To the Mentor: Don’t Fix Me
While traveling, I visited a church. My friend is the priest. On this day, the boyscouts were being given a chance to help out in the day's ceremonies. At one point, one of the little guys – maybe a 4th grader– steps up to the microphone to read his part. It was going to be one of those “Call and Response”rituals, where he reads something like “We pray for all the children...,” then the gathered faithful reply with something like, “Lord, hear our prayer….” Everybody does their part. Nobody gets hurt.
But, that is not what happened.
This cub scout walked to the podium along with several other scouts who likewise had their well-practiced scripts in hand. As he turned to step up to the microphone, it hit him: "There are two thousand people staring back at me!"
He froze. Speechless. Mind seize-up. Paralysis. Face flushed with pink. (Perhaps you know, public speaking often ranks near the top of the list, before dread of death, of what people fear the most.)
One of the older scouts, rolled his eyes with an exasperated “I knew this was gonna happen look….here let me just do it!” Parents and friends sympathized with a knowing collective…”Awwww…,” (that might have been feeling anxiety with him, feeling sympathy for him or profound relief that they were not him).
The fear-stricken child, just stared out at the audience…probably for his mom or his dad’s eyes, for their help. Besides the two other amateur scouts to his left and right, no one was within 20-25 feet of the struggling child. The quaint humor of the cuteness factor was soon spilling into the kind of group anxiety, where someone was bound to do something to rescue the boy, to give him a pass, to do it for him.
Then, to the relief of nearly everyone, the priest sauntered across the long platform, in the space of time that seemed like a year. And then, what I thought would happened next -- he would read the boy’s lines for him -- did'nt. He simply stood beside the boy, placing the tip of his index finger on the first word. The boy looked up at the priest. Then, the down at first word. The priest – a very cool hipster-type professional public speaker -- seemed to signal to the boy that people do this all the time. The boy looked back down at the first word.
Then, his lips parted.
We heard, from a faltering, but angelic voice: “And we pray for all the children….” The congregation responded, “Lord, hear our prayer….”
And the boy read more, voice growing in volume and pupose. And the people responded more.
And when the boy and the people were done reading, subtly, the priest had already returned to his seat, 20 feet away.
The boy finished. Alone. Stepped down.
We all grew.
You see, we seldom need to be fixed, or rescued, or coddled or pitied. We often just long for an infusion of confidence that says…”I feel ya. This is a normal response you’re having. I am in it with you. You’re the right person for the job, even if it’s difficult right now. Stay in the hard place until the hard stuff is done.”
They say the way a bird learns to fly is by being made uncomfortable in it's cozy nest. The vigilant bird-parent watches over the growth of the young bird's abilities. It models the way by coming and going with flight. Then, it chooses the moment when it knows, by experience, the baby bird must be given its chance to struggle, to flail, to fly. On such a day, the parent nudges the baby bird to the edge of the nest, to the edge of fear, to the place where unseen (but present!) abilities take over...to the place of indepedent flight.
Its almost never looks pretty, but such an awkward beginning is the first step to a life of soaring.
I wonder if we who were gathered that morning were witnessing the making of a future dynamic public speaker right before our eyes. The words of my friends sermon were appreciated. But the mentoring moment he gave us all by not fixing the boy, will feed my soul (and hopefully that of the boy, his parents and the community who came to grow) for many days to come.
Mentors: Don't fix. Feel. Stay. Point to the first word. Then, leave.
Leave them to enjoy their stage.
Leave them to do their flying.
