Professor Bruce Hoskins, who teaches sociology at Mira Costa, is a Solomon-esque figure in my life. See, out of my five mentors, he taught me wisdom.
So Will taught me by being the biggest role model, and showed me a great, down-to-earth humility. Jim introduced me to real Christianity, and brought me to my Biblical Absolutist view on Scripture. Shane taught me to be real with people – to admit when I am wrong or don’t know something, and to not try to look good by hiding what ought to be said.
But Bruce Hoskins, in my many discussions with him, would always teach by his own experience, relating to me how he felt he was wrong in one way (having corrected it by now), how he felt that he had done the right thing, or what I ought to see in it. In our many discussions, he uses personal examples because he knows for a fact that people learn when you tell them stories – after all, how many parables did Christ teach us with?
So I learned a practical wisdom in terms of what to do and not do by listening to real-life situations. The very first of this was forgiveness, since when we first began talking, I was a very angry man – I had an axe to grind with darn-near about everyone. One night, I simply asked him how, as a Christian, I am to forgive people – especially when they aren’t apologizing. His response? He told me about how certain people (I am obliged to keep the details out of this post) had hurt, betrayed, and abandoned him in life, and how he had the same question when he was a young Christian himself. “The trick is not to just forgive them once and be ‘done’ with it forever, because then you won’t ever forgive them; you’ll just say it, stay bitter and angry, and struggle with your anger – because you never really forgave them! Instead you have to forgive them over and over again – every time it comes up in your heart, and you start to get angry, just do your best to forgive them again.”
There were many instances in which that has happened, and I am pretty thankful that the man has such a deep, how-to kind of knowledge in him. However, he has also shown that wisdom, thinking about things, and taking the time to try to understand one’s problems, is an incredibly effective way of getting through them – I have never seen him get through an issue in life without first sitting down and thinking about it. He doesn’t see his accomplishments as something to be looked at with pride, or his mistakes as something to look at with shame and regret, but rather sees all of his past as an occasion to learn, press onward, and grow.
Personal progress, common sense, and wisdom – wouldn’t have learned any of that without Bruce Hoskins emphasizing all of it, and thank God for him.
