the gift of his teaching, and of his person

 Robert Bittle

I knew an extraordinary person and teacher,

one who was born for the classroom,

who saw every student as an individual and of enormous worth,

he was gifted with both seeing them

and finding accessible paths they might wish to follow,

he helped countless students believe in themselves

and helped many of his colleagues rescue themselves

to help those students move forward,

his love for wife, kids, and grandkids,

completed him,

Robert had many gifts:

a wicked sense of humor,

who else would be born on April 1?

his clever mind could take the most mundane

and twist it to reveal the hilarity within,

though he could also be outrageous enough

to get a book thrown at him by the clerk of a meeting,

nothing ever got by Robert:

when we were as fools,

he didn't suffer that foolishness gladly,

when challenged by the gifts and needs of our nine year old son,

he improvised and found how to both support 

and to challenge Aaron in math,

Robert and I both taught American history in middle school,

and I was both excited and challenged

by his innovative ideas to create games

that were like the proverbial "spoonful of sugar"

to help get the student involved 

with people, place, events, themselves,

to explore the consequences of decisions

so that the past and present speak clearly to us

of how we might find the future we want,

social studies the discipline he most believed in,

just as how he was with challenging students,

so did we who worked with him

need to work to get to know him, to appreciate him,

Robert and authority never were friends, 

his sense of rightness bristled at authority,

Robert challenged Carolina Friends School as a student,

and I am glad we were enough like Robert to see the gem below his crust,

music has long been how the universe and he soared together,

for the guitar and music friends allowed him to transcend

into word and melody brilliance,

letting his creative soul blossom and shout,

as health challenges worked to hold him back

from much of who he is,

the guitar too much for him,

and then the dobro, too,

he left the school and thus much of who he is,

I wish we as a school had been able to let him know

that as an educator Robert is of the best

that any school can hope for:

Robert saw the students, loved the students,

and made the world a better place

because of who he was and what he did,

 the cruelty of the disease that beset him

should not distract us

from who he has been at his best,

his grandchildren know they are of the center,

from his love of them

just as he is of the center,

from our love for him.

by Henry H. Walker

February 17, ‘26

the future judge of the past

 

a burden from the past

it is 2026,

my father died in 1962,

my father was born in 1905,

his uncles fought in the War Between the States,

only called the Civil War because the North won,

my father was named for an uncle killed in the conflict,

for Daddy, this conflict was not dry facts,

but rather it was personal, recent, an assault on his family,

I hate to leap into that world

and imagine how I would deal with slavery,

maybe not with enslaving others,

but accepting that such a reality

was part of the natural order,

I wonder if people in the future will judge us

for persisting with the use of fossil fuels

and the climate change they inexorably cause,

our species always tends to crave more, never less,

and thus we create a reality

that can deny us even the comfort of needing to be a bit hungry,

we satiate ourselves,

and, in the night, wonder at our unease.

by Henry H. Walker

May 8, ‘26

seeing all students truly

 dispensable

I long ago wrote that a goal of a teacher

should be to make yourself dispensable:

like a crutch that can be discarded,

like a meal that is only a means, not an end,

like a hand up and then you're on your way,

many of my former students I saw clearly to their heart,

I could see behind their eyes who they were

when they let themselves out,

that part of them struggling to break free into the Light,

other students I loved just as deeply,

but I could not see them as clearly,

and I did not know them as truly,

it is tragic when any student

can not see themselves truly,

to me, it is amazing

when such a student perseveres

into finding their way forward,

the credit for such progress is all to them,

a seed can find itself on challenging ground

and it still reaches toward the sky,

such a transcendence deserves to be seen and celebrated

for the power of its rising comes because it is true to itself,

and to the possibilities only it can be sure to know,

true to the choices it makes every day

to live the best life that can open itself unto the world.

by Henry H. Walker

May 6, ‘26

a stumble, or a soar

 

commonality in difference

when I look at somebody's eyes,

I can often see past the surface

and see the unique microcosm

that is that of God within them,

a self that is ready to fly,

but is also ready to retreat from the leap,

I particularly feel for any beset with doubt

who feel a clumsiness within

that can lead to a stumble instead of the soar,

we work hard these days to open ourselves

to finding any commonality within our diversity,

whether it be from gender, or opinion

or the balance of our humours,

I am gifted, and cursed, with empathy,

with powerful emotions that throw me

into whatever fray exists around me,

I sorrow when I see the extraordinary in another

when it seems that others just see the contrary,

each of us has that of God within us,

and I want to glory in how well it can manifest,

no matter how convoluted, or obscure,

that path to flying can be,

I feel the potential tragedy inherent in difference,

until we can learn to celebrate how much the other is also us,

and then we can grow larger, and closer to God,

when we expand and know the other 

as maybe even better at being itself than we are.

by Henry H. Walker

May 9, ‘26

smelling the roses

 Retirement's Box

retirement opens up a box,

and any of us who get that far have to deal with what's in it,

the reality of transition, and our response to such reordering,

we consider how we organized our lives,

often with self-worth coming from our work,

the justification for us existing

because we worked to be of substance,

taking our hours, our moments,

and using them to act upon the world,

the acting, the work, gave us value,

it is good to be an instrument of God's peace,

to be able to use one's life in ways

that help the universe function better,

that drive to be of value, though,

can easily morph into denying ourselves rest,

value in the "being," not just in the "doing,"

our hearts can regularly ache with the tragedies

that somehow manifest and are beyond our control,

I am struck hard by the unknown, 

the question many ask of me and retirement:

"How are you doing? How is retirement?"

opening that box can be scary,

this transition from "doing" to "being"

can easily morph into still doing, still working,

though the driver can be golf, volunteer work,

into substituting another kind of work so that 

we still have the sense that we are of value,

it is a knife-edge on which we must walk,

to continue to give to the world,

but then also to give relaxation and renewal to ourselves,

it can be hard to let the driver within us relax

and appreciate the moments for themselves.

by Henry H. Walker

March 5, ‘26