By: Steven Andrew Schultz

I’m Batman! And so are you.

One of the things I admire most about the Batman character is he is the only superhero without superpowers. Batman is just Bruce Wayne with a cape and the courage to fight for what’s right. It’s not vengeance that drives him, but virtue.

Here’s a guy with all the wealth in the world and could easily just be consumed with himself and his lavish cocktail parties, but what does Bruce do every time the bat signal breaks through the clouds of Gotham? He excuses himself from the wealthy elite of the city and sacrifices himself in service to strangers.

You don’t need a cape to be a hero. You just need empathy to notice a problem and the temerity to provide a solution. One of the reasons Gotham is so dark and dangerous is not solely because of the corrupt politicians covertly working with the criminals they allow to run amok, it’s all the everyday folk of Gotham who when they see the Bat Signal, wait on one man to solve their problems. Imagine what Gotham would be if every time the people of Gotham saw the Bat Signal, they said the two most infamous words from the franchise: I’m Batman!

In class, I dressed up as Batman to give a lesson on characterization, and one of my students in my Honors class asked me to say those two words in my best Batman voice and I acquiesced and belted out in my most intense voice: “I’m Batman!” The class laughed and I asked this student to give us his impression and he responded, “Nah, I’m good.” And encapsulated in those three words are why so many cities like Gotham, aren’t good.

We all must be less Bruce and be more Batman. Meaning, we must shift from a self-absorbed, scared, apathetic “Nah, I’m good” attitude and elevate to a “Now, I’m going to do good” service to others courageous mindset. Batman is brave. Be brave…be Batman!

My grandpa Hill used to say to me, “When you see something wrong, see to it that it’s made right.” And the first step to being Batman is seeing what’s wrong, who’s hurting and needs help. Batman is looking for the Bat Signal, are you?

The second step to being Batman after noticing the Bat Signal is looking in the mirror and saying, I’m Batman! I tell my writing students they must see something before they can say something, so start paying attention and notice what’s happening around you and inside of you…get in touch with your core, your “magma” and then let your “lava” out. As leaders, you must let your lava out and do something when you see something. My grandpa was right, and right now you must make a decision that your life will be about elevating the lives of others without any expectation of a reward in return.

What does Batman get for his troubles spending his nights serving the people of Gotham? Besides all the villains coming after him, many elected officials, media, and other powerful people blame him and make him the scapegoat for their failures. Sadly, being attacked is part of being the solution. Like a teeter-totter, you will have to lower your ego to the bottom in order to elevate others up in love and just stay down there, as most people you help will not give you the bounce back.

Now, you may get action figures and movies made about you, but most of being Batman involves rebuilding what others broke and no one ever knowing who you really are.

Case in point, the other day some students were goofing around on their way out of class and one boy bumped another into my desk and he broke this custom Lego teeter-totter a former student made for me. As my prized piece of art was wrecked in pieces on the floor, those that broke it just fled the scene. But a Batman did emerge as a student who had nothing to do with its wreckage, picked up the pieces and put it back together for me.

All around you are pieces that are waiting for you to put back together. Are you noticing the Bat Signal and are you doing something about it? You don’t have to answer every call, but you must find a call to answer.  

Maybe you notice the Bat Signal for all the hungry people, and you don’t feel equipped to answer the call like my former neighbor did who is a chef and started a non-profit business called Bracken’s Kitchen where they drive food trucks around and feed the hungry hearty, healthy meals for free. But you can answer it like I do where I buy food and feed at least one student every single day.

Maybe you notice the Bat Signal for corrupt politicians but don’t feel confident to run for public office yourself, but you can volunteer for someone’s campaign and get people registered to vote, informed to vote properly, and gain donations so this good person can defeat the corrupt ones.

Maybe you notice the Bat Signal for the homeless but don’t have the capacity to house someone, but you can be like the people of King of Glory church who through their King’s Kitchen program provide meals, temporary shelter, clothing and company for those in need.

The truth is, you might not be a billionaire like Bruce Wayne and so maybe you don’t have the capacity for a butler, and a bat cave, batmobile, and bat suit with special gadgets in your arsenal, but you can do something more than what you have been doing to make your community less Gotham-like.  

Most people never love outside of themselves and their family, some don’t even take care of their family, but being Batman requires you to love outside of yourself, to reclaim the virtue you knew naturally as a small child, that villains must be met by heroes, as goodness has a responsibility to show itself in the face of Jokers and Penguins. There is no riddle to it, love doesn’t always work, but love is the only thing that defeats the heels that create heartache in our lives. Behind the mask is a boy named Bruce, whose love for his slain parents propels him to take flight each night to ameliorate suffering in Gotham and stand for a cause greater than life itself: the one thing that outlasts our life when we give enough of it away to others: love.  

Indifference never made a difference. No longer can you ignore the suffering of others or notice the Bat Signal but wait for someone else to take care of it. You must look in the mirror and realize you’re someone; and, in a gravelly voice, speak with full intensity and courage:

 I’m Batman! 

The post You Are Batman! appeared first on Lead Love Elevate.

By: Steven Andrew Schultz

When revenge is present, God is absent.

It all started with a question. One of those “what if?” hypotheticals that’s supposed to grant you the social simulation that forecasts your truth. It was meant to be virtual reality to discover how real are your virtues. My high school English class was about to begin William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar: a twisted tale of betrayal and revenge that leads to destruction and death through the slashing of the sword and the rhetorical reach of your tongue. What really makes it a tragedy is how prevalent that wicked behavior is seen across our landscape still.

To build the anticipation by making the reading relevant and the lessons come to life, they were given a scenario (one based off the life of Nelson Mandela of which we were about to read a 10-page exposé about before exploring Caesar’s Rome)

Moral Scenario:

If You Were Wrongly Put in Prison on Purpose in the Prime of Your Life For 27 Years, and then were freed and became the president of the country with full power, would you imprison those who wrongly imprisoned you or let them free?

After they spent time in small groups imagining how they were doing hard time and they were put there for false reasons so their jailers could have power of them, exploit their labor, and silence their voice by taking away everything they loved, and now they had all the power, they all said revenge would be immediate and gave their justifications.

After they enthusiastically regaled us with their detailed retribution plots, some brutal, I asked if anyone said they wouldn’t retaliate in any way. One hand rose, ascending without hesitation and a ruckus ringed off the walls of the classroom. They hollered at him like he was full of it. I asked him why? He gave his answers and the crowd’s hostility increased, unbeknownst to them, they were behaving like the mob (masses of common Romans that Shakespeare makes a character in the play to showcase how fickle, hypocritical, and easily manipulated the majority of people are in any society) in the play they were about to begin.

As dozens of darts were heaved in Devin’s direction, he sat there, resolute, staid, unwavering in his principles, immune to the peer pressure to bend, appearing to have a moral force field shielding him from the verbal attacks of the group. It was astonishing to witness; inspiring once you understood the power of this young man’s moral fortitude.

When the masses give their morals no meaning, where our ethics are treated like a lifeboat being towed from the stern of the ship rather the navigational GPS guiding our sight through the glass of the captain’s windshield, ice bergs will sink you. So, Devin Payne is here to be our rescuer, by living out the teachings of the redeemer.   

When his lone hand reach for the heavens to contest the group-think smorgasbord of self-righteousness, a bright neon bracelet with the letters WWJD embroidered across it caught my eye, as Devin caught the mob’s ire. Devin and I attend the same church, as did a few more in the classroom who were chastising Devin as crazy for turning the other cheek. In fact, many others in the room attended other churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples around the community; and today, what they all shared in common, was their hate for the hypothetical person who had harmed them.

Except for Devin, who professed this radical idea that someone wronging you is not permission for you to do wrong. Devin spoke about loving your enemy, forgiving those that hurt you, praying for those who seek to harm you, and the mob acted as if they had never heard such blasphemy before. To them it was so absurd it was comical, as they literally laughed out loud and mocked Devin for decrying you should bless those that curse you and love your enemy and love your neighbor as God loves you. Just as Jesus was mocked by the mob when he first spoke the same words that this young man wearing his bracelet was speaking now, over two thousand years later.

With a theme of Shakespeare’s play being appearance vs reality and with the current wide-spread pandemic of hypocrisy of people failing to place principles before profits and have their everyday behavior match the religious beliefs they expose, Devin Payne’s practice was in such alignment with his print, if Jesus walked on water, Devin Payne scooted through the surface of the room like he was wearing those shoes with the wheels hidden in the soles. And when you are soul-driven like Devin, you glide through the guile like a Tesla on autopilot.

I was so moved that he didn’t move. They yelled jeers of ridicule and Devin sat there in my executive chair, in front of the room, with people staring through him. Like a rock in a rocking chair, he was still, stoic, and steadfast in refusing to recoil or bend to their pressure for him to succumb to their stance of an eye for an eye. But like the great carpenter referenced on his wrist that spoke of removing the plank in your eye before you judge the speck on eyes of others, the same carpenter that many in the room claim is the God of the print they follow, treated Devin’s stance of pardoning those who imprisoned him like a splinter that must be tweezed out of the finger they were pointing their condemnation with.

Their aim was off, though, as Devin was already taking cover beneath their line of fire because he was kneeling down, washing their feet. Oblivious to the divine love Devin was demonstrating and how similar their behavior was to the mob we were about to see in the play, and how opposite their behavior is to what many claim they believe in, I was in awe of the lesson in virtue this young man was teaching us all. We weren’t just momentarily going to read about a Mandela, we were witnessing a Mandela-level leader arriving in real-time, possessing the temerity to get in some “good trouble” and endure the pain of lived principles in the face of a mob of people who were playing pretend.

When I pointed out the connection of Devin to Mandela, and theirs to the mob of the play, I mentioned how Devin reminded me of Winston Churchill, the former prime minister of England whose uncompromising principles prevented the world from speaking German. After class, I grabbed my copy of Long Walk to Freedom (President Mandela’s autobiography) off my bookshelf, told Devin to look at the cover of the book which Mandela’s face adorns, and asked him what he saw. Devin said, “Mandela.” I retorted, “Look again. This time more closely. I see your future. You will have a Mandela-level impact because your behavior is in alignment with your beliefs. You are going to elevate humanity.” Then I gave Devin the book to keep and wrote a handwritten message inside for him.

