Who is the teacher and who is the learner?

Day 18

A student of mine was murdered this week, on Wednesday.

No, she was actually assassinated as she prayed at a Buddhist monastery in northern Thailand. I had met the day before with a colleague to finalize plans for this student's independent study on global leadership.

A member of Laotian royalty, Princess Oulayvanh Sethathirath was working to help Laotians in Thailand get a good education--she was getting her own education in leadership here at a U.S. university so she would be prepared for the task when she went home to assume her role. She and her husband, Prince Anouvong Sethathirath IV were both assassinated. Their young sons are left orphans. Thai police have said they believe the couple was targeted for assassination by the Laotian government under a belief they were working against the communist regime in neighboring Laos.

A course in global leadership stands undone and irrelevant in such a world where change is so feared it leads to murder. She was actually teaching me about leadership, not the other way around.

I’m reminded of these words by Martin Luther King, Jr:

“If you have never found something so dear and so precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren't fit to live. You may be thirty-eight years old, as I happen to be, and one day some great principle, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand up for some great issue, some great cause. And you refused to do it because you want to live longer. You're afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you're afraid that somebody will stab you or shoot at you or bomb your house.

So you refuse to take the stand. Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at thirty-eight as you would be at ninety. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announced of an earlier death of the spirit. You died when you refused to stand up for right.”

What do I believe in so deeply that I would die for it?

Comments

[kat]

patti, i'm so sorry to hear about what has happened to your student and her husband. so tragic. and so scary.

and the mlk quote gave me something to think on. thank you.

[liz elayne]

oh this is so sad. the tragedies of the world continue to amaze me every day. i am so sorry to read this.
the quote is so good - thanks for posting this...

[Kara]

patti, I am so sorry about your student. I've thought about this for days now. I just read what you wrote at 37 days. You brought this horror into a place of understanding in my own heart. I don't know how I can always make a difference and sometimes the world feels so hopeless and overwhelming - but this I learned from you just now I can take steps to tame my fears and that will make more of a difference than I can imagine. What would happen if all of us on this planet did this? Imagine that...