of ten years give me the opportunity to mix with them well. They don’t call me “uncle” or “teacher” but just simply my name. This shows that the connection between us is not that of a teacher-student relationship but as a friend.

After our usual Friday choir practice I saw Justin, my student, sitting at a corner. I approached him with a pat and sat down next to him. We started with some casual chat man-to-man or boy-to-boy. I was struck by a question asked by him.

He asked “Daniel, what is the most important thing in life?”

I said, “Human life.”

He then responded, “Nope. The most important thing in life is LOVE.”

I was dumb struck, I did not expect such word coming out from a teenager’s mouth. At that particular moment, somehow Mahatma Gandhi’s phrase “Where there is love there is life” hit me. Mother Teresa’s word came next, “The absence of love is the greatest poverty”.

Only then I realized that I am poor not because I do not receive love but I do not love others as I should. I paused for a moment to recollect my thoughts.

I gave my opinion, “Well, you are right. It is true that love is important but still what is love without life? Life is sacred. You and I are created in the image of God. We can choose to live a life full of love or we can live a life whereby love is absent. We are all called to love one another. Yes, I have to agree with you that love is still the most important.”

“To me, love is still the most important of all”, he responded.

“Do you know what is the opposite of love?”, I threw him this question.

“Hatred”, is what he said.

“Nope. It is not hatred. Do you know Mother Teresa?”, I asked.

“Mother Teresa once said the absence of love is not hatred but not caring for each other. It is much easier to be indifferent towards someone than to actually hate a person.” I continued.

I wanted to test him so I asked, “There is a saying that it is easier to say than to do, in this case love. What do you think?”

He answered back, “I do not think so. Action speaks louder than word.”

“So, we shall always love our God and neighbour”, we reaffirmed.

I gave him another pat. Justin, you made my day. That was a wonderful conversation. Somehow talking with young people is very different than talking to adults. They just tell you what they think, unlike adults who are most of the times being suspicious as to not to hurt your feelings or they just do not want to tell you what they think.

All these while I thought he was the playful-and-not-so-serious type because he always like to tell cold jokes, fooling about with others, and even attempted to pluck my leg hair. Whenever he tries to do that, I will just have to smack his naughty hand.

It seems that I will be enjoying more excitement in my class. I just love students who are willing to share with us their thoughts.

I am beginning to think that perhaps education is more challenging than engineering. No doubt in engineering we are constructing mega structures and long bridges but in education we are actually developing builders of tomorrow. Still thinking…

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