The key word in Long Walk to Freedom is long, as the book is thick, heavy, and not a page turner, at least not in the beginning, but the job of every leader is to give their people a greater vision for their life, to help them see higher purpose of service and how when their life is led by love, they make visible the One from above.

I don’t know how many students were forever altered from the lesson that Devin gave that day, as there is no Amazon Prime to leadership; however, I do know Mr. Payne inspired me that day, which is something he does most days. Devin will sometimes leave me a Bible verse on my desk or show notes he took from class on words I said that resonated with him.

The most recent Bible verse Mr. Payne left on my desk are the words of Jesus (Letters in Red) “When you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

One of Devin’s favorite quotes of mine is:

“Don’t let those who aren’t like you, make you not like you.”

Steven Andrew Schultz

It’s, what Jay Z calls, a “Triple Entendre”

1. Don’t let haters make you not like who you are

2. Don’t let haters make you change who you are

3. Don’t let hateful people make you hate them

So, why, out of hundreds of people, many who claim Jesus as Savior, did only one live out Jesus’ teachings of loving your enemies? It’s a conundrum The Church can no longer ignore.

With “Karen” videos going viral, what we need to really address is the elephant in the room: all the “Ians” wreaking havoc.  A “Karen” is a lady gone mad usually screaming for the manager while she throws a tantrum, but an “Ian” is a Christian that’s missing Christ. The three letters left when you remove the word “Christ” from “Christian” is “Ian” which is someone who has removed the words of Jesus from their daily behavior. Ian is a phrase I have coined to represent those who love to talk about Jesus but fail to be the love Jesus talked about.

With an Ian, the larger the cross they wear around their neck the smaller the Christ is in their heart. We have tens of millions of Ians in America selectively choosing Old Testament text to control the life-choices of others while simultaneously seeming to have never read the words in red.

A prime example was this most recent Christmas Eve (2022), the holiday where baby Jesus (a non-white, non-English speaking, non-Christian, non-American, foreign immigrant refugee who sought refuge after his unwed teen mother was turned away and told there was no room for Him and so He was born in a vile of pig slop, and the irony and utter hypocrisy seems to be lost as millions of Ians cheered on and celebrated an Ian-Governor who flew a bunch of non-white, non-English speaking, non-Christian, non-American, foreign immigrant refugees to the Vice-President of the United States neighborhood in the frigid cold as a political stunt. Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting strict security at the border, but to celebrate treating a bunch of God’s children (whose appearance resembles more closely to that of Jesus than most white Americans do) with such distain for political gain, hours before you celebrate Christmas, shows just how absent the love of Jesus is in those about to unwrap presents. If your politics come before your principles then you don’t have principles, only principle-less politics. 

Today, as I was driving, a new worship song by Jon Reddick came on the radio with lyrics that state, “It’s not just a story. I believe in the life of Jesus.” While listening to it I wondered how so many could listen to these lyrics but not live them? It reminds me of what my uncle Mark Roskam, who was a pastor before he died, wrote to me once, “Words are worth living. Our culture demands a shift in our heart attitude…and often times the deeper question is: just who is your God?”

I think of Devin’s wrist: two neon friendships bracelets I had given him, and a WWJD wrap too.

It is obvious by Devin’s actions he is aware who his God is. Rather than WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) bracelets, I think the “shift” as my uncle referenced, should become DWJD (Do What Jesus Did). And what was Jesus’ final act as he was held in agony on the cross? He forgave those who crucified him. If you don’t want to be an Ian, but want to be a Devin, you must forgive everything and love everyone.

On my letterhead are the numbers 70X7. It reminds me of when someone came to me for counsel because they were furious with a former friend who had betrayed them a second time after he forgave him the first time. I asked, “Why haven’t you forgiven him again yet?”

My friend’s anger now turned towards me. “Why would I forgive that scoundrel after I already showed him grace and he stabbed me again?”

I answered: “Because of that cross you’re wearing on your neck.”

He shouted in disgust at my correction: “Jesus never said you had to forgive twice!”

“You are right.” I replied. “Jesus said to forgive 70×7 times…or, infinitely. If our savior can forgive the people who murdered him, slandered him, and betrayed him, then you and I must forgive everyone too if we truly are followers. To love Jesus, we must love like Jesus.”

He walked away from me, and, in a huff, said, “I came to you for help. You were supposed to tell me how they were wrong, not that I am wrong for not forgiving.”

Four years later, after not speaking to me or returning any of my calls or texts, I got a phone call from my old friend. After a four-year absence he called for four reasons: 1. To say sorry. 2. To say thank you. 3.To say he forgave that person who wounded him. 4. To ask for my forgiveness.  He realized that when he came to me for healing and I asked him to forgive, I was offering him healing. He talked about how his anger prevented his receiving of my love and while he thought he knew Jesus, it took him years to admit to himself he didn’t because those that knew him didn’t know unconditional love.

When we are teaching others how to love, they might get angry with us because most people have never experienced unconditional love, only manipulation wearing a Love costume. And so, we must have patience and hope we can have the Woody Woodpecker effect. Years after they leave you, like Woody the Woodpecker, that laugh (the teachings) stay with them. For many of you, just hearing the name of Woody brings forth that annoying laugh of his. But teachers of Jesus must be like Woody and patiently peck away at the ego of others until we have a breakthrough where they remember you. I wasn’t physically with my friend, but for four years my teachings of Christ-like love were pecking away at ego’s lie that you can only love people who love you too.

“The Only Way To Truly Know If You Love Jesus Is If You Also Love Judas.”

Steven Andrew Schultz

Any place you hold a grudge is a place you’re not holding the hand of God. In fact, the only true way to know if you love Jesus is if you also love Judas. I congratulated my friend for forgiving the one who wounded him and for having the strength to admit where he was weak and the fortitude to give and seek forgiveness to get stronger. I told him he was already forgiven by me and invited him over. The next day he was at my house, and we had the best hug. I thought of Woody’s laugh and my soul sang.

If you were a child of the 1980s and 1990s like me, you’re aware of that catchy theme song to Ghostbusters that asked the question: “Who you gonna call?” The ghosts that haunt our spirit are the people we haven’t forgiven and the people we haven’t said sorry to. So, who are you going to call? Like my friend did to me. Whether it’s been four years or forty, pick up the phone, defeat the ghosts of your past by letting someone hear the voice of Jesus today.

Who are you going to call to say: You are forgiven?

Who are you going to call to say: I am sorry. Please forgive me.

And don’t just be sorry, be better.

Sometimes the person you need to forgive the most is yourself. We spend too much of life beating ourselves up like we’re playing the game Rock’em Sock’em Robots where our present is the red robot and our past the blue robot, and we keep popping up our head with punches instead of propping up our heart with grace.

 As Mister Rogers said, “The toughest thing is to love somebody who has done something mean to you. Especially when that somebody has been yourself. It’s very important to look inside yourself and find that loving part of you. That’s the part that you must take good care of and never be mean to. Because that’s the part of you that allows you to love your neighbor. And your neighbor is anyone you happen to be with at any time of your life. Respecting and loving your neighbor can give everybody a good feeling.”

Maybe we have such a difficult time loving our neighbors as ourselves because we live in a society that’s tells us not to love ourselves. If you truly love the man with holes in His hands, there can’t be any holes in your heart. I often wear a baseball cap that has these words on the front: Love Thy Enemy. It has started so many wonderful conversations. One time that stands out is when I was paying for my dinner and the worker is looking at my hat and he says to me, “I have never heard that saying before Love Thy Enemy.” I noticed the cross necklace he was wearing and explained how they were the words of Jesus and how he can apply them.

This stranger started crying and fell into my arms. I held him up for a bit and I told him, “I love you.” He asked how I could love him when I don’t know him. I said, “I don’t need to know you to love you. I only need to know who God is and who I am. And God is Love, and so, I am someone who loves everyone. Just like God loves me when I’m not loving, I must love those who don’t love me or even like me. It’s those who don’t love you at all that teach you how to love all. It’s easy to love those who are loving; it’s difficult to love those who are difficult. Do what’s difficult.”

This man smiled and gave me a hug. He told me I was the only person to say the words “I love you” to him in a really long time and he really needed to hear those words because it helped him heal some wounds. I said, “I love you” once again and left the restaurant. As I walked to my car and looked at the piece of bread in my bag, I thought of Jesus and his lesson on giving living bread.

The world is parched for genuine love and it’s you and I who must answer the call to provide it. I had a parent of one of my students email me once to say, “I was speaking with my daughter about all her teachers and she said something that moved me. She said, “Even though Mr. Schultz has never talked about religion or ever even said the word God, I know he loves God by how loving he is to all the students, especially the difficult ones.”

Just as the man was grateful for my words of love, I am grateful for this parent’s words of love. It’s been a decade since I received them but they have stayed serving me, helping to remind me what Jesus taught: your love for Jesus will be known by how you love the difficult ones.

Right now, I want you to think about the worst thing that has ever happened to you. The best thing you can do about it is to love the person who did it. Picture them and feel any emotions of anger and resentment that starts to build and rebuke it all. Replace anger for what was done to you with compassion for what they couldn’t do for you. It’s not your fault; it’s theirs. It’s not your weakness; it’s theirs. Picture them as a fragile child who has never experienced the loving hug of Jesus and figuratively give it to them. By virtually hugging them, you start to heal yourself. The love we give away is the way. Practice empathy for their lack of strength to give you the love you deserved.

The Love We Give Away Is The Way!

Think of your emotional wound like a physical wound. After you have been cut the wound starts to scab. But if you touch a scab, it still hurts. Press on the scab enough and it will re-open and bleed. But a scar is different. When you see a scar, you remember how you got the wound but no matter how many times you touch it, you no longer feel pain.  Love yourself enough to love those that hurt you, so you no longer hurt. Forgiving doesn’t necessarily mean I will be your friend; forgiving means I won’t be your enemy. It’s probably wise not to go around the snakes who bit you because they most likely will bite again. Snakes shed their skin, not their sin. Forgiving them is how you remove the venom from their bite. In honor of the man with holes in his hands, turn your scabs into scars. Forgiveness and grace are how you do it.

I’ve never been good at Algebra but here is one equation I created that I ponder daily. I call it the Schultz Grace Equation. What’s true in math is true in life.

