This past week, my wife and I finished the Harry Potter series, a journey we started earlier this year as we traveled across the United States, and then back.
Dumbledore stands out—he always does—this time for his wisdom in becoming a professor. The most powerful wizard in the books, he decides not to be Minister of Magic, a position he is offered several times before the start of the books.
He is afraid of what power will do to him. This is half the reasoning. He turns from that power for the same reason he turns towards education. To do good. He turns from the power he could gain as Minister of Magic in order to empower others.
Dumbledore believes in the power of education. We all do. The fruits it bears. The change one can make in the world by employing it. Dumbledore casts aside his selfish desires and leans into selflessly training up new generations.
It is for this reason that education is both essential and noble. It is the turning away from oneself in favor of raising up others. Ergo, a teacher is concerned not only with the content of his subject, but in developing the character of his students.
What people know and believe not only points them in a certain direction, it steers them as they sail across a sea of troubles.
In our heart, there lies desire. All we hope to achieve, and all we know we will not. It’s all concealed, neatly tied up in the abstract image of the heart. It is my goal to be pure of heart, for my intentions to be golden.
I’ve never been offered anything remotely comparable to a Minister of Magic post, but writing is my selfish pursuit. At least in part. It is what gives me visions of acclaim and admiration. Of course, that’s not the reason to write, for those things may never come. In order to be the writer I want to be, I must shed that desire and continue to focus on the people for whom I write.
I hear a higher calling for writing, embedded in my desire to do good in the world. Perhaps because one of my earliest literary influences, C. S. Lewis, shaped me so much in my teenage and young adult years, building me up with the ideas necessary to begin navigating the complexities of the world. Through him, clarity emerged. By reading his work, I understood the far reaching power of writing, the practical principles conveyed through prose, and the utter joy of a good story.
In short, C. S. Lewis is a model for what I wish to become.
A writer with a teacher’s heart is one who cares deeply about his work, yet there is a higher cause than entertaining readers. It is to influence them. A story must function as a story, but a good story is more. It has the power to transform a reader.
Stories teach us. The writer is our teacher. A writer with a teacher’s heart has the unique privilege of providing stories human’s crave and pairing them with the knowledge and perspective that helps them grow more intelligent, wise, and empathetic.
Before I started to find myself as a writer, I inherited a foundational ideal from my parents and from Christianity: people are important and I should be there for them. As a man limited by time and space and my own selfishness, I cannot fulfill this purpose. Writing, however, creates a unique opportunity to more fully fulfill it.
Writing is the ultimate form of delayed gratification, for much of the gratification is not experienced by the writer, but the reader. Today, tomorrow, and ever afterwards.
I’m currently working as a teacher at a high school. Despite its challenges, it is meaningful work, so I forge ahead, and I labor to imbue my writing with the same characteristics that define me as a teacher.
Onward and upward,
Lee
