Tag Archives: Christianity

Lent Day 23: Half Way Through and I Still Have So Far to Go

Posted on 16 March 2012 | 2 comments

Last night proved to me once again that I still have so far to go in this “live like Jesus thing.” I want so badly to be Christlike, but yet I fall so far from that each day. And, just like I learned in a children’s sermon, once I squeeze out that toothpaste, it’s a bitch to get it back in the tube. In fact, it’s impossible.

I did have a funny thing happen at school today. One of my boys asked me to read his sermon that he will deliver at his youth group, and as I was giving it back to him with comments, he asked if I was going to go hear a Christian comedian speak at one of our local high schools. I told him I didn’t know about it. He replied that there was a post on someone’s Facebook page. “I’m not friends with very many FCA people on Facebook. I say the f*bomb a lot, and most Christians don’t tend to like that very well,” I said. He started laughing so hard, he had to regroup before we could continue talking about his sermon. Hilarious.

In the spirit of Family Guy, do you want to know something that really grinds my gears? When people leave their cars running while sitting in them or running into Starbucks to get a drink, I get all wound-up. It’s almost 60 degrees; there is absolutely no reason to leave your car running. It isn’t warm enough to “need” air conditioning and it isn’t cold enough to “need” a warm car. Wow.

My goal today is to make a conscious effort to meditate and pattern my steps after Jesus. I’m not off to a great start. Regroup.

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Posted in Christianity, Lent, Teaching

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Lent Day 21 & 22: Amazon Points & Nothing to Say

Posted on 14 March 2012 | 1 comment

Sometimes, I’ve got nothing to say. Yesterday and today are days like those. I did get a book, called Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation by Elaine Pagels in the mail yesterday. With my Amazon rewards points, I ordered Revelations, a pink t-shirt that says, “If the fetus you save is gay, will you still fight for its rights,” a green t-shirt with a t-rex that says, “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands,” The Miseducation of Cameron Post (a review of this book is forthcoming, once I get my copy back), and The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. I’ve been saving my points for several years, so I decided to go out of the credit card business with a huge capitalist flair. I’m hoping to completely get rid of my credit cards by fall, paying them off as soon as possible, and starting over with decent credit sans the plastic. I see no point in being armpit deep in debt to banks that care nothing about me.

See, I told you, I really had nothing to say. Hopefully by tomorrow this little bit of writer’s, contemplator’s, reader’s block will be overcome.

Dinner: Bacon Cheeseburgers, Salad, Buttercup Squash (not a winner)

Flowers in Purple from My Love


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Posted in Capitalism, Christianity, Education

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Lent Day 20: School’s Back in Session

Posted on 12 March 2012 | 2 comments

I know what it feels like to be a balloon and to have the helium sucked out of you, because that’s what going back to work did to me today, only with joy instead of helium. As of Sunday, I felt nearly completely joyful. I felt as if I could conquer the world. I could literally feel myself beginning to be positive about many things. And then I went back to school today, and everything was the same as it always is, and there was too much to bear.

My day began with the computer cart I had reserved not being plugged in for break, so all the computers were dead. I resorted to my backup plan, because I always have one of those when I am supposed to use technology in a lesson. Everything turned out fine, but I was, for some reason, still annoyed.

My day continued with one of my students pretty much straight-up lying to another teacher about whether or not I make them do citations for my class. Luckily it was my lunch, so she had me come over to her room to put the citation information up on the board for the students. He tried to weasel his way out of it by playing it off in his clowning sort of way. It didn’t work.

My day continued to continue with one of the counselors telling me that some of the students think I am mean this year, not at all how I was last year. My response was to ask her if the students realized that their behavior was part of the reason their teachers can be grumpy. Basically, I played it off on them, like a jack ass.

Finally, I finished my day on a positive note playing racquetball with Celeste, which is always a great time. When we play, it doesn’t matter so much who wins or loses, but we talk, we do the dozens, and we let our frustration. And somehow, though she likely doesn’t know it, I always learn from Celeste. I always leave a little more calm, with a bit better perspective.

While I was making fish stir fry for dinner, I stopped…

and thought about how I have been with my students this year, and how I have let my anger creep into everything I do.I have been shorter with them, and I could make excuses, but there really is no excuse. I thought about how I have short-changed not only my students, but also my friends, my colleagues, and my family because of my bitterness with God, and my general anger, though I still cannot pinpoint the source of the anger that overtook me.

I thought about how my first response was to blame my students, my 12 to 16 year old (well, a couple of repeat offenders who are 17) students for my shitty behavior. They are children, young adults, and my behavior, as a grown woman, should not be dictated by their level of participation, their willingness to think that English is the best subject ever. (It is, though.) My behavior should come out of, or, to use a really bad creative writing phrase, it should flow from my own moral and ethical belief system, which is not to take my anger out on those around me.

I’m not above being all “Hallelujah, Jesus Freakish” when I say that since I’ve reevaluated my Christianity (and added in some Buddhist thought, too) I am ashamed of some of the ways I’ve behaved while I was out there in the wilderness (yet again, damn I wish I’d learn one time). The biggest shame I face is the fact that I have treated people in a way that nowhere near resembles Christ’s love, but it, instead, resembles the “GOTCHA” mentality that is so prevalent in our culture, where people just sit in wait for others to screw something up, so they can call each other out on it. There has been no cheek turning for me, unless it has been me turning my cheek and hiding my mouth behind my hand, so people can’t hear what I am saying about them. Seriously, it’s been bad. I needed that reality check today.

So, today, I am asking you all for a little bit of accountability. I want to be filled with God’s grace, sharing it with all those around me, especially my students. And I want to follow that old saying from Eleanor Roosevelt: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” I want the words of my mouth, and the actions of my body to glorify God. I no longer want to conform to the patterns of this world, but I want to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. I want to be the teacher my students remember for being loving and gracious, and if I’m lucky, they’ll remember some of the language arts I teach them, too.

