The rough side of the mountain
By Kelvin Kelley/Director of Ministry at Hardin-Simmons University
Saturday mornings were always interesting. Working in the backyard with my sons, cleaning house, or my youngest son’s favorite pastime: looking at my sports scrapbook.
He had many questions about the games, my stats, and my ability to make plays. Eventually he began running around the house and the backyard rehearsing ideas and plays in his mind, “And he runs to the 20, the 15, the 10, touchdown Kelley. What an amazing play!”
Kelvin Kelley
His childhood fantasies evolved to include not just images and ideas about the way his Dad played the game of football, but he picked up additional language, “He could go ALL the way!” This language was gained by watching ESPN and some of his favorite athletes on television.
Child development is invigorating, but even more so to watch your son’s desires patterned after my life. Learning is not merely what we do when we are in a classroom reading a book or listening to someone talk about a subject. Learning is the process of authentically engaging and creatively imagining material in a manner that transforms my life. In the case of my son, it meant being associated with a real person, his Dad, and connected with the events of his life: playing football. What he saw, heard, and experienced was reproduced in his own life. He is a two-time All-American athlete.
History is a process of engaging the reality of the past with the potential of the present. My lived experience influences the way my son sees, understands, feels, and pursues life. Observing the images and ideas of my past, he learns to remember my life and not relive it. He trusts the path on the rough side of the mountain that I have traveled is conducive to his ambitions. He is looking back in order to live forward. Remembering is not re-living the past.
Educating our children is more than curating fossilized artifacts, but it is discovering value in the lessons of where we have been, and not an indictment of the material mistakes of our past. My son learned to imagine a future that was similar but not the same as mind. He wanted more! “There is nothing new under the sun” we are exhorted, but living requires this generational reality echoing into our present. Yes, he must live his own life, but the scrapbook of our past provides a lens for him to imagine a future that enhances our communal way of life.
My son has done more in the game of football than I did, but his goal was set by the benchmark of my own life experiences. He learned to look back and live forward as he climbed the rough side of the mountain. Looking back is vital to human development because it can clarify the reality of today. My Mother knew that I have no equipment for repelling down that mountain; I must continue to climb. Therefore, because she learned how to lean and depend on Jesus, I learned what a friend I have in Jesus, and my son learned peace be still under pressure.
Each step up the rough side of the mountain yields greater success for those coming behind us. She would often say, “Lord don’t move my mountain, but give me the strength to climb. And Lord, don’t take away my stumbling block, but lead me all around.” My hope for my son and my students who must navigate this way is not that life would be easier for them. My hope is that he would remember my past as he reimagines his next steps to include Love, hope and faith. He must sit just a little while longer in his seat and keep focus on what is before him, then he will learn the lesson to take the next step up the rough side of the mountain.