Schultz Grace Equation

Negative One Plus Negative One Does Not Equal Zero. It Equals Negative Two.

Negative One Plus Two Equals One. You have to be twice as loving to negative people to keep the world a positive place. That’s grace.

Forgiving is for giving yourself peace and healing. Don’t confuse forgiveness with friendship. Everything is forgivable but not everything is repairable. I can forgive you and never want to see you or speak to you ever again. You must make that decision. Loving your enemy doesn’t mean to have to like them, loving them means you don’t act like them. Someone doing you wrong is God in disguise giving you the opportunity to do right.

As Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ ²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother^[a] will be liable to judgment.

³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ³⁹ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ⁴⁰ And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic,^[f] let him have your cloak as well. ⁴¹ And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

Love Your Enemies

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your brothers,^[g] what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸ You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Back in the classroom as the mob incredulously questioned Devin to the limits of his love, someone asked him: what about murder? Are you telling me you would forgive someone if they killed your brother?

Devin replied, “I love both my brothers and want nothing bad to happen to them, but if something did, the best way to love my brother is to not do anything bad back to someone else. Their bad behavior doesn’t control my good behavior.”

The mob screamed “No way!” There is no way you could forgive someone for murdering your brother.” And then I played the video. It is from a recent court case of a woman who shot a killed an innocent man for no reason. Many of the family condemned her to death. But the younger brother went up to speak at her sentencing trial and brought Jesus with him. His older brother was a Devin, not an Ian. Jesus was the leader of his life and so his little brother honored him by loving the person who murdered the person he loved the most.

Do You Bring Jesus With You Everywhere You Go?

This disciple of Jesus sat before the judge, looked right at the murderer of his big brother, and made Jesus visible in the courtroom by saying these words to the woman who murdered his big brother:

“I forgive you. I know if you go to God and ask Him, He will forgive you. I love you just like anyone else. I personally want the best for you. And I know this is what my brother would want for you: give your life to Christ. Again, I love you. I don’t wish anything bad on you.” He then turns to the judge and asks, “I don’t know if this is possible, but can I give her a hug, please? Please!”

And when most of us would have been strangling the person who took away the person we loved the most, this Devin was being Jesus by loving the most. As he hugged her, the judge started crying, the cops started crying, and the murderer cried uncontrollably. As I watched, I saw Jesus on the cross, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”

This follower of Christ spoke more love to the murderer of his brother than most of us speak to the ones we love on a daily basis.

I write this not to edify the reader, but to remind the writer, too. Many times I fall short of loving on Jesus’ level, but people like Devin help me walk back home. And thanks to Jesus, the walk is not long. Re-reading the red letters (Words of Jesus) helps me get in realignment. Just like you need to routinely realign the wheels of your car or otherwise you will slowly start to move crooked and veer off the road and crash into others, you must realign your practice with your print. I don’t pretend to be pious. I am a sinner myself, full of flaws, who is trying to love as much as I can today and top it tomorrow.

As Devin’s bracelet asks, WWJD What Would Jesus Do?

Jesus said: Be me. Love like I love. Do what I’ve done and even greater things. Only by the love you give to others, especially the least among you and those that wrong you, will you be known as a follower of mine.

The only way to know if your truly love Jesus, is if you also love Judas. Love people who disagree with you, love people who look differently than you, love people who don’t love you. You can’t hate someone into loving, but you can love someone out of hating. Love doesn’t always work, but love is the only thing that ever has.

2,000 years later and speaking the teachings of love that Jesus spoke still riles up the religious crowds, but like with Devin, let’s not crucify them, but emulate them. What’s most valuable is invisible until you see to it that Love is seen by how you lead your life. Speak love, show love, teach love, be love. To be the love you come from, only love can come from you, no matter how unloving a person comes at you.

The question the Church must recon with is why Ians are so prevalent and Devins are so rare? The emptiness of the words of those who claim The Word are why pews aren’t full. I saw a sign recently that said: There Is No Hate Like A Christians Love. When those that claim to follow Jesus who taught all about love, who only showed anger when dealing with religious hypocrites (Ians), who spoke of the sins of being rich and commanded us to help the poor, yet tens of millions of those who claim Christ vote for politicians who seek revenge and name-call, worship the wealthy and despise the poor, and tout the same religious hypocrisy that caused Jesus to turn over tables, the Church has major soul searching to do. Do the red hats align with the red letters?

But the responsibility also lies with the student. What makes Devin different is he one of the few students who takes notes when the teacher talks and then goes and talks to the teacher about what he wrote down and asks follow up questions. A pastor can only reach those who want to learn, put into practice, reflect, and pursue the highest purpose of service. Too many people use church like a Monopoly Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card. They attend on Sunday just in case, but they don’t behave like Christ. They see church as the building they enter one day a week instead of a ministry they are building in the lives of others every day of the week.

If you go inside a church to receive Jesus but your neighbors don’t receive Jesus when you are outside of church, then Jesus isn’t in you. Loving others won’t always make people better, but loving others will always make you better.

If you want people to see Jesus when they see you, then you must see Jesus when you interact with them…especially with the difficult ones. Make God visible by how you love. You do this by rejecting ego’s number one lie: that you can only love someone who loves you too. Jesus requires you to love at first sight regardless of what you see and to love even more even after you’ve been wronged.

These teachings aren’t just for the readers but a reminder for the writer, too. I don’t claim any superiority or mastery. If you had to be perfect to preach about love we’d have no preachers. All I know is I’m not as loving as I should be, but I’m better than I used to be. When it comes to being a Devin, not an Ian, I can say about myself, what a true follower of Jesus, John Wooden, said as his last words before he died. His pastor asked him, “Coach Wooden, are you the man God wants you to be?” And John Wooden, the writer, high school English teacher, and UCLA basketball coach whispered, “I’m working on it.” Even at the age of 99, hours before death, John Wooden was still working on being more Christ-like.

May you and I keep working on it. There is no higher purpose. Forgive yourself and all others.

WWDD What would Devin do?

What would Jesus do?

What will you do?

When you know who you are it doesn’t matter what others say you aren’t. When you know who you are, you know what to do. 

The truth of Love states: you don’t have to know someone to love them, you just have to know you’re someone who loves like Jesus loves. 

To show the highest love to those who are hardest to love, is how we show we love God. 

Be Christlike those who fail to be Christlike. 

Don’t be an Ian, be a Devin.

Be Jesus!

I love you.

The post The Payne of Living Your Principles appeared first on Lead Love Elevate.

By: Steven Andrew Schultz

Leaders grab the broom. My first act in a positional leadership role was when I was seventeen years old coaching my little brother’s 8^th grade basketball team. We practiced twice a week at Ellis Park which was walking distance from my house and half the team’s homes. Twice a week, well before any of my players showed up, I walked my broom and brushed all the pine needles that sprinkled the court from the trees that gave us shade and walked the broom back and returned before any player ever arrived. One slip on a single pine needle could sideline a player with a season-ending injury and so it was my job as the leader to ensure our teaching environment was optimal and they could train at the speeds necessary for success.

No player or parent ever thanked me for it because no one ever knew I did it (And if you have spent any time in youth or high school athletics, you know even if they were aware any thank you is rare). A truth about leadership that those not in positions of leadership don’t understand is that the leader’s job already started before you even show up to begin yours. As leaders, we must have already been there to survey the environment and remove anything that could hurt or hinder our people’s ability to perform to their absolute best. If you want your team to show out, you have to show up and perform tasks that will never be seen and thus never be appreciated.  

What are the “pine needles” in your organization? Where are they located? Most of us won’t have access to chainsaws, so cutting down the trees where the pine needles are produced is not an option, but all of us can grab the broom and start sweeping. If you want to be a leader you must be ready to sweep every single day because those darn pine needles always return tomorrow.

Two of my favorite leaders grabbed a broom before every practice. John Wooden of UCLA and Eddie Courtemarche of Los Alamitos High School, who would each push the broom across the hardwood before every basketball practice to get rid of the dust so their players could move more efficiently on the court. In Coach Wooden’s case, this was before Pauley Pavilion was built and the Bruins practiced in the old men’s gym where the gymnastics team also practiced. At Los Al, the floor was often like a slip-n-slide. Each day as the players stretched, Coach Courtemarche would grab his broom and sweep. He deliberately did it in front of the players. He wanted them to see. He was teaching a lesson. He wanted them to know that even the person is the highest position of power still grabs a broom. If you want to get to the top nothing can be beneath you.  

Eddie had his broom before practice, and I had my towel throughout practice. I served as his assistant for seven years. Los Al Basketball players sweat! Anytime little puddles formed or streaks of sweat from a loose ball dive sparkled on the wood, I ran, got on all fours, and mopped up their sweat. In the beginning of each season, the varsity players found it funny. Some would chide me or joke and say, “Hey, Schultz! There is a spot over here.” Instead of putting them in their place and reminding them of my power, I got into position, running over there and kneeling down on my hands and knees and moped up the spot with a smile. I was modeling after the example of my master and instilling in them the principles of our head coach: no one is too big to do the smallest job. At Los Al, even the Athletic Director picks up and puts out chairs. After each basketball game, our players are assigned bleacher duty where they go and pick up all the trash the fans left in the stands. Some parents complain and say, “isn’t that the janitor’s job,” but we are teaching them ownership. The better you care for your court, the more care you’ll play with on the court.

There is more to winning than X’s &O’s. Winning organization culture is built on XOXO (the love and affection demonstrated by those at the very top). Part of love is tough love too. In basketball there is a phrase called “riding the pine,” which means being benched (no playing time). Riding the pine is the worst place to be as a player. Coach Wooden called the pine “A coach’s best friend.” The pine is the place you send players who aren’t performing on the court or aren’t being the person you expect off of it. The tough part of coaching is you have to love tough. And when you put someone’s child on the pine, their parents could care less about all the pine needles you sweep up each day serving the safety and moral development of their kid. Sweeping the pines and getting ridiculed for making players ride the pine are the tragedy of leadership. But like a Shakespearean tragedy where power serves a purpose, you will get remembered. If you are to be effective as a coach you will have to send your players on a set-of-four (sprints they hate but makes them better) and you will have to get on all fours, with your servant’s towel mopping up their aftermath of the running.

