Cicero vs. Reed Hendricks - What's a Boy to Do?

At the recent Priesthood session of General Conference, Boyd K. Packer began a speech to the Aaronic Priesthood by saying, "Young men talk of the future, because they have no past. Old men talk of the past, because they have no future." We all laughed, that self-conscious sort of laugh that comes out of us when we realize that we have been well summarized in clear, undeniable language.

Cicero, the great Senator of Ancient Rome, said, "To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child." I've always taken that one to heart. I even had it on the wall of my classroom when I was a teacher.

However...

Just yesterday, my counsellor, Reed Hendricks of BYU-I, finished our latest session together by informing me that I live in the past and need to live more in (or did he say "for") the future. Before I could ask "What future?" a knock came at the door, and we realized his 6 o'clock had come a bit early. So I still don't know the answer to that question.

I began to realize shortly after my mission that I didn't have a clue what I was good for. Job after job proved what I could not do, but nothing seemed to point to what I was designed by my Father in Heaven to do. Finally, after many part-time jobs, six years in Uncle Sam's Flying Circus, and a few years of seriously reading and studying and discussing History, I was put in a classroom in Boise. I've told the story before. It involved the Holy Ghost. At the end of his hour of observation, Zeph Foster told me, "You are a natural-born teacher." All the praise he heaped on me after that was just frosting. I had finally heard a definitive and authoritative statement about what I was and what I was meant to be and to do. The Holy Ghost was bearing such a powerful witness to me at the time, that I assumed that Prof. Foster could feel it, too, although I didn't ask him.

So I got a teaching job and I stayed in it for twenty years. I worked very hard. I loved what I was doing. It defined me. Now I knew what I was. "Who are you?" someone might ask. Boldly, I'd reply, "I'm the History teacher at Madison High." I was somebody. I knew that the job I was doing was important, even though I occasionally ran into businessmen who questioned this. I exulted daily in getting facts, ideas, and American memories planted in the hearts of young Americans. I knew that, with the spiritual gift I'd been given, and the help of the Holy Ghost for which I prayed daily, I was teaching successfully, not only for the moment, not only for the test, but for the lifetime of my kids. And sure enough! Even now they stop me (as one did in the Conoco station on West Main in Rexburg yesterday) and tell me how important my class was to them. Even his sweet little pregnant wife yesterday remembered who I was from all the talking he'd done over the past few years.

And then came 2003, and the suspension, because I'd climbed on a desk and shouted in the faces of some of the rude ones. A few months later, early in 2004, I was forced to resign. Even now, after five years, it doesn't seem completely real. I had a testimony of what I was supposed to be and suddenly I wasn't that thing any more.

So what I've been doing for the last few years is whacking weeds, poisoning weeds, digging trenches, mowing whole parks of grass, receiving Social Security Disability, and trying to figure out what my next life mission is. Or is there even another one waiting in the wings for me? Perhaps I really am as useless and pointless as I feel.

But the First Presidency's Proclamation on the Family is unequivocal. I have a duty to support my family, and I'm not cutting it. I've got to find something that I'm good at that I can get a job doing. My flash-in-the-pan anger has already gotten me on Wal-Mart's black list. I worked hard for them for a month and made next to nothing, so perhaps I should be grateful to be removed from even the temptation to go back there. Besides, everything else I've ever tried, before or after my two decades of teaching, seemed "penny-ante" compared to teaching. When you teach, you're really making a difference in the world. When you hang a couple of hundred disposable cameras on the end of an aisle, you know that literally anyone off the street could have done it and that you weren't using a God-given talent in the doing of the job. You feel that you aren't fulfilling what the Holy Ghost testified to you that you were meant to do and meant to be.

I think what I need is part-time work that pays maybe $500 or $600 per month and really makes use of the talents and, yes, callings, that God has given me. But I haven't found such a thing yet. Perhaps if anybody who reads this little column really likes me, he or she could take a minute each day to include me in a personal prayer. It would be great if that prayer were a plea for His help in putting me where I need to be, doing what I need to do. Thanks, folks. I really appreciate it.