Early one morning, just after Thanksgiving, a colleague popped his head into my classroom. “Need anything today? Copies? Run something to the office?”
“Not right now, but thanks,” I said. “Has anyone taken you up on it yet?”
“Just Laurie. She needed some help carrying history books. All right, I’ll see ya!”
And then Marc was gone, off to check on someone else. Later that day, when I saw him at a meeting, he had just finished holding pushpins for the librarian who was rushing to complete a bulletin board. When I asked what else he had been up to, he paused before answering. “Well,” Marc said, “Carlo asked me to watch his class while he made some copies, I helped Joanne hang a picture in her office and Melanie just needed a hug. Tough day, I guess.” He shrugged. “We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
This wasn’t a paraprofessional, assigned to assist the staff, or a substitute, looking for something to do. This was a math teacher who set a goal each Advent to connect with every other person in the building—including admins, custodians and all educators— and offer his help, during his own free time, for nothing but the altruistic desire to support his neighbor.
Some people call his offers of assistance the catch-all “random acts of kindness,” but they’re not really random. Marc makes a planned and genuine effort to find each coworker, even carrying around our bright yellow telephone directory card to check names and room numbers to be certain he doesn’t miss anyone. Last year, a secretary, whose small office is at the end of a back hallway, was both surprised and grateful when Marc came by, not because she needed anything but because someone thought of visiting her, simply to say hello. “No one ever comes down here,” she said.
But Marc did. And he went back this year too.
He’s not looking for credit or acknowledgment and would surely downplay his service if he ever read this column. But service it is. In this frenetic time of the year when many seem to be too busy for even a “how are you?” in passing, Marc has found a way to reach out, a way to strengthen the sense of belonging, one we all yearn for, maybe even more so at this time.
On the first Sunday of Advent, as the first purple candle of the balsam wreath flickered on the altar, I listened to the words from Isaiah in the first reading: “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” Those lines, encouraging us to “walk in his paths,” have remained with me over the last few weeks—and maybe remained with Marc as well, for he has chosen to do just that: follow the teachings of Jesus, find joy in the service of others and embody the hope and generosity of the season—all in his own workplace community.
I wish I could say I’ve made as great an effort as my colleague to realize those words of Isaiah, but I haven’t. Time remains though, and even Marc is still hoping to carry a few more books and hold a few more pushpins. In this season of Advent, as we await Jesus’ birth, I wonder what we can accomplish before all four candles are lit.