Leadership is the eb and flow of whipping them into shape and wiping up their sweat after the sprints. If they trust you with the towel, they will let out more of what’s inside of them. If your bosses are grabbing brooms, setting up chairs, and getting on their hands and knees to wipe up your sweat, your team is going to sweat more. Meaning, they will work harder and give greater effort because greater love is on display by you. The greatest failure of leadership is failing to show your team that you love them and failing to teach them how to love each other.

After a few weeks of the players ribbing me for my towel work, the lesson starts to work and soon players start bringing their own towels or asking to borrow mine, as they get on all fours themselves and wipe up the sweat for their teammates. Not one single time, in any year, did I ever explicitly ask a player to do this, I just did it and made sure they saw me do it with earnest and enthusiasm. And I learned it from Wooden, from Courtemarche, and from Jesus. When Jesus said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be last and the servant of all,” I picture him with his broom. But instead of wiping away pine needles, Jesus was on all fours washing the feet of his team, an act that was considered only reserved for the lowest status people in society, the ones without any power, the servants.

Here is an evergreen truth: if you want to lead your team to the top, everyone at the top of the organization better be in touch with the bottom by grabbing a broom and getting on all fours with their servant’s towel. As Pat Williams, co-founder and former vice president of NBA Orlando Magic once told me, “Leaders who don’t want to serve should not serve as leaders.”

Being a loving leader is a balance between the work you do that your people never see and the work you do that you purposely want them to see. Often, we need to see someone do something first before we know we can do it too. People are influenced more by what they see from you than what they hear from you.

If you want to see something from your team, let your team see it from you first. A cardinal rule in leadership is if you don’t follow the words you say than the words you say won’t be followed. You have to be what you want your team to become.

All these years later after walking my broom to Ellis Park to sweep up pine needles so my basketball players could play their best, I’ll still get a text or call from time-to-time from some of them. This is another tragedy of leadership, no matter how much you give, some will never care and never reach out to you again. But some will. And they never knew anything about my broom, but they knew I cared. I was tough on them but I made it clear I loved them. At the time, when receiving tough love most players can only just see the tough, and they’re mad at you for it. But, in time, they start to see the love behind the tough, and they love you for it. They love you for the times you made them ride the pine, and they love you for all the pines you never let them see, so everyone else could see their absolute best.

And the real success of your leadership comes years later, when they step into positions of leadership of their own, and they grab their brooms, break out their towels, and although they might have to say “Set of four. Go!” They get on all fours wiping up the sweat from the sprints they sent their team on, and unbeknownst to their players then, for some reason they can’t figure out yet, even though their coach drives them crazy, they have this urge to want to run faster for him, because of what they see, and all the pine needles they never will.

The post Leaders Grab A Broom appeared first on Lead Love Elevate.

By Steven Andrew Schultz

The bathroom at the Gerald Ford International Airport in Michigan sought more feedback from me than the company I’ve worked for the last fourteens years ever has. As you exit the restroom there is a color-coated sign I’ve never seen anywhere before with three buttons at the bottom. The sign asked: How satisfied are you with the cleanliness of this restroom today? There is a green button with a smiley face, a yellow flat face, and a red sad face. It’s created by www.feedbacknow.com  and gives instant data to the airport staff and communicates to me that the airport cares about my customer experience. My second thought was: I wish companies and organizations sought feedback like this not just from customers experience, but from their employees working experience.  

I walked out, impressed, but also saddened, as never once, in my entire career, have any of my bosses ever sought my satisfaction with the cleanliness of where I work, or the friendliness, or welcomeness, or safeness, effectiveness, or any “ness” word you want. I’ve never been asked: Is there anything you need? What can we do better? How can we serve you? Or any other form of earnest feedback seeking that would show a modicum of care.

I often get emails from companies I have purchased products or services from. Just yesterday a company called to see how the AC repair service was. I recently received an email from Hoag Hospital to see how my experience at their Urgent Care facility went. Also, some companies I purchased some clothes from want to know how I am enjoying the product and the buying process. Why isn’t leadership in every organization also seeking this kind of data from their employees about the effectiveness of their leadership?  

My grandpa Hill used to say to me: “If you see something wrong, see to it that it’s made right.” Too often, executives aren’t able to make things right because they refuse to see anything wrong in how they’re leading. When I started coaching high school basketball when I was nineteen years old, I gave anonymous feedback surveys to all my players to see what their experience was like and how I could be a better coach next year. When I started teaching English classes at the high school, I continued that tradition with my students. When a veteran teacher found out, he asked why I would do such a thing and recommended I stop. When I asked what’s wrong with it? He replied, “Teenagers can be so blunt and brutal. That stuff hurts. I don’t want to hear any of that?” I replied, “Yes, but how else do we get better?” He said, “I’m fine the way I am” and he walked away.  

Praise makes us feel better, but critique makes us become better. In my feedback forms there was mostly praise, but also, I asked specific questions to garner feedback on ways I could be better. A big part of growth is learning what to listen to and what to ignore. Some people are just rude, yes, but the truth only hurts because we aren’t used to hearing it. And any winning culture seeks the truth. Instead of leaders thinking it will hurt to hear this, think about how your people have been hurting every day because you haven’t heard and keep doing behaviors that make their work experience red button sad face.

A few years into teaching I realized my feedback survey was coming too late. I was giving it the last week of school. While that helped me reflect and reform things for the next school year, it did nothing for the students who just spent a year in my class. So, I started giving out the surveys at the end of the first semester so I could make adjustments in the middle of the year and have a blue mailbox in my classroom where students can drop an anonymous note any time for ways they think I can improve my teaching/leading of them. Now just because one student or one employee has a complaint or makes a suggestion doesn’t mean you need to make major changes, but it is worth at least considering. The key is not to take it personally, but see it as an opportunity to become a better person. The better person you are, the better leader you are.

The truth of leadership is this:

1.       Bad leaders ignore all feedback.

2.       Good leaders listen to feedback.

3.       Loving leaders seek feedback.

I had a principal once who told me he had his wife read all his end of the year evaluations he has his staff do and remove any negative comments so when he reads them, he only reads positive praise. I asked, “So, the point of your survey is not to improve yourself but to flatter yourself?” He responded, “Why would I want to read negative comments?”  I said, “It’s not a negative comment if you become better from it. Feedback that shows how you can improve and thus makes this organization more prosperous because your employees are happier is a positive comment. By having your wife remove all constructive feedback, you can’t begin construction on building something better. Both you and your people are hurting by your fear of feedback that might momentarily sting. Look at it like a shot at the doctor’s office. It hurts for a few seconds, but makes you stronger forever. Take a shot and start seeking out constructive feedback so construction can begin on becoming better. That’s not negative, but always positive.” I keep a hard hat and a fake toy shot on my desk to remind me to seek feedback and sometimes have to give feedback that momentarily hurts, but makes me and them healthier long-term and remind me that there can be no construction to build better without seeking constructive feedback first.

All too often bosses look at feedback as something they give, instead of something they should be receiving. Feedback is not just what you say, but what you seek. When I was in college, I mailed a three page letter to a former high school basketball coach of mine. I was letting him know I had started coaching and seeing the other side opened my eyes. The first two pages were praising him and thanking him. Half of the third page was some things he did that I did not like, that hurt me instead of helping me, and how I hope he could make it better for his future teams. He ripped off that half page with my feedback and mailed the torn half page back to me with the message: next time you write to me I only want the praise. Throw this part away.”

We never spoke again after that and a few years later we both applied for the same job. I got it and he did not, and he has been bitter towards me ever since. Imagine if one of his players said to their coach when their coach was telling them how to get better: “I only want to hear praise, throw the rest away.” Most bosses don’t have the Gerald Ford Airport Feedbacknow mindset and thus they don’t grow. I had a CEO hire me once to do some leadership coaching for him because his team was in disarray and morale was low and he could not figure out why. He told me he was doing the things he always had done that used to work but his employees weren’t really responding to him anymore and the tension was rising.

The first thing I did after listening to his perspective on what he thought the situation was and what his goals were was to meet with his team without him in the room. He asked, “Why can’t I be in the room?” I said, because you are their boss and so they won’t be open and honest with what their issues are if you are in the room. You have to be open to the feedback I will bring you, but I can’t bring you the truth if you are in the room. He agreed.

After about an hour with his team, trust had been built and people really started opening up and breakthroughs were being made.  Evidently, unbeknownst to me, the boss has been listening in behind the conference room door and burst into the room and started ripping into an employee who was in the middle of explaining how his feelings were hurt by something the boss had said to him in public and how he kept regularly mocking him in front of the whole team going on two weeks now. The boss, in a rage of defensiveness, starts ripping into this guy, and cussing out other people and yelling at them that he doesn’t need to change, but they need to change. He just ruined all the gains I made in starting to heal his team. What he didn’t understand, is acknowledging and listening to someone’s feelings is not the same as endorsing or agreeing to them. But only after someone feels heard, can they heal.

The work I had been doing was just sabotaged and ruined. The CEO and I met privately after his broken promise to me by coming into the room and I told him how his behavior was out of line and not only hurting his team but eroding any efforts of mine to help him. He yelled at me, “I didn’t hire you so you can go in there and have my team tell me that I am the problem. I sent you in there so you could tell them that they were the problem.” Needless to say, there was no helping this guy or his poor team. He, like far too many CEOs, suffer from not having a CFO Chief Feedback Officer.

Any leadership team that doesn’t have a Chief Feedback Officer is not serious about building a better organization, but only wants obedient workers who will do what they’re told and not question power. That kind of mindset might build the ego of the CEO, but it won’t build the business into something better. You can’t neglect the voice of your people and claim you care you about your people. The first act of leadership is listening. The highest act of leadership is loving those you lead. Mister Rogers once said, “Listening is where love begins.” In all the ways you will fail as a leader (and we all have failure points) never let it be a failure to show those you lead that you love them. Lead by listening. Seek out their feedback. Put on your hard hat and be ready for construction and remember the power of taking a shot (Doctor’s kind). If you don’t listen to them, why should they listen to you? Be better than a bathroom. 

The post Be Better Than A Bathroom appeared first on Lead Love Elevate.

