The part of my job for which I have profound distaste happens every Tuesday morning. Like all other employed individuals in the world, there are parts of my job that I enjoy and others that I don't. I'm paid well to do all of my job, even those activities that don't incite passion within me. However, I find myself dreading Tuesdays. I wake up irritable, enter the building sarcastic, begin my job dejected, and then I endure.
My Bible reading tonight was from Colossians. In it, Paul's letter challenged me to be better than "enduring" tomorrow:
"Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering. . . But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful." (3:12-15)
I was angry when I read that on this, a Monday night. I want so badly to go into work tomorrow and get through with anger and pride and loathing. I want to complain and mock and exasperatedly question. I really don't feel kindness and humility coming on. Longsuffering doesn't sound all that appealing. Thankful will be a tough stretch as well.
But if I am indeed elected by God, if I am seeking holiness, and if I am beloved of God, that is the calling, whether I feel like it right now or not. I will hold on to my own distaste, or I will allow myself to be ruled by the peace of God. Am I really saying that God can move mountains, but He can't move my attitude? Or am I saying that I'd rather be angry than thankful?
Tomorrow will be a challenge. But tonight God has called an audible, a change to the game plan. And good players stick to the game plan.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
One In, One Out
A while back my wife and I were at a friend's house, and she offered to my wife a large serving dish that she no longer had need for. My immediate thought went straight to our current kitchen. Though not tiny, it's not exactly the Taj Majal of kitchens either; and we have, by my estimation, many dishes. While I certainly embrace my wife's creative cooking proclivities and penchant for presentation when hosting others at home, I selfishly imagined one more dish falling out of a cupboard I opened while dutifully putting dishes away (or, more likely, searching for M&M's). What I requested of her, then, upon the offer of the dish, was a one in-one out approach. One new large dish in, one unused dish out. We agreed.
For anything that's full, the one in - one out approach isn't mere philosophy, it's fact. I discovered that this week in my teaching. After going to a conference recently and picking up several great strategies for teaching better, I wanted to try many of those ideas in my class this week. What I found, however, was that to do those cool approaches, I had to cut out something that I currently do. And all the preparation time the new activities took came at the cost of time I would have spent in timely evaluation of the current stack of essays that are haunting me. As much as I'd like to be the best of the best at everything, whatever I add comes at a cost.
The same is true of schools as a whole. I read in the Des Moines Register this morning about the number of Iowa kids that go to school hungry every day. To combat this, the most-implemented strategies involve the public schools. Schools are being called on to feed kids breakfast, to send food home with kids for supper, and to teach them during the day about nutrition, wise grocery purchases, and healthy living in general. All those are really important; however, if you put something in, you've got to take something else out. Something else will suffer. You either want schools to combat starvation or literacy. You can't have it all, despite what the press and the government attempt to get you to believe.
As I sat in church this morning, examining my week and my fumbling efforts to live life well, I realized that personal improvement is a one in - one out reality as well. If I want to add something to my life - more Bible reading, more prayer, more peace, more writing, more time with my wife/kids - something's got to go. If I want to focus on being more disciplined, I've got to focus less on other aspects of personal growth. I can't do it all, all the time. The key is to take in only the really essential proverbial serving dishes while putting out the ones that are merely cluttering my cupboards and preventing me from serving an excellent meal. And if the cupboards are full, and they're full of essentials that I need to create that perfect supper, then I've got to learn to make do with what I have, polishing and shining and presenting with those dishes to the best of my ability every day.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
What I'm Thinking When I See You
Tomorrow I will walk into school after an absence of 4 days. A friend of mine will probably be one of the first in my classroom after I arrive, seeking a cup of coffee and good conversation. He will ask about my weekend, I'll respond, we'll talk, we'll laugh, and we'll wish each other well for the day. He will be a welcome guest.
