Teaching and Contemplation

It seems like the theme for this summer is reflecting on what has changed in my life in the thirteen years that this blog has existed. So, it makes sense to think about how my teaching has evolved since 200. The exterior circumstances hasn't changed very much. I am still a Latin and Classical Studies teacher and have been in the same school for coming up to fourteen years now. It has been a good fourteen years, really. I like my students and the subjects I teach. Despite the added stress, I enjoy the extracurricular activities I do- an annual Classics Conference and a tri-annual international field trip. I added the international field trips in 2011, but most of the rest haven't changed much.

What I want to consider today, however, is not what I've done or accomplished, but rather what I've learned. I'm sure this would sound odd to my students because they assume, on a good day, that their teachers know  and they, as students, have to learn what that is. Yet, a teacher, to be effective, has to be ready to learn and, if they don't, they stagnate and become less effective. That learning needs to be practical, so what I want to consider today are three practices which I think have been helpful for me. What these three things have in common is that they are intended to dig just a bit deeper than the superficial skating across the curriculum that often characterizes modern education. In a world to busy to think, they invite, I believe, contemplation and some pause and deliberation about what is good in our classrooms and schools.

So, the first practice I've learned is simple- listen. Or, as my beloved St. Benedict says it in the first sentence of his Rule, "Listen with the ear of your heart". What that means is that taking time to listen- to my students or colleagues or parents- is essential and will, usually, tell me something I need to know, if I listen intently and patiently enough. In edu-speak, we would call this 'Student Voice', but, central to the practice, is the assumption that I am not a lone ranger, expounding my wisdom to a passive, but receptive audience. It assumes that all those involved in the classroom have something important to contribute, so listening is a necessity. Sometimes, the listening is just taking a minute or two to listen to a story or a question or comment, which may or may not have much to do with the class, but lets me know about that person in front of me. Sometimes, it is looking at a class and admitting that I think the assignment that I had just written up for them wasn't working, and asking for suggestions about how we can fix it. This is a listening that isn't looking for a vulnerability to exploit or an argument to counter or information to download. It is a listening to hear another person into being. What I've learned is both how incredibly powerful that listening is and how incredibly difficult it is to do with any consistency. I try and I fail. I try and I fail. I try and I fail, everyday. But it is so worth doing.

A second practice is hospitality. That sounds confusing, especially if one assumes the superficial sense of hospitality which sees it as giving food and board. However,  what I'm talking about is something I learned first from Henri Nouwen- welcoming my students into a space which allows them to grow into the person they really are. It starts for me, as it does for St. Benedict, as welcoming a visitor as Christ himself, as a stranger who we welcome hospitably.  In a classroom, that sounds easy, especially on the first day, but keeping that welcome going becomes difficult when the less attractive qualities of our students begin to arise, when that 'Christ' is a bit difficult to keep welcoming, when I'd like to give up looking for the good in the face of, perhaps, not great behavior. Yet, I know that creating a safe and welcoming space is essential for anything I'm going to accomplish in the classroom or with any of my extra-curricular groups. It is that creation of community which gives a home to someone who needs it, if only for seventy minutes, that allows learning, both intellectually and in a social-emotional sense. Teenagers are incredibly vulnerable people and what they really need is a safe space, so they can learn to experiment and, hopefully, to flourish in this world they have inherited. Hospitality establishes that place.

The last practice today picks up a paradox that I've borrowed from St. Bernard of Clairveux (via Kathleen Norris)- 'serious play'. While St. Bernard used that term for liturgy, I've come to believe that 'serious play' is also applicable to learning as well. I say that because play, good creative play, is how small children learn to understand themselves and the world around them. This could just be playing with friends, which helps children to learn how to interact with people. It could be playing with Lego (as my kids do) to learn how structures work. Or it could be something like the time when my son processed the aftermath of a police chase he and his mom saw on the way to daycare one day by playing a verbal game involving some bad bears who crashed a truck. What I mean by 'serious play' is practice in which we learn as creative play- finding joy in the strangeness of Latin grammar, creating strange stick animals to remember parts of speech, taking chances like making a two thousand year old Roman recipe as part of an assignment. The seriousness comes when we begin to learn something about ourselves or the world around us or when we learn something or how to do something which is somehow useful in our broader lives. Obviously, we don't go to school just to play. We are there to learn things which we can apply to our lives. Yet, that attitude of 'play', I suggest, shouldn't be too far away. That is, if we want to encourage our students to be, to use another edu-speak term, 'life-long learners'

Of course, all of these practices are, in very great measure, aspirational. I have boring, frustrating classes at around the same proportion as my colleagues. I fail to listen or welcome some days. I forget to play in the drive to get the curriculum done in the 110 some odd hours I have to teach my courses. Yet, what all of these practices have in common is the desire, at least, to slow down, listen and contemplate both the students in front of me and the subjects that are teaching us about the world around us. In a world which is racing towards career or achievement, they call for slowing down and digging just a little bit deeper. Anything that I can do to further that call, I think, is worth the time it takes.

