You march holding signs in vigils without prayer,
News clips and sound bytes from celebrities on air.
Take a moment of silence or a ribbon to wear,
Make appearances in public to show you were there.

Do something symbolic that others will see,
But skirt any substance, lest it benefits thee.
Caught up in your rallies, and causes and claims,
Can’t cough up a dollar, but can divvy up blame.

Thumbs up on a post or a heart if you dare,
Stopping short of much more lest they think you might care.
Scrolling you stop at the internet kittens,
But don’t linger too long or they’ll see you are smitten.

The best we have mustered was never enough,
To make any difference for all of this fluff.
It’s time we got dirty, dug in, made a difference,
Instead of performing this charade of indifference.

Now go get all butt hurt and claim I attack,
But let’s turn the tables and I’ll give it right back.
We lie and we know we will likely do nothing,
While conversely proclaiming “It’s time we did something!”

Randomly ran into an old therapy client the other day.

Though 25 years had passed since he’d sat in my office tearful and broken, admitting his litany of infidelities, he introduced me to his wife I’d never met, acknowledging how much help I’d been to him way back then. “I’m a different man these days because of you.” I said “Thank God, aren’t we all?” It was a brief encounter for him, but as we parted ways, I carried it into my afternoon, remembering how genuinely contrite he’d been those few times in my office. Moreso, how–unbeknownst to him–his confessions and epiphanies in the room those days 20+ years ago had birthed for me a personal model of genuine repentance. Having used it myself more than a couple times since, I considered finding him in the crowd again to share with him the same words he’d shared with me: “I’m a different man these days because of you.”

There are moments in life when every student is a teacher, and every teacher, a student.