Peace.

 

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Posted in Buddhism, Christianity, Ethics, Family, Goals, Grace, Lent, Mental Health, Relationships, Religion, School, Spirituality, Teaching

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Lent Day 18: Your Kingdom Come

Posted on 10 March 2012 | 1 comment

“Through our lives and by our prayers, may your kingdom come!” —Midday Prayers

I sometimes forget, when I pray the Lord’s prayer, that the way God’s kingdom will come here and now is through those of us who believe in Jesus, who are part of the body of Christ. (If you know me well, you know I don’t discount the inherent goodness of humanity, but this specific Jesus kingdom, I think, is ushered in by those of us who are Christians. Good thoughts and actions come from all kinds of people.) God’s kingdom comes through our lives and through our prayers, and I love this midday reminder.

Too often I sit around, navel gazing, wondering why the world isn’t a better place, and I spend too little time consciously going out and making the world look like God’s kingdom here on earth. It’s easier for me to think about and write about how God’s kingdom works, than to make the necessary strides for it to actually happen here on earth. Sometimes it simply takes too much energy. Sometimes I just get overwhelmed by all that needs to happen to make this earth look like the Kingdom of God. Sometimes I am simply too self-focused to help others. Sometimes I flat out don’t feel God. Sometimes, though, I simply feel like I am stuck in a situation where I can’t really bring the Jesus to party, because I can’t figure out how to get past the injustices, the inequalities around me.

For example, I was having coffee with a friend of mine the other day, and she very seriously said to me, Corby, I don’t think you’ll ever be happy. Everywhere you work, you’ll always see something wrong. Everywhere you look, you see the negatives. True story. I don’t think she meant it as a compliment, but I sort of took it as one anyway. I don’t want to be happy, which I think in the above sentence really means complacent, within an institution that is corrupt. I want to be able to see those points of injustice or arbitrarily laid out hierarchies, and I want to have the wisdom and the grace to change them. And, yes, I will likely not be happy until we bring God’s kingdom, which looks so much different than what we’ve got laid out before us right now. And, no, I probably won’t be happy untilall people have equal rights, equal access, equal respect, or simply put equality. As Jesus said in Matthew 20:16, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” May your kingdom come.

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As usual, my day in photos:

A Pretty, Mossy Stump by the White River

A Little Brook at the Mounds

Man Only Chapstick: It sits flat in your pocket, so your bros don't know you like soft lips.

A Circle Window at Gordy's Framing

Replica Canoe, I'm Driving

Obsessed With My Own Shadow

Twentieth Century Flats B & W

Twentieth Century Flats

 

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Posted in Christianity, Grace, Lent, Photos, Religion, Social Justice, Spirituality

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Lent Day 15: Healing and Learning

Posted on 7 March 2012 | 4 comments

During my morning prayers, I am also reading Reluctant Pilgrim. In the chapter I read this morning, Okoro writes about a man she was in love with, and unless her words betray her, I would say still deeply loves, or at the very least remembers fondly. She writes about his addiction in these words: “God’s light shines especially bright through the multiple and endless fragmented slices that exist in broken people. And the more rays of light, the more people are touched. But no one expects such light to come from a broken image. I learned to understand the radical beauty of God through Michael’s shards. I learned to acknowledge the beauty of God through my own brokenness” (77). When I read this beautiful description of brokenness, I realized why I have always loved that churches use stained glass to tell the biblical narrative.

Maybe the early stained glass artists were onto more than simply reappropriating the technique of mosaic with a new technology. The multicolored shards of glass work together to not only reflect and refract light, but they tell one cohesive story of beauty and grace. Each piece of art, carefully rendered with fragmented pieces of glass held together by that thin lead casing, each piece of art tells a beautiful story and needs each small fragment to tell it. I should look toward the stained glass to tell me about more than a biblical narrative; I should ask the stained glass to tell my own narrative, and to remind me that we all work together to form the body Christ, as weird and multicolored as it can be.

A few pages later Okoro writes: “I want to find a church that teaches me something about carrying each other’s burdens, about living into the gift of God’s grace so we are free to be the persons and community God calls us to be. […] Maybe I love the image of U2’s ‘Grace’ because it reminds me that God our mother eternally supports and nourishes us and, most importantly, does not punish us for being the needy creatures God created us to be. […] I don’t imagine that I extended grace to Michael. That would be presumptuous. Rather we both got caught up in the delicate but strong grip of God’s grace, that sense of divine love extending outside of God’s self and demanding humility from whoever falls into its arms” (80). I love this idea that we don’t extend grace to each other, and I never thought about how presumptuous it is to assume that we know anything about grace at all.

The idea that we just get caught up together in God’s grace is a profound one for me. I have always thought about giving grace to people, but not about mutually receiving grace, thought that’s exactly what happens. In fact, once I read this passage, I thought about Jesus saying that it’s better to give than receive. Why? Because when we give, we are simultaneously receiving. We can never only give grace, because what enables us to give grace is God’s giving of grace to us. We are inextricably caught up with others in giving and receiving grace.

In addition, maybe a lesson I am supposed to learn this Lent is one of humility. In the argument with my friend, humility was a learning point. In chapel yesterday, denial is a form of humility. Here, today, I learn that grace requires, no demands, our humility. How beautiful! If simply keep asking, God, what do you want with me? I have no doubt that I will eventually learn what it is God desires. I have no doubt that I am supposed to be a shard in the stained glass body of Christ.

Click the arrow below to listen to Nichole Nordeman’s cover of “Grace” by U2. You’ll also have to click the same arrow on the MySpace Music Player.

Grace (In The Name Of Love Album Version)

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