Contemplation and Action

The last week or so, I've been casting around for another subject, partly because the previous entry was a bit of an act to follow. While I'm grateful that it was received so well, it was a bit of an exhausting entry, so it's taken a couple false starts to settle on a new entry.

What I decided to write about is something else which represents a change for my spiritual life in the last ten or so years- the interlocked combination of contemplation and action. That will, inevitably, strike some of my readers as a contradiction in terms. 'How could sitting and thinking about God be compatible with getting out and doing things? Isn't contemplation just another word for navel-gazing? Get up and do something useful!'

At the root of that objection is an assumption that contemplation and action are mutually exclusive- that one can't do one and the other. Yet, I think that is mistaken. After all, when Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment in the Law, he answered :   

                                “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all

                                  your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the first
                                  and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it:
                                  ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the
                                  Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22, 36-40)

You see what Jesus did here. In answer to the question about the greatest (i.e. one, greatest) commandment, he gave two. One, "Love the Lord your God..." calls forth the contemplation of God with all our faculties- emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. Two, he calls us to "Love your neighbour as yourself"which calls one out and into action. That is, he calls us inward into contemplation of God, but, then, outward to our neighbour which involves action. Then, He anchors it with the last statement which makes "All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments". That is, all that God has taught us in the Bible hangs on the love of God and love of neighbour. Just as the two cannot be separated, so contemplation and action can't be separated.

You can see that combination in the lives of so many heroes of the faith in our and previous generations. Thomas Merton combined a commitment to monastic contemplation with a burning desire for peace-making. Henri Nouwen felt the pull to contemplative prayer, but also remained committed to serving his neighbour in his spiritual writings, but, perhaps, more importantly, in his work at L'Arche in the last years of his life. Nor are Christians the only ones who do this. Gandhi had a rigorous ascetical prayer life amid all his efforts to serve his people. I could go on, but you get the picture. All of these figures found that a vigourous prayer life was necessarily for them to do the good that they did in the world. And, conversely, the actions they did in the world were essential for their understanding of what God was asking them to do in their prayer lives. Contemplation and action didn't just co-exist for them. They complemented each other.


Here is the point where I have to admit that my attention-span for contemplative prayer would fill a tea-spoon. I can manage about ten minutes, maybe, fifteen, in prayer before my thoughts spin completely out of control. And that is on a good day. Of course, I know that is common and that it is part of the process of learning contemplative prayer. The desert monastics in the 4th century talk about warring against the logismoi- the chains of obsessional thinking which get in the way of our prayer to God- as a necessary element to getting to contemplation. My difficulties with concentration just mark me as a beginner and I can live with that.


Yet, even in the modest nature of my prayer-life, I have seen that link between contemplation and action enrich how I do things. Compassion and openness to others comes easier when I pray. Listening to God, even a little bit, makes it easier to listen to people. And it is listening and compassion which allow me to build community in both my classes and extra-curricular clubs- communities were students can feel safe enough to risk, whether that risk in intellectual or mental or emotional. Listening also helps me hear the pain and experience of others and impels me to action to find a space for that too in my teaching. When prayer (contempation) and action coincide, good things happen.

Of course, the opposite is true for me. All too often, I lose track of prayer in the course of the day. Fear, resentment, selfishness drive me in ways that I'd prefer not to admit. I make mistakes. I fail to listen. I lose my temper. But, as a desert monastic story goes, when asked what people did in that monastery, an elder said that they fell, and got up, fell and got up, fell and got up". Perhaps it is in my failures that growth comes, usually in the form of remembering to pray. And it is that prayer that leads me to find a way to make amends.

I am, as I say, a beginner and, as a result, I make the mistakes of a beginner. I don't understand everything about contemplation. I doubt if anyone really does. That might be the point- getting to know God is a lifelong endeavor which really doesn't end in our life times (or, at least, shouldn't). But that contemplation, that prayer, doesn't stop when I say 'Amen' and head out to the rest of my life. That prayer should be part of the process of becoming the person that God has made me and, then, translating that into what work God has for me today. And it is that work which leads me back to contemplating who sent me. so I can learn better what I need to do. It all interelates. It is all connected.