By: Steven Andrew Schultz

Love does not have prerequisites. Only the spiritual superheroes abide by this unconditional standard of loving. If you’re blessed to meet one, their light they left in you shines brighter the darker is gets around you. These sages are like the nightlights of our youth, where your little body was scared of the dark but that tiny light in the corner of the bedroom assuaged your fears enough to know, that somehow, as long as that light stayed on until you closed your eyes, you were protected from the monsters of your nightmares, and it was safe to sleep and dance with your dreams. As I sit in my empty classroom, the one the kind king only entered through the Zoom of a computer, my tears pour as I scroll through the very screen where our relationship existed and re-read every word he wrote that I can retrieve from Canvas.  

It’s been a dark week because one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever known has died. I don’t use the word genius haphazardly, but Gavin Geoffrey Monson was a genius. He was only seventeen years old and had just embarked on his senior year of high school. I met the man when he was a sophomore in my English Language Arts class. It was the first full year of covid lockdowns, and our school district set up a convoluted system where we were to teach students both in-person and online simultaneously. Each class averaged 3-6 live bodies in the room with thirty more on a zoom screen. Almost all their faces and voices I would never see or hear because in addition to this two-fold system, the school district also said teenagers didn’t have to show their face or participate.

This abyss of darkness I began to dread and came close to quitting teaching because it was such a miserable experience.  Go try talking to someone who has turned their back to you and see if you can continue talking for even a couple minutes. Now imagine you have a 90-minute class and 99% of the students are faceless, voiceless, black screens who don’t answer questions. I mean, try teaching and not even having non-verbal facial expressions to get feedback from to know if the audience is even connecting with you. This was the nightmare that politicians created but my saving grace was each class had a nightlight – those couple kids who turned their screens on or attended in-person and talked to me. Gavin was one of those nightlights who saved me from the darkness in more than just the literal sense.

You start thinking to yourself: why should I even care when they don’t? Why put effort into crafting a lesson when most are watching movies, playing video games, or literally not even in the room once they logged in? Is this even worth continuing? These are some of the questions that plagued me and many of my teaching peers during the Covid online learning era. And not only are you dealing with this dreaded experience of dark screens, but a political movement started across the country to vilify and attack teachers because somehow, we are evil and not doing enough? The teacher vilification has only intensified today to where we now have a national teacher shortage and these same political attackers who drove experts out of education have now dumbed-down the nation further by eliminating any need for a college degree to be hired as a teacher. But it would be those few nightlights that gave me my reason to continue. I remember often saying to myself: well, at least I’ll get to interact with Gavin today.

When reading novels over zoom and every time you call on some black screen to read, they type in the group chat “my microphone is broken” or don’t respond at all, so you keep reading yourself to an empty audience. But when Gavin was there, he was the lifejacket that kept me from drowning, and he had the most amazing reading voice. He would do different voices for each character, and he understood that punction meant pauses. I used to tell him he should join theater because he was so funny and had such strong stage presence. And when I tell you he was funny, I don’t mean class clown funny, but intelligent, high humor hilarious funny. Laughter that also makes you think and go: Wow! That was genius! That would become a regular thought after listening to Gavin talk or reading something Gavin wrote: Wow! That was genius!

So, on Monday, my first day back at school after missing two weeks after finally getting sick with Covid-19 after two years of escaping it, you can imagine the punch to my heart, when the school psychologist asked me to step outside my classroom at the start of third period. Class was actually being held in the cafeteria because my classroom had a rat inside it they hadn’t been able to trap yet. The class hadn’t seen me in two weeks, but they would have to wait while I momentarily went outside the door. In fourteen years of teaching, I never had the school psych pull me outside of class. When I got outside, she and one of our assistant principals were standing with this sullen look on their faces. I knew my mom, who lives in Michigan, had gone to the Emergency Room the night before after getting really sick with Covid and I feared they were about to break some tragic news to me about my mother.  

The first words she spoke: “One of your former students has died.” And then she said the name: Gavin Monson.

Gavin’s face immediately became clear in my head. I said, “Are you sure? Can’t someone go check on him?”  

She said, “It has been confirmed.”

“But, for sure he is dead? Can’t someone check on him? It can’t be Gavin. Are you sure?” Were the words that came out of me.

And then I just stood there, leaned my hand against the cafeteria wall to keep myself from falling down. And, for some reason, I just started telling random facts about Gavin to the psych and assistant principal. They nodded with compassion.

You never want any person to die, but Gavin was going to change the world, he had the light, and was a sweetheart soul who seemed so pure that his love was destined to deliver the world its smile. He had the light; how could it be out? He was someone I was certain was going to lead the world into a more loving practice. One of those names future students would study in History books. Gavin was Neo, the one to restore us from the Matrix of our materialistic, nihilistic society. I could not comprehend this news. How could the hero be dead before the story even got going? It would be like Luke Skywalker dying in the first 17 minutes of Star Wars.

Like I said before, Gavin was brilliant. He had one of the highest vocabularies of any student I ever had. Coupled with this profound depth of thought and immense empathy for the suffering of others, and a common thread in his writing was how he valued kindness and wanted to make the world a more loving place. And spending any amount of time with him, you knew he had the power to do it. I would later learn talking to other teachers who had him, that they too, saw the greatness and goodness in him and thought he would become a world-changer. Gavin was a once-in-a-generation skill set of wit, humor, charm, intelligence, creativity, speaking ability, and a heart big enough to fit the whole world. But when you love the whole world, the world can puncture a hole in your heart. In an unloving world, the most loving suffer the most. I knew Gavin was a Gold Medalist in love, I didn’t know he was suffering inside.    

After trying to process this soul shattering news, and continuing to tell them random things about Gavin, they respectfully gave their condolences and walked away to notify the next of Gavin’s former teachers on their list, and I had to walk back into a crowd of kids. I don’t know if there is any other job in the world other than maybe a doctor, where you’re told someone you love and cared for just died and then are expected to just go back on stage and entertain and enlighten a live audience of 40 teenagers and somehow still perform.

The class was loud, and I was silent. I just sat there, leaning against the cold steel of the buffet stand that usually is used to slide food trays across and I could only look down. No strength to keep my head up and make eye contact with any of those students. This was my second former student dead in the span of a year, and I didn’t know if I could handle this anymore. Before the start of last school year, I was at the funeral of beautiful Sophia who should have been starting her senior year; but instead, I was watching her being buried into the ground. I knew she was struggling with mental health for years; I knew nothing of Gavin’s, other than he mentioned how the cruelness and corruption of our culture and divisiveness of politics that cut up communities and divided families, distressed him gravely, but his mission was to make the world a more loving place. So, I sat there, in that cafeteria classroom, trying to speak but failing each time after uttering one word, twisting my thumbs, trying to compose myself. I just kept picturing this fallen king, someone who had given me so much light and I struggled to understand if he ever saw his own vibrant goodness.

A couple minutes ticked by, and the class became a library as they could tell something was not right with me. The student sitting directly in front of me, whom I have only known for a couple weeks, was the first face I saw. His name is also Gavin. I broke the news to the class that I was just told one of my former students had died. And then, somehow, managed to transition to the planned lesson for that day.

I would have to put my tears in storage to be accessed later. And later, I would cry for two reasons. Right before the start of 5^th period, two periods after I got the news of Gavin, my sister-in-law called me in tears to tell me my mom having covid was the least of her worries because my mom had been diagnosed with terminal, non-alcoholic liver disease and she wasn’t sure how much longer my mom had to live and was vomiting up blood. Somehow, I taught two more classes and then got home and opened up Canvas and started retrieving all of Gavin’s work from my class to print out and give to his brother. I came across two videos Gavin made, and the tears broke through like a decrepit dam giving way.

As I watched, I laughed, which made me cry even harder realizing what a precious present this world was never going to get to unwrap. I kept replaying the two videos, somehow keeping him alive, back on my computer screen, like how I knew him three years earlier. I wanted to bust through that screen, and hug him and hold him, protect him, and remind him how needed he was. I wanted to find a way to rewind time and go to him and retrieve him from this darkness and be the light for my nightlight. I just couldn’t fathom how someone who was so good, could be gone?

The next day some of Gavin’s classmates organized a vigil for him near the track where he used to run. There were a lot of students there. I didn’t know Gavin knew so many people. Gavin’s freshmen English teacher, Mrs. Patton, sent me a handwritten goal sheet Gavin made where he wrote by his senior year he wanted to become friends with everyone in the school. As I looked around as the crowd of people continued to expand, I thought goal accomplished. How could anyone not want to be this guys friend?

The next day I attended a School Board debate. I was in the crowd and so were some of my students because I offered extra credit for them to come watch democracy in action. As I was there, someone started chastising me and was really mean and nasty to me. I just wished the guy well and responded with kindness rather than in-kind. I was seated two seats next to this man who just berated me, and I just kept thinking of Gavin who wrote in detail how much our political landscape of mean tweets, name-calling, and cruel attacks on people damaged his heart. He didn’t understand the non-Christ-like behavior from people who claim to be Christians, and he wrote how all this divide really got him down. Gavin always talked about being kind to unkind people and so I stayed kind to the man next to me. I totally empathize with Gavin’s disgust and pain from people’s unloving behavior. Every time I think of him, I think of how I can be more loving and kind.

Today was his funeral. I sat in between Gavin’s junior and senior English teacher (He had the same teacher two years in a row – Mrs. Attreed, who adores him) and Alex’s (Gavin’s twin brother) senior English teacher, Mrs. Lawler – who loves Alex. I also taught Alex during my first ever Summer School teaching experience the summer directly after I taught Gavin. Mrs. Attreed asked how I was doing, and I said, “Throughout the week, at the most random times, I’ll picture Gavin’s face or think of something he wrote, and I’ll just start crying.” And as I said those words to her, I started crying and both Alex and Gavin’s teachers started hugging me.

