On How to Help Someone

I've always noticed there are two two types of helpers. Those who do a task for you, or try to manage you, and those who simply allow you to do the task yourself.

Recently, I met a young man who was interested in learning from me the Gospel. I dialogued at the park the entire Bible, but then we began a lengthy text conversation. And I realized, "I am not this man's Rabbi." Who is Rabbi? We can essentially stifle someone by giving them advice. I remember a psychotic woman telling me that I would grow into a horrible human being, because God disapproved of my writing. And that psychological impact has stunted me... though I continue writing, as I feel in my bones it is what God called me to do.

There is nothing you do for someone, by trying to tell them what to do, or how to do it. Life is a learning experience. We are not Christ, wandering the hills, and preaching sermons. We are not a Catcher in the Rye. Even a pastor, or any teacher, has the capacity to try to manipulate their students to learn what they want to learn. We are not prophets, warning of dangers we do not know as our very curse could be the danger itself, instilling in a stable mind our own doubts and failures.

However, upon reading Ezekiel, I stopped, and opened up my book in Egyptian Mythology, and went to the exact page I needed to understand what Ezekiel meant. An act of providence. And I've noticed words do not cultivate reality, but rather what we say to someone sticks with them a lot longer than we think. An encounter we may never remember, may  be a core memory for someone else.

Therefore, I've noticed my didactic method, is simply to write my essays, my poetry, my fiction...  but in means of teaching someone, there's less that needs to be done, beside going over the hardest part of learning. Which is grammar, syntax, punctuation, vocab lessons, PEMDAS, how to do something safely. There is no benefit, doing a task for someone else. The best teacher is life itself.

There are safety tips; there are lessons on rudimentary fundamentals. That is what a teacher does, is give the student the capacity to read, write, do math and the general knowledge experience to broaden his or her horizons. The teacher teaches the student to observe. Rather than instructing, he makes an example by doing it the right way, so the student does the same.

I just told this fella to read the four Gospels and learn it by heart, and if he went further, I'd tell him to read Paul. For we must have Jesus as our Teacher. First and foremost. Jesus is our corrective lens, His life and ministry. We need the Spirit to comfort us, and give us patience. The Spirit for wisdom. That cannot be taught in a classroom. The student must be willing, first, and the teacher must understand their job is not to tell the student what to do. For we are not a teacher. Instructed on the fundamentals, the learner will seek out the knowledge themselves.

Thus, a teacher is more a guide, like Virgil, navigating hell with Dante, and then purgatory. And Beatrice is our ideal, which gets us into paradise. We experience with the teacher, and he tells us what it means. But that is all. Perhaps? And indeed, Jesus is our Virgil, and the Spirit is our guide. So the more, what does man instill in the learner? Only the tools they need to teach themselves. To inspire curiosity, and the thirst for learning. To be enthusiastic, and show them the things they need to see. To tell them what a thing is and be a vehicle for explaining what is obscure. Not to do the learning for the child. Not to do the task for the student.