Fired up and ready to go!

Saint Ignatius Loyola encouraged his followers in Latin, "Ite inflammate omnia" or, "Go forth, and set the world on fire!"

And so, I like to begin every class with another reference to fire:

"Fired up? Ready to go!"

This is a phrase I like to ask students as they enter my class.  It is a way of both checking in with students and reminding them that they are in my class and I want them to feel fired up about it.  Sometimes, if you are not feeling fired up, all it takes is repeating this and it can make you fired up.

But the phrase is also a fleeting reminder that we all have an influence on our world.  Maybe that influence is just the room we are in, but that influence ripples out.  So that phrase is a reminder to be sociologically mindful.  It is a reminder that we are a participant in society.  Society doesn't just happen to us; we are participants in the process.  That awareness is what Michael Schwalbe talks about as "sociological mindfulness."  It can change how we think and act and therefore how we influence the world.  As Present Obama said,

"One voice can change a room. 

And if it can change a room, it can change a city. 

And if it can change a city it can change a state 

And if it can change a state, it can change a nation 

And if it can change a nation, it can change the world."

(see the whole story by clicking on this link)

Regardless of your political affiliation, I think the sentiment here is true. You can change a room and that can change a much larger group. There's no telling where your influence stops. So, what do you want your voice to be? How do you want to change the world? Think with sociological mindfulness about the impact you have on the world even though it is small. 

The last reason why I like to use that phrase is because, as the video shows, even if you are not feeling fired up, after interacting with someone and saying that you are fired up, it just might get you fired up!

Go Forth and Set the World on Fire!

I will often end my classes with this phrase.  Fire is energy.  It spurs a process of change.  And, as Fr. Mark Bosco explains in Ite Inflammate Omnia: Setting the World on Fire with Learning published by Medium, 

...just as St. Ignatius wanted everyone to be set afire with passion and zeal for the Kingdom of God, we continually exhort our faculty, students, and alumni to be agents for change in the world, men and women for others.

Whether you are Roman Catholic or Christian or neither, there is much room and benefit for you to embrace the Jesuit values.  We can find reverence and appreciation for creation in all things.  We can embrace our agency and awareness of our role in that creation.  We can acknowledge our shared humanity with a desire to affect that humanity with loving nurture.  And education can be our guide to each of these.

I hope that my class can contribute to that sentiment.