Soon after, I will likely face an unwelcome guest. An administrator perhaps, or a student. Some well-meaning individual will walk in with a problem of some sort, seeking my input or looking for me to do something about whatever it is they are coming in for. They will walk in and disrupt my rhythm, my rush to prepare for 1st hour. They will expect to interrupt me, and they will succeed. I will resent them, most likely.
Later in the day I'll see another friend who will make me laugh. We'll share an inside joke, exchange weekend details, and move on in our day. A student who I don't teach will invariably walk past my room, looking for nothing more than a greeting and a quick smile. They will say something humorous, and I'll respond in kind. They will validate my existence as an instructor, my value to students and humankind in general. I will like seeing them.
I will check my email accounts several times throughout the day. Parents will want answers. Co-workers and bosses will demand my presence at meetings or my reaction or two cents. Friends and family may chime in - a picture of my new niece, perhaps; a request for my presence at an event; a humorous story retold; an interesting article shared; a favor requested.
My day tomorrow will move along with various people exactly like those mentioned above moving in and out of my bubble of consciousness. And if I'm not careful, if I merely behave as I usually do, I'll view each of these people in through the exact lens through which they are described above: How will you affect my day? Are you going to make my day better or worse? Easier or more difficult? More fun or more work? In what way might you benefit or cause harm to me?
Every day I will run across hundreds of people. I will make hundreds of decisions about how to interact with them. And for all of them, I will have some sort of effect on their day. I will improve or harm their time, make them better or worse, help or hinder. Some will choose to come in contact with me, others I will seek out, still others will stumble across me by mere chance. But tomorrow there will be hundreds. And for the next day. And the next. And the next.
If I view all encounters through the lens of their possible effect on myself, the percentage of people I send away better will be much smaller. And every encounter will produce a ripple effect. The point I'm trying to make here is that before I ever do anything or behave in any manner with someone else, I come to that interaction with a mindset. That mindset, more than the actions themselves, will mean something to likely thousands of people this week. Whether I want to or not, I will affect them. And so will you.
How will you view your thousands this week?
Soon after, I will likely face an unwelcome guest. An administrator perhaps, or a student. Some well-meaning individual will walk in with a problem of some sort, seeking my input or looking for me to do something about whatever it is they are coming in for. They will walk in and disrupt my rhythm, my rush to prepare for 1st hour. They will expect to interrupt me, and they will succeed. I will resent them, most likely.
Later in the day I'll see another friend who will make me laugh. We'll share an inside joke, exchange weekend details, and move on in our day. A student who I don't teach will invariably walk past my room, looking for nothing more than a greeting and a quick smile. They will say something humorous, and I'll respond in kind. They will validate my existence as an instructor, my value to students and humankind in general. I will like seeing them.
I will check my email accounts several times throughout the day. Parents will want answers. Co-workers and bosses will demand my presence at meetings or my reaction or two cents. Friends and family may chime in - a picture of my new niece, perhaps; a request for my presence at an event; a humorous story retold; an interesting article shared; a favor requested.
My day tomorrow will move along with various people exactly like those mentioned above moving in and out of my bubble of consciousness. And if I'm not careful, if I merely behave as I usually do, I'll view each of these people in through the exact lens through which they are described above: How will you affect my day? Are you going to make my day better or worse? Easier or more difficult? More fun or more work? In what way might you benefit or cause harm to me?
Every day I will run across hundreds of people. I will make hundreds of decisions about how to interact with them. And for all of them, I will have some sort of effect on their day. I will improve or harm their time, make them better or worse, help or hinder. Some will choose to come in contact with me, others I will seek out, still others will stumble across me by mere chance. But tomorrow there will be hundreds. And for the next day. And the next. And the next.
If I view all encounters through the lens of their possible effect on myself, the percentage of people I send away better will be much smaller. And every encounter will produce a ripple effect. The point I'm trying to make here is that before I ever do anything or behave in any manner with someone else, I come to that interaction with a mindset. That mindset, more than the actions themselves, will mean something to likely thousands of people this week. Whether I want to or not, I will affect them. And so will you.