Earlier in the week, late at night, something was nudging at me to return to the school and visit Gavin’s candle vigil that I attended earlier in the day. I’m not sure what good would be done from going back there, but I listened and drove over. Expecting no one to be there this late, I thought I’d just read what people wrote on his posters. To my surprise and blessing, a woman was there and said, “Aren’t you Mr. Schultz?” As a teacher and coach, you never know what kind of energy that’s going to come next when you are asked that. Is it some crazed parent mad about a bad grade or still furious their son spent the games on the bench?  But this was the face of an angel. It was Gavin’s aunt, Julie Carr, and his uncle, Jeff Carr. I taught their son, too. His name is Ethan and I had him the year Covid hit. Friday the 13^th in March of Ethan’s sophomore year was the last time Ethan and all his classmates would be in my classroom as we went into a two-week lockdown that would last months. During Ethan’s senior year when life returned to campus, Ethan would return to visit me often, even if it as just a quick hello. I guess goodness runs in the DNA of this family.

Ethan’s parents put him on facetime and we got to chat and we watched one of Gavin’s videos he made for my class. I told Ethan’s father about how Gavin saved me through the dreaded dark screen saga and how I probably wouldn’t still be teaching had I not had Gavin in my class. I told them some stories of Gavin and they shared too. Whatever that nudge was that told me to drive to the school, I’m so glad it came because Jeff and Julie had such good energy and were friendly and kind and absorbing their light and talking about Gavin together, and seeing Ethan again, made me feel not so lost and void of light.

At the funeral, Jeff Carr gave the most beautiful eulogy for Gavin. In the middle of his speech, Mr. Carr mentioned me and the story I shared with him how it was Gavin’s light that got me through the year. I started crying hard wishing I, or someone, could have been the light Gavin needed to get through his. And once again, both Alex and Gavin’s teachers wrapped their arms around me, and I just felt so bad that somebody so beautiful was gone so prematurely. I used to get this strange feeling like I was in the presence of a deity when Gavin was on the screen. When I say he had the light, I mean, he was so loving and sweet, he seemed to literally glow.

Way too many princes and princesses are not growing up to be kings and queens. When are we going to stop allowing our teenagers to become tombstones? Gavin was a prince that should have been king, but the cruelty of the culture killed him before he could be fitted for his crown. I guess someone with that big of a brain and a heart that huge, would hurt so much heavier than the rest of us. When your heart is strong enough to love the whole world, it can become wounded so severely that it wants to escape from the world. I know the feeling. I’ve wanted to exit too.

We didn’t deserve a heart as pure as Gavin’s and a mind as wise, but Gavin deserved a culture where kindness was king and where people valued values more than they do valuables. Gavin talked a lot about injustice, and he would often write about wanting to right what was wrong with a culture that divided families and cared more about material items than meaningful moments.

He wrote once that the one of the most important pieces of information of his life he got from his grandpa who told him, “There is nothing more important than being nice. It doesn’t matter if you have a great salary or a fast car. The only thing that truly matters is being kind.”

Gavin said that the meaning to life is “for you to be genuine and loving to everyone you meet. Be the light of the world and everyone will shine brighter. It doesn’t take much to create positivity. A simple, kind, email or a caring call can make all the difference in someone’s day. The demand for unexpected kindness is on the rise and it’s our job to step up and look out for each other.”

I found an email I sent to him. I wrote: “I hope you had a happy birthday, Gavin. You are legit an amazing talent. You did the best reading I’ve ever heard. But what you showed was confidence, care, creativity, and flair for performance. The artist is alive in you. Keep shinning your light and carry the fire. I hope you see you take a more dominant role in contributing to our class. You matter!”

Gavin thanked me for my kind words and said he was grateful. My last email to him was a year later (his junior year), on March 10 2:57pm, his last birthday. I simply wrote, “Happy birthday”

I wish I would have written more.

Gavin wrote back: “Thank you.”

Those two words were the final two words I would receive from Gavin. But it’s really me who should be thanking him. This is what I’m trying to do now by writing this tribute to him.

Each year I have my students create a Life Logo. A symbol that represents the core of who they are. What we call “magma” and then they create a values chart that are the guiding words of their choosing that will help them turn their magma into lava and leave the world a better place. Gavin created a logo of a smiley face with earth behind it. He said the world is missing its smile and his mission is to make as many people as he can smile.

Gavin wrote: “Life without love is life without meaning, so if you aren’t loving, you aren’t living. The best trade deal in the world is by being kind to others and watching them light up inside. My goal each week is to give 20 compliments. Sometimes when I reach it, I just double it. I want to have a superpower that makes the world a better place. Mine is being kind to everyone.”

One of my favorite movies is narrated by Tom Hanks and is called Radio Flyer. It about two brothers who are dealing with the tumult of the divorce of their parents. This movie came out in the early 1990’s when divorce became the new fad in American culture. Being a child of divorced parents myself, and being a big brother, and also always wanting to fly, the film resonated with me. It’s a sad but heart-warming tale of two brothers who bond together, with their dad gone and their mother away having to work a lot, they start building an airplane in their backyard.

Not to spoil the movie for you, but the brothers build their airplane, and Bobby, the little brother, flies away from home in his homemade airplane to escape the pain of the mean people and sends postcards back to his brother and mother of all the places he visits around the world spreading his smile by giving others theirs. I can see Gavin in his homemade airplane right now, with Jesus as his wingman, sending postcards of love back to Alex and mom and dad, step-parents, siblings, his grandma and grandpa he lived with, and his whole extended family, and the Blake family, who he also considered family.

Gavin once told me about and wrote about an airplane he and Alex were building in his backyard with the friend he looked up to the most, Logan Blake. Gavin is the only student I ever had that told me he was building his own airplane and the only student who I believed had the capacity to achieve flight. Gavin spoke about Logan in glowing terms. Logan is older and Gavin missed him terribly when he left for the military. When Gavin spoke of Logan, I had no idea who Logan was. A couple years later I would get the blessing of teaching Logan’s little brother, Bryce. I never made the connection until Bryce’s dad, Ritchie, just sent me an email showing the connection. Ritchie’s son Bryce was another nightlight, someone I started every day with. Bryce was first to the door of his class every morning and always said, “Good morning, Mr. Schultz. How are you?” And Bryce asked it in the rare way where he really cared to know the answer. I spent all last year suffering from a sleep disease where I was averaging one-two hours of sleep per night. Many mornings I could literally barely walk, but Bryce’s good morning was the spark I needed to do the best I could for those students of mine. These intertwined families of the Carr’s, Monson’s, and Blake’s produced some of the most genuinely kind and loving young men I have ever taught. I weep for the loss they must be grappling with.

In that movie Radio Flyer, where the brothers build an airplane out of a Radio Flyer red wagon, as joyous as it is that one brother takes flight, the other brother is left behind without ever seeing his beloved brother again. And as much as I want to honor Gavin, I must also lift up his brother Alex, whose grief and sorrow one cannot comprehend. I love Alex, too. And I love Ethan and I love Gavin. Ethan and Alex are still here, and we must do all we can to make sure they stay here and choose life, even when the pain seems insurmountable.  

God blessed me with both Monson twins. One I got to be transformed by through a computer screen, the other I got to meet in person over a short time in the summer. I had never taught summer school before, and I thought it would be an exciting experience having actual people in my classroom again. But what I didn’t consider was, it would be people who had been isolated at home for almost a year and half. They had lost all social skills, and most were silent. It felt like those dreaded zoom meetings where you say, “You’re on mute” but this summer they stayed quiet. One of the special ones was a kid named Alex, which at first I did not know was Gavin’s twin brother until he sent me an email asking is he could miss a week of class to go on a trip with his dad and brother and informed me he was Gavin’s twin.

The school has a strict absent policy for summer school students since each class is five hours long (each day being equivalent to a week of school) and if you miss more than three days the teacher can drop you. Alex emailed me asking if he could go on the family trip but would stay behind if it would cause him to get dropped. I told him I would protect him from the school dropping him and that family time is most important. I also wrote, “Tell Gavin I said hello please. He is terrific! I only wish I could have had him in-person. He is funny and creative, and a good-hearted dude.”

There would be one more trip the second semester of summer school and I let Alex go on that too. Which meant less time for me to get to bond with Alex but more time for Alex to be with his brother and dad, and I knew from Gavin’s writings how much he savored time with his dad. Looking back now. I am so grateful I chose to bend the rules to put a family first.

Today, after the funeral, as Ethan and I hugged, Alex came up to me and said, “I’m not sure if you remember me, but I had you in summer school.”

I pulled Alex in for a hug too and said, “Of course I remember you. You have the fire, just like your brother.”

To my surprise, Alex understood the reference and he proclaimed, “I read The Road!”

I said, “You read The Road? That’s a heavy book.”

Alex said, “Yes. After you talked about it in class I went and got it and read it.”

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is the first book I read that made me cry. I read it in college. The novel takes place in an America where civilization has totally collapsed due to either a nuclear war or environmental catastrophe. There is no light anywhere, just a constant fog of grey and dirt. Everyone has lost their morals, and many have even turned to cannibalism. There is a father and young son traveling down a road trying to get to the ocean in hopes some civilization might still be alive. In a world devoid of light and love, the father keeps telling his son they are on an important mission of “carrying the fire” down the road. The father is dying and doesn’t know how much longer he will be able to stay with his son. He sees his boy as the last resemblance of God. His son is still pure and innocent and only sees good in people and thus only wishes to do good to people. The father keeps telling his son they are the “good guys” and his son’s most important mission is to “carry the fire” and give the light (God’s love) to other good people when he finds them, so love can spread again in the world. The metaphor of “carrying the fire” represents the invisible light inside each of us that represents our Godly goodness, morals, and pure, childlike love. It’s like being a nightlight, something Gavin, Alex, Ethan, and Bryce all are.

The Road is a Pulitzer Prize winning book, a level of reading most adults cannot handle and Alex read it on his own, when he was fifteen because his summer school teacher he had for a few weeks mentioned it once and told the class to “carry the fire.” I was stunned. I guess genius and goodness run in the family. I thought of Star Wars when Luke learns he has a sibling who also is strong in “The Force.” I looked into Alex’s eyes, and here he was, now experiencing his real-life “Road” to walk without his brother and yet I could still see the fire (Godly goodness) in him. I handed him his brother’s writings and gave Ethan a copy of something Gavin wrote about him.

