As a young teen, I recall having seen a wood engraving that displayed these words against an image of a barefoot man…
“I thought I had no shoes
Until I met a man
Who had no feet”
I learned something from that wood carving.
Today, decades later, those same words raced across my mind. I was asked to mind my Computer Shop while my wife had to be away for an errand. As she left the shop, she told me to help one of her students.
And as she walked out, she turned round and told me that this student although he is 26 years old, he had the mental response of a boy of 12 years of age. “Just be patient with him”, she said as she walked away, “and show him how to use the Internet Browser”.
Hmmm, so I walked over to the guy, sat beside him and watched him. He had a peaceful composure, smiled most of the time as he tried to make progress at his Browser. I helped him whenever he seemed lost and even when he was in that lost state, he was smiling gently.
Soft spoken and somewhat unsure about what he was doing, he had this small notebook that he kept referring to read his handwritten notes from previous lessons. I kept watching him. He did not seem perturbed or impatient by his inability to repeat how it is done correctly.
His father appeared later at the shop. I thought he was a drop-in customer and realized that he was not a customer when he sat nearby his son. The father facial features bore testimony to the years of burden caring for his son. He never smiled and had an expressionless look on his face.
I started to analyze the mystery of suffering and I learned something valuable from this student. He was innocently oblivious to what would naturally drive a normal thinking person to the ground.
This student, I think, would walk through a hail of gunfire without a care and come out at the other end, alive – even with a smile on his face. His father obviously might not and probably die from fright without ever being hit by a bullet.
It is several hours since that incident today and I am still reminiscing about it. Something really precious that this student taught me.