How will you view your thousands this week?
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Is God Still Awesome?
There are several words and phrases that I don't allow my 10th grade students to use in their essays because the words themselves have become so overused as to not mean anything specific any more; they are mere cliches. Cool, for instance. Or hang out. I've recently had to add the word awesome to the list as well, and that addition is painful to me.
The word used to mean something significant. It meant something awe-inspiring or an object or event that could fill one with awe or wonder. To be awesome, the object being described needed to essentially be so complex, so fascinating, so fearfully-made that it was beyond description. It had to make the viewer pause and just stare, mystified, trying to take it all in while knowing it could never be fully taken in.
Now it means neat, or something I enjoyed, or (to get to the heart of it) cool. It is used to describe video games or a football tackle or a song or the fact that we got out of work early. Meals, movies, commercials, and jokes are all totally, repeatedly, all-together awesome. And if everything can be awesome, then awesome can't mean what it meant once upon a time.
This bothers me most because churches have been heavy contributors to its overuse and abuse. It gets said about youth trips or worship songs or major events. We say that people did an awesome job, or the turnout was awesome, or we had awesome weather for what the church was doing, or we're going to have just an awesome, awesome time. And then, in the next breath, we say or sing about how awesome God is.
So which awesome do we mean? Fascinatingly, marvelously, all-encompassingly complex and wonderful and fearful? Or neat and convenient? I fear the latter. For it is the latter aspect of Christianity that gets much more play. But God is much, much more than a cool guy we can hang out with on a Sunday morning, have an awesome time with, and then move on.
To simplify God and describe Him using cliche is to risk completely missing who God is. C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity that, "God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror; the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion."
Is awesome a word we would use to describe "the supreme terror, the thing we most want to hide from"? If the answer is no, then perhaps we need a better understanding of who God is, or a different word with which to honor Him.
(***Obviously the fact that I'm currently leading a class on Lewis is contributing to a great deal of my thinking. Expect to see many Lewis quotes on the blog in the next month or so. That should be good news to my readers: he's way smarter than me.)
The word used to mean something significant. It meant something awe-inspiring or an object or event that could fill one with awe or wonder. To be awesome, the object being described needed to essentially be so complex, so fascinating, so fearfully-made that it was beyond description. It had to make the viewer pause and just stare, mystified, trying to take it all in while knowing it could never be fully taken in.
Now it means neat, or something I enjoyed, or (to get to the heart of it) cool. It is used to describe video games or a football tackle or a song or the fact that we got out of work early. Meals, movies, commercials, and jokes are all totally, repeatedly, all-together awesome. And if everything can be awesome, then awesome can't mean what it meant once upon a time.
This bothers me most because churches have been heavy contributors to its overuse and abuse. It gets said about youth trips or worship songs or major events. We say that people did an awesome job, or the turnout was awesome, or we had awesome weather for what the church was doing, or we're going to have just an awesome, awesome time. And then, in the next breath, we say or sing about how awesome God is.
So which awesome do we mean? Fascinatingly, marvelously, all-encompassingly complex and wonderful and fearful? Or neat and convenient? I fear the latter. For it is the latter aspect of Christianity that gets much more play. But God is much, much more than a cool guy we can hang out with on a Sunday morning, have an awesome time with, and then move on.
To simplify God and describe Him using cliche is to risk completely missing who God is. C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity that, "God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror; the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion."
Is awesome a word we would use to describe "the supreme terror, the thing we most want to hide from"? If the answer is no, then perhaps we need a better understanding of who God is, or a different word with which to honor Him.
(***Obviously the fact that I'm currently leading a class on Lewis is contributing to a great deal of my thinking. Expect to see many Lewis quotes on the blog in the next month or so. That should be good news to my readers: he's way smarter than me.)
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