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Speaker inspires students, adults to witness Christ

By KARA KOCZUR, Globe staff reporter
(Email Kara)

There’s a war being waged in the world for children’s souls, said Guy Doud Tuesday night at Bishop Heelan High School in Sioux City.

“Do you know who the devil especially loves to chew on and he doesn’t bother spitting them out? Our kids,” said Doud, a former public school teacher and recipient of the 1986 National Teacher of the Year award.

Doud, the 2008 Bishop’s Dinner speaker, was back in the diocese March 31 and April 1-2, speaking to students, parents and teachers about Catholic education and about being “molders of dreams.” Besides his stop at Heelan, where the afternoon session for students was cancelled due to weather, Doud also spoke at Bishop Garrigan in Algona and Kuemper in Carroll.

The devil delights in convincing youth that their self-worth depends upon their dress size, if they made the varsity basketball team, or for adults later in life, if their financial portfolios are big enough.

“So many things we believe are based on the lies of the evil one,” he said.

The lies Doud began to believe about himself began at school. He was picked on for his weight and that his father was an alcoholic and in jail. He was teased that his mother didn’t have enough money to pay the bills. Doud quickly learned that words cut deeper wounds than physical hurts.

“I learned I wasn’t any good,” said Doud, of Brainerd, Minn. “I learned where I fit in on the socio-economic ladder.”

He couldn’t wait to quit school after eighth grade, that is until he met his sixth grade teacher, one he called a “molder of dreams” – a “Jesus with skin on.” He doesn’t remember a single lesson that his teacher taught him, but he remembers how he made him feel. He felt hope.

Doud said he went on to encounter other teachers who were “Jesus with skin on,” those who manifested God’s love to him and treated him like a real person.

“That’s what God wants us all to be,” he said, “to be Jesus with skin on to show his love.”
Everyone is a teacher; everyone has the ability to be a “molder of dreams,” Doud said.

“What do people read when they read the letter of your life?” asked Doud, paraphrasing St. Paul in 2 Corinthians. “I hope it’s a love letter.”

It’s a letter not written with a pen, he added, but written by the Holy Spirit on the tablet of the human heart.

“Parents, your life is a letter that your kids are reading,” he said. “Teachers, your life is a letter your students are reading.”

With human lives being letters that everybody reads, it’s impossible not to be a witness, Doud said, no matter what line of work a person is in. Children follow the example of their parents, good or bad. While society may blame youth for being delinquent, for getting into drugs or being addicted to pornography, many times it’s the parents who first introduce those things into the home.

“What goes on with our youth today decides what will go on in America,” Doud said. “And what goes on with our youth is what goes on with our families.”

Unfortunately, more and more adults have absolved themselves of the responsibility of children other than their own, he said. Some adults have even absolved themselves of the responsibility of their own.

Youth need to know they are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” Doud said, which is why a God-centered education is so important. They need to know God has a plan and purpose for their lives, something only they can do.

“No matter how good the public school can be, the education can never be complete,” he said, “because an education without God, an education without Christ, is not complete.”

Retired Sioux City Sacred Heart teacher, Mary Lou O’Gorman, said Doud’s presentation was phenomenal, worthy of an “A”.

“It’s certainly inspirational for any of us who are in education,” she said. “I think he highlighted what God wants us to do, to see the good and to bring the goodness out of other people. I thought his story was a miracle.”

O’Gorman had substitute taught that day at Sacred Heart, and Doud’s talk reminded her of how she let the children know she was glad to be with them.

“I think that’s what he said to us, that wherever we go, whatever we do, that we need to be glad that we’re there,” she said. “More and more it’s not what we say, it’s how that person felt at the end of the day.”

For Patti Manthorne, mother of a third grader at Mater Dei, Doud’s words reminded her of the effect she can have on others.

“The thing that stuck out in my mind is just how you have to be aware when you’re around other people of how you treat them and show them respect because you never know what kind of day they’re having,” she said. “You can turn their lives around.”

While Doud will use many of his same stories in his presentations to high school students, he said he will focus more on how they are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” and will address peer pressure, self esteem and breaking down cliques.

“Also, since these are Catholic schools, I’ll talk about the role our faith plays in our daily lives and how just because we go to a Catholic school doesn’t mean we’re necessarily doing the right things spiritually,” he said.

“[I’ll also talk about] how important it is for us, who call ourselves Catholics and Christians to be good examples, and in the midst of a word that’s filled with temptation to try to stay pure and grow in holiness.”