As I hugged Alex one more time, I realized as sad as I am Gavin is gone, Alex is still here and I want him to be here for a full lifespan. We all must do all we can so this young man can see the light in him, the genius in him, the goodness in him, that we all see. It made me think of the concept of funerals in our culture. Gavin must have had a thousand people in that church. I’ve always wished that part of our culture was funerals for the living. Instead of people coming from all over to speak about the dead, a day is picked and planned where people come from all over to speak about the living and tell them how important they are to them and all the ways they are loved and matter. Our lives matter most in the moments we let others know how much their lives matter. How much more loving of a world would we have, if this ritual was part of our ethos? How may lives would be elevated and saved if we attended the funerals for the living?  

There is something about those all-loving sages who light up the world, they seem to be blind to their own greatness. I want Gavin to know, and I want Alex to know, they each have the light. What’s most valuable is invisible. The ones with the light see to it that love is seen by carrying the fire to illuminate others. I think back to what Gavin wrote, “The best trade deal in the world is by being kind to others and watching them light up inside.  I want to have a superpower that makes the world a better place. Mine is being kind to everyone.”

Well, Gavin is a superhero in my eyes. He was a kind king. One who didn’t need superpowers to fly because be built his own airplane. I see him up there, flying around, giving out his twenty compliments, using his potato launcher to knock down any bad guys, asking those poignant questions, and telling those stories, delivering them in a way only he can, that makes you laugh and think. I just wish I could log on one more time and see his smile on my screen. How could it be that someone who changed my life by turning his light on when most around him kept their screens dark, ended up logging off too? Maybe that’s the perfect metaphor of our current culture, a zoom room full of dark, muted, apathetic screens, and after a while, when you see so much darkness in the world, your wonder if keeping your one little light on even makes a difference and so you turn your light off. I know I’ve thought it. But I also know one little light can make a difference because I met Gavin Monson.  

Gavin wrote once about if he could get one more day with someone he loved who was gone, what that perfect day would be like. He mentioned it would be just being in the moment with people he loved. He referenced the movie Ferris Bueller, and described a type of day like that where he and his brother and Logan are all hanging out again, cruising around, eating good food, completing their airplane and taking off. I wish I could get another day with Gavin and convince him to stay and show him how so many more days like that would be possible in his future.   

Even though I never got to hug Gavin, I hope Alex and I have more hugs in our future and we can discuss more books we’ve read or just listen to what’s in his mind or on his heart. As great as Gavin was, Alex and Ethan are great too. Maybe one day we will build something together, maybe a multiple seat airplane and leave a seat open for Gavin, or cruise down the road, or even if I never see them again, I want them to know I’m here if they need it and will be rooting for them as they walk their road, carrying the fire I’ve always seen in them and I hope they can see in themselves.

Before I left the funeral, I tapped Ethan and Alex on their hearts with my hand and said goodbye. I wrote once about a fictional world where instead of handshakes people literally touch their heart with their hand and then touch your heart when saying hello or goodbye. It’s a sign of respect and a reminder that even though we don’t all share the same type of blood, all our blood comes from the same all-loving God and so we must love all. As Gavin said, “We must make it the goal to love everyone.”

In that same fictional world I created, when people put their hand to their heart and then touch yours, a literal piece of their heart gets fused with yours and heals any emotional wound you’re suffering with. Every time you give someone else a piece of your heart, their heart regenerates and yours grows back bigger. So, each time you give your heart away, you’re able to give more of your heart away tomorrow to more people because your capacity to love increases every time you show love. I wish that fictional world was real so Gavin would still be here, but I do know that a piece of Gavin’s heart is fused with mine and he made my heart grow bigger. I know this because mine hurts so much right now.

Just a few weeks ago a student asked me what I think happens when we die. I asked him if he had ever been on a walk before in the woods and explained when someone walks ahead of you on the trail, the further ahead they get, the harder it becomes to see them, and eventually the sight of their body vanishes and all you can see are the trees and their footprints on the trail. I think life and death are like that. A transfer of energy. After some time, you won’t even be able to see the imprint of the sole of their shoes on the trail, but their soul becomes part of the soil and we live on everywhere our love was given. We are really everlasting Love being housed in temporary bodies. The breadth of our love continues after our last breath. I used to have a poem called Lamplighter written in chalk on the brick wall in my old classroom that read:

“He has taken his bright candle and is gone into another room I cannot find,

But anyone can still see him, by all the little lights he left behind.”

I can still see Gavin.

I then asked the student, have you ever been to a play before? And he said, “yes.”

I asked, “What happens at the end of the play? He said, “They all come back on stage and people clap.”

I said, “That is what I think after death is like. Every person that played a role in our life joins us on stage, and we grab each other’s hands, take a bow, and receive perpetual applause. Even the villains of the play get applause because they showed the heroes how to discover their goodness in the face of bad; how to do right by those who did them wrong.”

My student smiled and said, ‘That’s deep. I like that.”

So, take your bow, Gavin, because we are all applauding for all the good you did in our lives. All your family and friends will hold your hand again and join you on the stage you’re currently holding the hand of Jesus. Gavin once wrote, “Whatever happens after death, I know I will be at peace because I kept choosing to be kind.”    

At night, as the light of stars streak across the sky, I’ll picture Gavin, in his homemade airplane, soaring through heaven, praying for the same thing he yearned for while on Earth: that we would be more kind, generous, and loving. 

Gavin once said he wants to be a superhero and his superpower is kindness. The kind king, who was my superhero, flew into my heart in a plane he made in the backyard of the friend he looked up to…and now, I’m left, looking up and applauding. Even though I randomly start crying when I picture his face, I’ll make sure there is still a smile on mine, because that is Gavin’s legacy, his lava. We are all closer to touching heaven because of the layer of love he left, elevating us all. 

It’s now 6:37AM Sunday morning and I started writing this ode to Gavin yesterday night. Gavin once told me how exciting it was when you’re so engrossed in the moment creating something, that you stay up all night and don’t sleep until the next day. Well, I followed your lead and built all the way into a new day with a new creation. I didn’t build a plane, but I hope this prose flies into the hearts of people and reminds them to love everyone more, so we can reach your goal of showing the world how to smile.

As I click save on this word document, I think how Gavin saved my career. I seriously think if it wasn’t for him and the other few nightlights, I would have let the darkness defeat me. A day after Gavin’s death, a former student visited me and told me he was having mad mental health issues lately but started putting the lessons from my class into play and it saved his life. The second day after Gavin’s death, a former student emailed me and wanted me to know that last year she was suicidal, but the lessons from my class saved her life and she wanted to thank me. Neither of those two students would have met me had I not met Gavin Monson. His light guided me through the darkest road of my professional life and his light also guided those two students back to life. When you give your light to someone you don’t just elevate one, you elevate everyone that person elevates too. Both those students who said they were saved from my class were in my class the year after Gavin was in mine. I wish Gavin was still here, but his impact is immortal, and he lives everywhere his light shines.

Love withheld perishes, but love given remains. Gavin remains.

Our body is ephemeral, but our impact can be immortal. Gavin has reached immortality. As I am about to shut this computer down and turn off the lights, I know the nightlight in the hallway will automatically turn on when I do. From now on, I’ll always think of Gavin, our nightlight, whose love has defeated death, and when I talk to God about the gift He gave me in meeting a kind king who flew his own plane, his twin brother Alex, cousin Ethan, best friend’s younger brother Bryce, I will tell God the final words Gavin Monson ever said to me: Thank You. 

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Going by the pen name of Regina Phalange on Boredpanda.com even has all 99 Magna Doodle messages on display for those diehard Friends fans that are curious. But, in my freshmen English class at Fountain Valley High School, there is only one Magna Doodle message that matters to me, and it was written by a one student of mine to another. 

A few months before this magic Magna Doodle moment took place, I had told my students they weren’t allowed to draw on mine anymore after there was an incident where the comedian of the class, Harrison, had drawn this beautiful looking forest, except one of the trees wasn’t a tree, but a giant male body part. As I breached the huddle of hyenas surrounding Mr. van Gogh’s desk, he looked up to me in embarrassment as the whole class hushed to see how I would react. As is with the thousands of tiny decisions teachers have to make weekly, I had less than a second to decide if I would scorn him or show him a new vision for his life. 

As I took in this stunning landscape Harrison had drawn on my prop from Friends, I was moved by how refined it looked, minus his anatomy tree. As the class held their breath, I complimented Harrison and told him that he was an artist. I said he had the rare ability to always make the class laugh with his quick wit and charm, and that one day I knew I would see him on stage either performing standup, acting, or presenting his drawings. Then I mentioned how as an artist, he also has a responsibility to know his audience and venue and since the Magna Doodle was my property and not his, he should have asked permission to use it and not draw anything that would be inappropriate for the class. He nodded and looked relieved I didn’t shame him but also I could see a new sparkle in his eye as he began to download the software of artist I just gave to him in front of all his peers.

That night I went out and bought him his own Magna Doodle and the next day had a one-on-one talk about proper behavior in a class and he assured me it would never happen again and then I gave him the gift and told him it was a gift having him in my class and encouraged him to keep drawing and do what all artists do: add more beauty to society by showing us what was once only visible to them and the muses. On my birthday, Harrison gave me his Razor scooter, and thanked me for showing him a better a better way and on the Magna Doodle I gave him he wrote three words: I love you. 

No one messed with the Magna Doodle after Harrison’s infamous tree until a few months later when the freshmen quarterback got up out of his seat in the middle of a girl giving a speech, grabbed it off my table, took it back to his desk, and started doodling on it. Now, giving a speech is the number one fear in the world and we have strict guidelines that no one is to do anything that distracts a speaker or make fun of them in any way. Doing so will be an automatic F for them. Now, Lucas is not the type of kid to be mean or rude, and so I let it play out before I said anything to him for doing this in the middle of his classmate’s presentation.

It was a speech that wasn’t going well. She was struggling and the whole class could feel the awkwardness. A few seconds later, Lucas holds up my Magna Doodle and flashes it so she could see it. Lucas sat in the front row and so only the speaker and myself could see what was written on it. Suddenly, this girl who was drowning, started walking on water. A smile appeared in her face, an enthusiasm overcome her cadence, and when she finished there was pride in her eyes and joy beaming in my heart. 

Lucas had risked breaking protocol and getting an F to be a wingman for a student who was struggling. In both cases, with Harrison and Lucas, I knew their hearts and so I didn’t act harshly, as some teachers too tied up in rules instead of relationships might have done. The sad truth is, Lucas is a quarterback and most of his high school “success” will be judged by the touchdowns he completes or the passes he doesn’t, but one of his greatest victories was only meant for one…one girl who was dying on stage and Lucas gave her CPR by daring to doodle.

