I teetered on the slender branch of a deciduous tree. One hand was grabbing the trunk and the other trembling towards a plug. My job was to connect plugs of two different strands of coloured lights, light the tree, and make it look nice for Christmas. It was my job both Christmases, I think, because I am the only one in the house young and fit enough to climb a tree. Once I climbed the woody mammoth resignedly, I found myself divided about the task. One part of me was sure that I would fall to the ground with a massive thud, and another part of me wanted to take the risk of moving precariously closer to the plug, which was hanging on another branch overhead and needed connecting.
The fool-hardy part of me reasoned that firstly, if I fell, I probably would not break any bones because it was not a very high drop to the snow-covered ground.
Secondly, I should have a manly courage about it because this is what men do – they climb trees with fearless zeal. And, after all, I am only climbing a tree, a task that children accomplish with such nimble ease. A man should, therefore, think nothing of it.
Thirdly, since my superior had asked me to do this, I should because he was depending on me. The cowardly part of me, on the other hand, said very little. It only trembled, and considered the three reasons very unreasonable. I was not alone, however, in my tree-trembling.
My superior, Michael Murray, was there to direct my movements, and Rob Brennan, another member of the community, spread his arms out in cruciform, his walking stick angled in the air, as if it were pointing at something. I am unsure what Rob was doing. I guess if I fell, his body would serve as a human blanket to cushion my possible fall.
I imagine it must have looked peculiar to on-lookers – two white men sidling around a tree almost predatorily, and a short brown man seemingly stuck in the thicket of its leaves like a cat. I wasn’t actually stuck, but I might have appeared so. I wonder how many thought of calling 911! All these imaginings caused me, as you may understand, some embarrassment at the time. In retrospect, though, I laugh about it.
But what has this to do with regency – the approximately two year ministry period that is part of every Jesuit scholastic’s formation? In reflecting on my regency experience at Loyola High School, Montreal, I realized that this tree climbing metaphor aptly illustrates my regency experience. Teaching English and Philosophy to grade tens and elevens is a lot like a balancing act on a slender branch. I don’t think I would have known what to do had it not been for those that look out for me.
GETTING TO KNOW THE TREE
In order to climb the tree and achieve new heights, I have to familiarize myself with the tree and it’s dynamic – whether swaying or rigid. Similarly, as a new teacher, I had to fa
miliarize myself with the dynamic of my class and the school. I teach my grade tens some densely philosophical texts. Books like Beowulf, Macbeth and 1984 are difficult to understand at the university-level, leave alone at the high school level. I admire my students for braving through them.
I had to learn that class dynamic can sometimes be very tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day. As a new teacher with impractical expectations, I originally expected every class to be exciting and life-changing for my students. It is normal, however, for some of classes to be boring and bland. It took me a while to accept this as normal.
Some classes were very exciting, during which students were moved by the text’s beauty, depth and reality. I treasure these classes, which had moments when the plugs connected and the tree was alight. Delightfully, most of these experiences of good classes were unplanned and unexpected.
GOING OUT ON A LIMB
Sometimes, teaching requires me to take a chance and cast my plans to the four winds. Such risk-taking and uncertainty is also the tree-climber’s due. As I move, knees-buckling, away from the sturdy tree trunk and closer to the leaves and the great-beyond of the panoramic blue sky, I have to trust that the branch will not crack under my weight, and that I will not freeze in petri
faction in the middle of the branch. To do so would be to loose balance and prove the Newtonian aphorism.
Teaching, I have found, requires me to trust that a particular lesson plan will work, that it will not plummet to the concrete with a crashing thud. If I fear failure, I congeal in confusion, and nothing is taught! I walk to class, therefore, confiding in my ideas and courting possible failure. If the lesson fails, I have learned my lesson for the future, which is most important.
There is always some future – that as yet unrealized realm of brighter second-chances and fresh starts! To spurn the future and to be stubborn about success is to be un-teachable. My regency and my students have taught me that being successful requires gazing lovingly, and even longingly, at possible failure. There is glory in falling from the tree and that glory lies in falling well.
Einstein famously said that life was a lot like riding a bicycle. To keep balance, you have to keep moving. It’s the same with going out on the limb of a tree – freeze, and fall; stay fallen and you’ll just lie there. If you let your failure immobilize you, there you shall remain, and tomorrow’s rising sun will find you statuesque and mottled with moss.
THE SIDLERS
Up on the tree, it is difficult to see where you’re going. Sometimes you think there is a branch somewhere when actually there isn’t. Tree climbing with improper guidance is inviting trouble. Without my mentors and guides telling me where to look, it is difficult for me to see the right things, at the right time and in the right way. My guides, who are expert teachers and magis-tic Jesuits, help me to view my students as God’s vessels. 
The easiness of misconstruing students’ behaviours and words is astonishing. Nurturing students requires understanding their behaviour, and misunderstanding it might stunt their maturity; understanding students requires fine balance and much experience. Teaching is a training arena for empathy, fairness, prudence, professionalism, commitment, maturity, persistence and hope.
Fr. Rob Brennan often reminds me that “they are only kids.” Ripening kids deserve our kindness and empathy more than anything else. This is what it means to see them as God’s vessels. But wait! Surely you did not think that this is all there is to being a regent-teacher?
My mentors have also reminded me to recreate often. Sometimes you focus so much on being balanced on a tree that you forget to relax and enjoy the starry heavens above. Teaching is a world in itself, and your life can orbit around this world exclusively. You forget that there are other worlds that are also part of your cosmos. Such forgetfulness eventually stifles and ruins, or worse. To improve as a teacher, you have to take breaks and distract yourself.
…AND EVERY COMMON BUSH AFIRE WITH GOD
The perils of neglecting your relationship with God as a regent are palpable and humbling. Being atop a tree is the ideal place to, as one poem put it, gaze at the “untrespassed sanctity of space” and touch “the face of God.” Teaching, in a sense, is ideal for praying. Sometimes you are so pallidly nervous about class that you start “reflex praying.” Your mouth starts leaking Hail Marys uncontrollably. Once in class, then the Hail Marys really gush forth. 
Other than this type of prayer, however, my mentors have reminded me to pray daily. Prayer, I have found, is important to act with soul, or with some sort of transcendental awareness of that “untrespassed sanctity.” With prayer I tend to see every common bush afire with God. I am able to delight in tribulations and gracefully tolerate trials. Prayer helps me, when I fall, to fall well. Without it, I walk around dazed and almost membrane-like through my day, unaware of the God within.
CONCLUSION
Often, the ‘God within’ drives me up the tallest of trees. You do not always know how to get ‘way up there,’ or if that slender branch will hold. What works for one tree might not work for another. You grope your way, while keeping one eye on your goal and the other on God. Life is like climbing trees. We hope that once we have connected the plugs, lighted up the tree, and made the world a little brighter, we will hear Jesus yell, “come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”