I facilitate Courage to Teach retreats for teachers.

Around twenty of us gather at a camp five times over a

year and a half time span for seasonal themed gatherings.

We read together, eat together, talk… and especially, we

listen.

Listening isn’t something that happens often these

days, deep listening to others, or to one’s self. In Courage

to Teach talk, we call that the “inner teacher.” Part of

what happens in these gatherings is that people who

never listen to their own inner teacher 1) find out they

have one, 2) start listening, and 3) BEGIN the process of

recognizing and appreciating the cadences and tones and

patterns of that voice.

So, after one of the first circles of our first gathering

of South Dakota’s Courage to Teach Cadre 5, just after my

colleague Maggie had sent us off to listen to our inner

teacher, I found myself alone with my guitar listening to

that voice recall the gifts I received when I was very

young, gifts that have not only carried me through, but

have actually shaped the unique qualities that have

turned out to be me.

Most of these early images and memories came due

to the formative decisions made by my mother and

father… no, that’s not exactly right… they came via Mom

and Dad’s presence. Not just that they were around, but

that they were actively around, imbuing my moments

and the places those moments inhabited with a kind of

light that can only be described as love… unconditional

and absolute.

As I listened to my own inner teacher, music and

lyrics shaped themselves, and the song, Village, was born.

The specifics are the warm embrace, very early on, of

my mother; the faces of both my mom and dad, warm

and laughing; the tiny town we moved to in Nebraska

where my father taught at a small college and my mother

raised my brother and me. My mother loved that town,

probably more than any other place, and through her

eyes (and my listening to her voice) the little town

became more than a place to live… it was a place to be

alive…,THE place to be alive.

Tiny moments emerged—sunny grass and blowing

dandelions, the colors of the town lights at night…

especially around Christmas. The snow made everything

glow. I recalled hours, in my bed at night, second-story of

our little yellow clapboard, the dark, night windows

glowing with lights from every house. It was like one of

those little Christmas villages that people construct from

miniature houses, streetlamps and storefronts collected

Christmas after Christmas-- you know, plugged in and

glowing from the inside of each little piece, arranged up

on the hearth, tinkling music soft in the background.

Life isn’t really like that, is it? It’s dark and cold

sometimes. You forget who you are—or begin to wonder

if you ever really knew, and the outside harshness, the

desperate toiling, the push to be self-reliant and

invulnerable to beauty or wonder, puts you by yourself,

no matter how many people crowd around you. Not only

that, but worse, you are really by yourself, especially

when you’re alone and things are quiet— no inner music,

no inner light, no inner voice, just silence.

Years ago, Americans became aware of the phrase “It

takes a village…” but I’m really interested in the kind of

village that it takes.

I think it takes one that is portable.

Somehow my mother and father peopled my early

years with loveliness and openness and trust and love.

It’s like I was collecting all of these wonderful bits of

home and music and lights and warmth for those really

important years… and they’re all still there, a village on a

hill, impossible to ignore, easy to find when I remember

it’s there.

And it’s not just nostalgia. No, that would be a sad

state of delusion. These lights, this music… the voices and

the people and the faces and the places are all quite

functional. They continue to play out into my life in

important ways. The dark roads are lighter, the empty

days are filled with voices, music comes in at the

strangest and most incredible moments… and I can’t help

but believe that somehow, via the windows of my own

soul, the lights and music inside show through. I pray

they do. And I thank Mom and Dad for placing them

there.

Village For Mom and Dad

Well he started out as an accident

Nine months of labor and toil

And he entered the light with open eyes,

A loving face, a warm breast,

Before his feet even hit the soil…

A loving face, a warm breast,

Before his feet even hit the soil…

He’d sit for hours in the grass

Watching the sun light the seeds

They were planes and ships on magical trips

Tiny parachutes on the breeze

And the fingers of light pulled down the night

Through his window, the town went to sleep

And the dance of the colors winking to life

Gave him dreams and musical themes

Treasures and tales for keeps;

They gave him dreams and musical themes

Treasures and tales for keeps.

Oh, it’s a fertile soil and a loving breast

And lights to light your way,

Oh, it’s floating ships launched by tiny lips

Blowing dandelions all day.

And at night, oh the village sleeps

But everybody keeps a candle burning bright

His village on the hill…

It’s still shining through this night.

Sometimes these days he forgets his name

And his feet don’t touch the ground

Or a coldness steals his heart away

And the wind makes a lonesome sound

But there’s a deeper place—a stronger grace

Where the lights and the music are stored

And when he shuts his eyes to listen close

Deep inside, like a rising tide

A calling that can’t be denied

Deep inside there’s a roaring tide

A calling that can’t be denied.

Oh, it’s a fertile soil and a loving breast

And lights to light your way,

Oh, it’s floating ships launched by tiny lips

Blowing dandelions all day.

And at night, oh the village sleeps

But everybody keeps a candle burning bright

His village on the hill…

It’s still shining through this night..