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| |  | Michael Fox CPCC,
founder of m�agine!,
is a professional
coach and trainer,
author and creative artist, whose work has been featured throughout
the world.
Michael is a
Certified Practitioner
of the
Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator.�
Do you know someone
who might benefit
from our weekly email?
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Our fears
don't always add up...
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Mr. Stockton was my seventh grade algebra teacher in Lynwood, a small suburb of Los Angeles. I think it's a reasonable assumption that he has, as Shakespeare described, since "shuffled off this mortal coil," and I'm now free to name names. Mr. Stockton--forgive the formal repetition, but no one in those days knew a teacher's given name--was a quiet, balding gentleman much like the impish Chicago psychologist played by the impish Chicago comedian, Bob Newhart.
Dressed day after day in the same brown plaid sport coat with elbow patches exclusive to academia, Mr. Stockton--at least in my year--toted shamelessly about the campus an inflatable blue vinyl hemorrhoid pillow. At a junior high school. Go figure. Once the first student figured out what a hemorrhoid was, why the crude murmurs spread throughout the campus in earnest and the man became the butt of many a joke.
By the way, did you know that Jehovah, angered by the theft of the Ark of the Covenant, plagued those responsible, the Philistines, with hemorrhoids? Just in case it ever comes up in conversation. "You can," as baseball legend Casey Stengel used to say, "l ook it up."
I first encountered Mr. Stockton on the sixth grade tour of Hosler Junior High's campus. Sixth grade classes from throughout town were loaded on to yellow school buses that doubtless remain in service to this day, having outlasted Mr. Stockton himself. Our bus was one of several that dismissed their load of wary students in Hosler's parking lot.
We were, of course, teased throughout the tour by the more mature residents of the school, who were all of one or two years older than me and my punkish peeps. We were both drawn to and disturbed by the concept of moving from one class to another, one teacher to another, throughout the school day. Why, we could be swallowed up by a locker and no one would know to look for us for days! We shuffled noiselessly from the back of one class to another, dutifully lined up in single file, in one door and out the other, without so much as a nod from the teachers or their students.
Eventually we came to the classroom led by the man whom I would later know as Mr. Stockton. But we didn't notice him. Or his sport coat. Or the inflatable blue vinyl hemorrhoid pillow. We saw only the blackboard. It covered an entire wall of the classroom and a single equation covered every square inch of the board. If God be a mathematician--and there just may be truth there--the equation looked like it might call forth the worlds into existence. For the remainder of the school year, as we anticipated the next chapter in our lives, The Equation was all we talked about.
In hushed, reverent tones.
Summer came and went. I began classes at Hosler. And for algebra, I was assigned the diminutive Mr. Stockton. Fortunately, my memory then was no better than my memory now. Fortunately, my memory then was no better than my memory now. I had forgotten all about the massive equation on the board. Algebra, it seemed, was just the next step in math, and perfectly doable. Well, that is a bit of an exaggeration.
Then one day, toward the end of my seventh grade year, Mr. Stockton assigned bookwork to us and quietly, methodically, began to scrawl upon the board. It was The Equation, or at the least its equal. The entire class groaned and, with trepidation, asked Mr. Stockton what he was doing. "I put it up every year when the sixth graders tour," he said, managing a mischievous grin. "Ignore it. It's gibberish. But it messes with their heads."
The moral of the story, should you insist upon one, is around our fears.
How many of your fears either have no substance at all or, in time, prove to be nothing for which you are not prepared?
How can your past fears inform your present fears?
The apostle Paul, not long before his death, told his young prot�g� Timothy, God has given us "a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control" (2 Timothy 1:7). How might power and love and self-control each counteract fear?
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Michael Fox
m�agine!
530/613.2774
407 Myrtle Drive
Farmerville, LA, USA 71241 |
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In addition to personal and professional coaching,
m�agine! specializes in spiritual transformation coaching,
employing its proprietary models
--Values, Vision, Voice and Heart, Soul, Mind & Strength--
as well as
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator� curriculum
published by CPP, the People Development People.
Michael's books include
Complete in Christ,
Complete in Christ Spiritual Transformation Workbook,
and Biblio�files.
Coaching fees are based upon a sliding scale. Contact us for details.
For additional information, visit our website at maginethepossibilities.net.
Limited scholarships are available for spiritual transformation coaching.
On the flip side, if you are able, please inquire about opportunities
to fund scholarships for those who cannot afford coaching fees.
View our archives!
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