Okay, this one will be kind of (very?) weird. Here goes . . .Every once in a while you’ll see a movie or television show in which some type of being is pictured as unable to die and so resigned to seeing everyone around him or her grow old. Usually, this person is some type of repentant vampire (e.g. Blade, Highlander) or perhaps, as in a recent television series (New Amsterdam), some sort of immortal who is simply incapable of remaining dead.
Then, so the story goes, the immortal is forced to live a life in which he/she remains the same while those he/she loves continue to grow old and eventually experience death. When seen from this perspective vampires, at least the noble ones, really do experience a lonely existence. Imagine how difficult it would be to see other people constantly leaving your presence, consistently “passing through” your life while you, the immortal one, remain basically the same.
Of course, on one hand, it is easy to desire such a predicament. After all, isn’t eternal life something that we all, especially Christians, long for? Isn’t this what Jesus came to offer us? Well, yes, there is a sense in which eternal life is what life is all about. This eternal life, I would argue, is both a quality of life, that is, a life that is full and free and energized by higher things, and also a quantity of life, a life that endures. But what makes the Christian version of eternal life such an attraction is the very fact that it is indeed laced with joy and power, a joy and power that are destined to last forever. The vampire’s eternal life, on the other hand, is something less than that envisioned by believers, for it is a life limited to a few (i.e., the vampires) and withheld from others (i.e., non-vampires). When a “good” vampire or immortal is in view, this vampire is forced to endure an endless existence in which loved ones appear only for a time. It is in this sense that the life of a teacher parallels that of a (good) vampire. How so? Let me attempt to explain.
As a teacher, I constantly experience the influx of new students. They come to me, in my case, when they are freshmen and leave when they complete their senior years. This process continues over and over again, year after year after year.
Now, if you can allow me to stretch the truth just slightly, teachers are like vampires in that, at least for a time, they remain basically the same every year. Obviously, we are all susceptible to age and the ravages of time. But, with God’s enablement, we are able, at some level, to remain unchanged. For instance I am an avid runner, but this is something that I’ve been doing for many years. Thus, generally speaking, I act and think and (somewhat?) look the same today as I did 5 or 10 years ago. I’m pretty much (for now) the same, but the kids I encounter keep getting older and moving on to the next phase of their lives. So, I remain “unchanged” (same position, same attitude, same way of life, same habits, etc.), while the kids I encounter go from young adolescents to young adults to just plain adults. From a certain perspective, then, they are getting older as they mature, but I am staying the “same.” In this way teachers resemble vampires.
It’s not that good teachers suck the life out of people (though, unfortunately, some bad ones do). It’s not that good teachers prey upon the innocent (though, again, some terrible ones do just that). It’s not that teachers have inordinately pointed teeth or only teach night school, though some undoubtedly do. No, we are the same in that we have to endure the passage of time and, more important, the passage of terrific young people. I, for one, want my kids to stay around. I want them to remain with me, in my classroom, within the sphere of my influence. I want to connect with them always, never losing touch. Sadly, this is not the way it is, at least not for now. For now, we have to allow them to age, to grow away from us, while we–in some ways–stay where we are, unchanged by the passage of time . . . except, perhaps, by the sadness of it all.
I write these things because I am a teacher, and because I truly care about certain young people who come my way. I write these things because each year I am forced to endure vivid illustrations of the aging process (i.e., graduation) while I remain here, ready to do it again and again and again. From this vantage point, I can truly empathize with the repentant vampire. When will constancy arrive? Will those I cherish ever remain? Is it possible that the one’s I so much respect and care for will one day come back to stay?
Actually, in a certain sense, I think there is indeed hope. But this hope is not located in the vampire’s version of frustrating eternal life but in the Christian’s version of fulfilling eternal life. You see, the reason I endure the heartache of the temporary is because I know that the temporary will one day be swallowed by the true eternal. While I have no certain idea how this will work out in eternity, I am confident that the price we pay today will be worth it, for the genuine relationships we only experience for a time now will one day be absorbed by a completeness that vanquishes any sense of the temporary. The short lived, in other words, is only short lived, and the currently impermanent will become changeless. So, we teachers live like “vampires” for a time, but–thankfully–even vampires have hope and a future.
P.S. I told you that this would be a strange one! ☺
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