What It Means - Day 299

Just Looking for Trouble

I once had a student

Who would sit alone in his house at night

Shivering with worries

And fears,

And, come morning,

He would often look as thought

He had been raped

By a ghost.

Then one day my pity

Crafted for him a knife

From my own divine sword.

Since then,

I have become very proud

Of this student.

For now, come night,

Not only has he lost all his fear,

Now he goes out

Just looking for

Trouble.

Hafiz

I've often proposed that the most valuable gift I can gift a student is courage.  I may teach them many facts, but unless I can inculcate in them a sense of intellectual courage there isn't too much they can do with those facts. Wouldn't this be even more true when it comes to learning about faith?  Trying to understand the divine is much more complicated and much more frightening than trying to master organic chemistry (speaking as a guy who ended up with a big fat D in organic chemistry in college, and, believe me, it was a gift in and of itself).