We have two main maxims in my class: Your Words Create Your World. And: Would You Gold Medal in the Love You Gave Away Today? On that day, Lucas’ words made that girl’s world and mine better. An unlike Friends that has 99 different doodles, in my class, hanging on the wall, there will forever only be one. Six words, written by a Gold Medalist in Love, six words that are a greater victory than anything in any endzone, six words we all should be telling ourselves and each other more often, six words that created a new friend by giving a struggling girl her smile: You are doing great…Keep going!

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By: Steven Andrew Schultz

It was the phone call I had been longing for ever since my aunt Audrey died when I was just an eleven-year-old boy. My uncle Mark (her husband) commented on my Facebook post inviting me to come visit him that summer and I enthusiastically accepted. His final comment was saying he was going to call me to go over dates for our reunion later in the week. I immediately started looking at flights and even went to the garage and got my suitcase cleaned out and ready.

My aunt Audrey was my angel, and my uncle Mark was my idol. They lived in Estes Park, Colorado with my two cousins Rebekah and Brooke and we lived in Fountain Valley, California. Every summer we drove to Colorado and every Thanksgiving or Christmas they came to stay with us in California. It was a beautiful family dynamic until my aunt died after battling Lupus for several years. My uncle would remarry, and the yearly visits ceased once my aunt was deceased. I would see my uncle one more time a few years later when we brought his new wife to California when I was fifteen, but from that point on I would never see him again until this Facebook invitation sparked the hope of another one of his infamous bear hugs.

We would exchange a few handwritten letters over the decades, but mostly sporadic Facebook comments were the extent of our relationship. Losing my aunt became like a double death because I lost my uncle, too. But now, the crushed little boy hidden inside my thirty-six-year-old frame was blossoming back to life like one of those squeeze toys that expand back out to its original shape. After all these years I would see my boyhood hero in just a few weeks and hear his voice in the next day or so. We hadn’t even spoken on the phone all these years, so him telling me he was going to call me was a delight as well.

I slept in that next morning, maybe because a broken piece of my heart was finally at peace. I grabbed my phone and saw the icon for a DM (Direct Message) on Facebook. Still not fully awake, I noticed it was a message from Brooke, my uncle’s daughter. I thought maybe she was reaching out so she could fly home too when I came to visit. I clicked open Facebook to see a message of a totally different kind of homecoming. My cousin informed me that while riding his bicycle last night, my uncle had a brain aneurism and died.

All I could do was stare at my empty suitcase I had brought up from the garage the day earlier. Its emptiness and uselessness were a perfect metaphor for how I felt. I carried it downstairs to the garage. Unbeknownst to me, my roommate was following me down. In the garage I dropped the suitcase and noticed my roommate’s presence. From the paleness of my face, he knew something was wrong. I said, “My uncle is dead!” I collapsed to the cold floor and my roommate Jake picked me up and held me as I cried on his warm, still beating chest.  

Because of Covid restrictions, I could not attend my uncle’s funeral. I watched it on Facebook livestream. I went and got a turkey meal like we used to eat together on Thanksgiving and a piece of his favorite pie: Rhubarb. As I sat there eating, crying, and watching, I clicked back to my DM’s to read our old correspondence. Shockingly, there was a new Facebook message from my uncle. How could a dead guy be sending me a DM? He had sent it a week earlier, but I never noticed the blue circle notification. He was responding to a message I had sent him a couple weeks prior expressing how I was considering running for School Board but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to run an election campaign. I was watching my uncle’s funeral while reading a message from my uncle. Here is part of what he wrote in the DM:

            “Buddy. You are loved and treasured. GO FOR THE SCHOOL BOARD!”

It was the only sentence he put in all caps. He went on to tell me about the work he was doing as a minister with the homeless and how proud he was of his daughters Rebekah and Brooke and how him and I were a lot alike in how we served our communities and invested in peoples lives by leading with love. His finals words were, “I am very proud of you. I love You, Steve! -Mark”

The way I grieved and honored him was to get over my fear and signed the papers to run for school board. Our campaign began a few weeks after his death. There were two spots open with both incumbents running for reelection. Neither had ever lost and always won by high margins. Those next few months as I walked to over ten thousand homes dropping of fliers with my message and vision for a better way to do school, I carried my uncle’s confidence in me to every door.

Even though I had an all-caps DM from Heaven saying, “GO FOR THE SCHOOL BOARD!” I was doubtful on election night and thought maybe at best I could squeak in and get the second-place spot. Instead, I got one of my uncle’s famous bear hugs with the news that not only did I win first place, we swept every single precinct in the two different cities the school district represents and set three records for highest numbers of votes ever, largest margin of victory ever, and the youngest person to ever win.

Nobody knew of my uncle’s death or his encouragement to me to run, and on the day I was sworn in and took the oath of office, in my suit pocket was one of his handwritten letters and tiny pocket knife he gave me when I was a boy.  

On the year anniversary of my uncle’s death, I got another DM, this time from a former student of mine named Charlie with a photo of a dozen handwritten letters he was sending to his coworkers. Charlie was letting me know he was now giving out handwritten letters like I gave to him and all my students and how the lessons I taught him live on. What Charlie didn’t know is the lesson of handwritten letters I got from my uncle, who would write them to all his employees.

Our words create our world. While I didn’t get my reunion, the words Mark Roskam gave me created a union that can’t break. We should add an ellipsis after our death date on tombstones. An ellipsis signifies a long pause and then a continuation. Death is just a pause. Our love continues when our life can’t. My impact on students like Charlie and every child my leadership on the school board will elevate, is also my uncle’s impact. You never only elevate one. You also elevate everyone that each one also impacts. Our impact grants immortality…through love you live forever…my uncle and my aunt, continue…

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By: Steven Andrew Schultz

Ever since I could remember, I have always wanted to fly. Not airplane flying but stretch out your arm and just take off type of flying. It was 1995/1996 and the first Toy Story movie has been released by Pixar. Woody was my little brother’s favorite, he even dressed up as Woody for Halloween, but Buzz was my guy. I wanted to reach infinity and beyond, too. Before any toys of the movie hit toy store shelves, they arrived in kids meals at Burger King and so I had to go to get Buzz. His wings popped out just like the movie.

My dad took my brother Stuart and I to dinner so I could try to get my Buzz Lightyear action figure with real pop out wings action. My brother was hoping to get Woody. Well, as fate would have it, my kids’ meal came with the freaking slinky dog toy and my brother did not get Woody either. My brother got Buzz! I thought he would give him to me because he knew I wanted Buzz the most, but he refused. I offered to give him my fries in exchange and he turned it down. I upped the ante and offered him my milkshake as well, but he still denied me. Now Stuart was a savvy businessman since our first deal we ever made and brothers make a lot of deals. He was such a business shark that we would literally create written contracts so he could not renegotiate deals anymore. I knew I would have to make an offer he couldn’t refuse. I went big and offered him my whole life savings of $5, which was more than that whole kids meal cost. I thought for sure Buzz would be mine. But this guy didn’t budge and I was not happy.

Now little brothers can be annoying, but later that night, my little brother would test my patience. We shared bunk beds. Stuart occupied the top and I had the bottom bunk. Right before we turned off the lights to go to bed, he put his little arm down the top bunk and taunted the Buzz Lightyear toy by waving it in my face and then pressed the button and popped open the wings and before I could grab it, he pulled Buzz back up. I couldn’t believe he was actually sleeping with the thing. This taunting continued for the next couple nights where Stuart would wave Buzz in my face from the top bunk and pop his wings open and then pull him back up until a few nights later when that bird I told you about earlier decided to hatch inside my stomach.

I woke up in agony and I must have looked in such dire straits because my dad took me to the emergency room. I could barely stand. What made matters worse is that my mom was out of town in Colorado taking care of her sister who was literally on her deathbed after many years being ravaged by a disease called Lupus. My last memory before surgery was right before they wheeled me into the operating room they handed me the phone and it was my mom and she was crying. I don’t remember much of what she said except for something about don’t die and I didn’t even know I could die from surgery so I was freaked, but my first memory after waking up from surgery was now being in a hospital room and there were two chairs in the corner of the room next to the door. Sitting in one chair was my little brother Stuart, and to my dismay, sitting in the other chair was my mother. I guess she got on a flight that morning and flew from Colorado back to California and I would find out later, that midflight her baby sister, who I knew as Aunt Audrey, had died. It made me wonder when I heard my mom’s voice over the phone say don’t die that maybe she was really talking to her baby sister and not me.

I was still pretty drowsy from the medicine that knocks you out for surgery and soon noticed every movement hurt. Unlike the less invasive method used today to remove your appendix, back then they cut open your stomach, so recovery was longer and pain more severe. I would spend the next few days in the hospital measuring success based on how far down the hallways I could walk with my walker attached to the IV. But none of that would really bother me because of what my brother did for me.

While my first memory after waking up from surgery was the sight of my brother and mother, it was my second memory that has literally and figuratively stayed with me ever since. After they realized I was awake, my brother got out of his chair, walked over to my hospital bed, and without saying a word, opened up my clenched hand, reached into his pocket, pulled out Buzz Lightyear and put Buzz in my palm and with his little six-year-old hand, closed my ten-year-old hand around Buzz. Doing so accidently pressed Buzz’s wing button and the wings popped open inside our joined hands. That sound of Buzz’s wings popping open was once the noise of brotherly annoyance but was now the sound of the bonds of brotherhood.  

My brother was too little to have the words to speak what he was feeling, but he knew his big brother was in trouble and hurting. Little brothers look up while big brothers lead up. But on that day, my little brother gave me my wings and showed me how to lead up. Through his actions he let me know what all great leaders express to their people: you’re not alone, you’re going to be okay, you matter to me, I see you, I value you, I got you, and most of all, I love you.

Over a quarter century later and that Buzz Lightyear toy from the Burger King kids meal still sits on my desk and the wings still pop open and make that beautiful sound. Every day I look at it and think of when one of the first major painful emergencies of my life knocked me down, the love of my little brother led me up by giving me my wings and I ask myself every day: who can I give wings to today?

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