For the Love of a Mentor

"Thank you dear mentor 
for showing me the right path 
and illumining my mind.  
I will be grateful to you 
throughout my life." 

I saw this card and just loved it.  My mind flipped back over the long list of those who stepped up, reached out, and helped me reach a place which I could never attain by myself.  The real gift for me was not so much taking me by the hand and saying, “This is how you do it.”  It was something I caught sight of in them.  And, I was so embraced by it that I could not let go—or rather, it would not let go of me!”  

There is a saying which goes like this—“When the student is ready, the teacher arrives.”  Mentors are a lot like that.  The student chooses them. It is not the other way around! 

So I was just wondering from yesterday’s post—how about it, ever been a mentor, been chosen by somebody to help them along life’s path?  There are a lot of students out there looking—and are you the one who could show up to mentor them?  

Finding Forrester
Who Mentored Who?

Ever watch Finding Forrester?  Then go get it!  Talk about the story of mentors, and how an inner city kid finds him--and then on wings given by him, he places into a private school.  I won't ruin the plot--but the Finding Forrester part has as much to do with the student finding his mentor as it does the mentor being draw out of isolation and his own inner world.  
 
That's the wonderful mystery for mentors.  Precisely when people step out for their students, school begins for them as well.  Teach what you know, and know it again for the first time in all its splendor and truth.  We help students to find themselves, and in so doing, we too are found!  Now, go get the dvd and delight in it.  Better yet, watch out for your student who is out there on the horizon for you.