A Choir in a Single Voice

Let’s begin with a poem:

In the classroom, I hear myself,
Who are you?

Reader, follow
a path of syllables until

you arrive
at an opening, until

you uncover a story where your
secret self lives

Writer, listen,
you have the hard part.

to make audible the mystery as
if you life depended on it

Of course, you may also choose
to do nothing.

Neither will be easy

This is a poem from Judi Salsburg-Taylor's introduction to her 2019 book of poetry "Remembering New Things" which I picked up while wandering at the Hayden library here at ASU. I don’t remember why I picked it up. I was exploring the space because it was air conditioned, quiet, and free. Which is important in a oasis for a someone scraping by in a bustling desert city. I think it was somewhere on the third floor, and It was facing out on the shelf, with its intriguing title and cover displayed. Despite what they say about judging books by their covers I was swayed. I picked it up and opened to the introduction and immediately took the book home with me.

Salsburg-Taylor writes about the experience of teaching as an opening of self to self and of self to others. The ways in which through teaching and education we can come to know (or turn away from) the world, our places in it, our truth, and our monsters. What is it we ask when “who are you” and how is it we come to know. Later in that introduction Salsburg-Taylor writes:

"Mystics remind us that silence is the natural state of the universe, that our voices are bubbles, mere aberrations among the immense quiet. One way I understand this is as truth residing in the pause between words, of what's not said in the memo. I've found the rub here is that the mystery also might hold our personal and collective monsters. As Rumi says, "Move within, but don't move the way fear makes you move""

Now, I’m not one to argue with mystics but I think that our voices aren’t aberration but declarations of essence. Triumphs of being. A joyful noise we raise in the silence of the universe. They claim our spaces with songs and stories, our heritage, and our community. Every life is something new under the sun, created new by every one of us alone, together. While the mystic mystery of the universe might lie in the silence the joy in the universe has to come from our stories sung out in affirmation and defiance of the universe. Short breaks in the liturgy of silence - lights in the dark. Our songs. Salsburg-Taylor writes:

"We are privileged to have teachers who can help us trek the songs in both the visible and unseen world to pioneer our own path clearly."

So in that riotous antiphon of our lives we "trek the songs" to make our own ways, or to gain understanding ourselves, but never alone. We always journey with those who have taught us to speak, sing, and listen. They come to and through us when we sing our own songs, and as we become ourselves, their voices come through; as choir in a single voice. We can move within, together, toward ourselves with each word a hymn against fear

Being a teacher demands a respect for that journey and for the person whose journey you are now going to become a part of. It demands being mindful as you add your voice to their choir and being open as they add their voice to yours. To teach is to come together with each other as we move together through the world, both outside and within, bravely. No other person can sing your story or name your world but each time you sing your story you can hear the voices of the people that came into your life, as they can hear yours, if you listen for it.