Catch this!

I haven’t been back to my high school in over 18 years. I graduated over 24 years ago, but don’t live in the area anymore. My graduating class was 535 people, few of whom I kept in contact with after leaving home for college. The last person from high school I saw, besides my brother, was my senior English teacher.

I had several good teachers in high school. No check that, I think I had several great teachers in high school. They helped open the world of possibilities to me. They helped mold a shy, naïve young man into what I am today. (Fill that in however you want; at least I am not terribly shy anymore.)

Lately I have thought some about what made the difference between teachers I remember well and those I have to check a yearbook to find their names 20 years later. My first assumption was that the better educated were the more memorable. I don’t think that’s the case, though I have no idea how I would begin to go back and compare. Then I think maybe the teachers with whom I shared interest or life experiences are those whom I remember as great teachers. But no, that isn’t it either. In a school of over 2000 students, one doesn’t get to know one’s teachers as well and as personally as in a smaller school. I thought maybe it came down to subject matter; I liked the teachers who taught what I was interested in. That can’t be it, though, because my all time favorite was my senior English teacher, and I really didn’t like English.

I realized something. For at least that year, I did like English. My teacher brought such a passion for her subject to the classroom that one could hardly help from wanting to catch the passion. She was contagious. I caught it.

Christians, let us open our hearts to the passion that God has for us and “catch it.” Even more so, let us become contagious for Christ!