Change of Heart

Over the last few weeks, I've been looking over my earliest entries on this blog. There is a lot of fodder for reflection, but,  today, I've decided that it is time to return to a theme which dominated the first few months of this blog- the issue of same-sex blessings/marriage. I admit that I'm nervous about returning to this subject because I know how much heat and how little light has emerged out of these debates. That was part of the reason why, in October of 2006, I shifted the focus of this blog from Anglican world polemics on THE issue to a more sedate focus on patristics (Enough With Schism).  I was conscious that the angry adrenaline of this debate was doing me no good spiritually, so I needed to take a break. That break proved one of the best spiritual decisions I could make because it has opened up the space for me to pray and to listen more on this issue, as well as in so many other parts of my life. It is that praying and listening which have helped me, over the last thirteen years, to deepen my faith and commitment to living a Christian life everyday. It has also caused me, almost as a side-effect, to reconsider my position on same-sex marriage, and to affirm the faith and committed relationships of my LGBTQ brothers and sisters.

To understand how big a shift that last sentence is, I have to explain where I was in 2006. In 2006, I was a moderate conservative, pretty convinced by the standard Biblical arguments (Genesis 1:27, Genesis 19, Leviticus 18:22, Deuteronomy 23:17-18, Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10) and upset at what I saw as the hasty and disorderly actions of the Episcopal Church in the US and the Diocese of New Westminster in conducting same-sex blessings when substantial parts of the Anglican Communion were opposed to them. By 2006, my wife and I were still in some doubt about whether we could stay in a church which was moving this way. However, we were held back by a strong commitment to the unity of the church and did not want to break into a schism which we felt could not fail to be a product of sinful refusal of both sides to work out our disagreements in a Christian spirit. At the very least, we felt we needed to earn our way out - to talk about our disagreement and see if there remained space for us in the Anglican Church of Canada. As it turned out, there was, and that space was in our parish church, which gave us the space to work out our issues and concerns without being judged. I'm deeply grateful for that space because it gave us a chance to sit with our concerns instead of storming out in anger.

What is most striking to me about those entries on same-sex blessings  in 2006 is just how little I was talking about the actual issue itself - whether homosexuality was sinful or not. Now, don't me wrong, I thought that and had my share of arguments about that view with people on various Internet chat boards. On the blog, however, my main concern was the damage to the unity of the church caused by both liberal (largely unilateral) initiatives to support same-sex blessings and conservative (definitely unilateral) decisions to create an alternative Anglican denomination. In fact, in the first few months, I was pretty exercised about both of those issues and was committed to what I had thought would be a good solution - the ill-fated Windsor Report. If only the extremists on both sides would listen....

Yet, what strikes me now about these posts is that, while they were not necessarily wrong, at least, about the ecclesiological issues, they were incomplete. That is, I was focused on how conservatives like me can stay, but it just wasn't on my radar that the same questions were being asked by LGBTQ Anglicans. I entirely missed the other side of the story - a story characterized by rejection and condemnation by the church that they also love. While I was sure I was right about homosexuality, LGBTQ Anglicans were, at best, deluded, so I could (and did) dismiss their stories and stick to the abstract principles that I felt I needed to defend. Never mind that many of those stories, when I encountered them, very often revealed a truly vibrant faith. There was the faith of a conversation partner on a Internet bulletin board, whose partner was nursing him through a chronic illness with the same kind of love and grace that one would expect to see in the most self-sacrificing marriage. That made me uncomfortable with my abstractions. And rightly so.

The turning point for me happened back in 2012, when I was having a discussion with a former student on Facebook (via private message) about the Christian view on homosexuality. We talked about the standard passages (see above) and the attitudes of the Anglican and United Churches on how to interpret them. As we ended the conversation, I was reflecting on how difficult it was to discuss these issues and threw out this comment:  "What I've learned is that I am averse to treating people as abstractions, that the very real pain of gay people means I can't treat this issue as a theological debating point". I remember that I surprised myself with this comment, possibly because it was a codification of much of the discomfort I was already feeling about this issue. I had, I realized, spoken more wisely that I actually knew. So, that comment of mine stuck with me and became a bit of a mantra, as I reminded myself that I had just made a commitment not to treat gay people as theological abstractions. And what that meant was I needed to listen more to the experiences of LGBTQ Christians, not in order to prepare a rebuttal, but with an ear for empathy and the grace notes of their faith. It is in that listening that allowed me to ask the question whether their faith is any different from mine, and, if it isn't, why were they being rejected?

So, what about the Bible? That was my biggest obstacle because those standard passages are in there and, if I was to take the Bible seriously, I really needed to consider them carefully. I know, in my conservative days, I was most convinced by the New Testament passages. In fact, back in grad school, I had made a word study on the key words, especially arsenokoites and malakoi. What I said at the time was that their meaning was pretty clear, but what I didn't admit to was some discomfort about how decisive I was saying these words were. The fact is that I confess that conviction wasn't as definite as I let on. Paul is remarkably coy in his terminology in these passages. Both of those words seem to be euphemisms and, like many euphemisms, are deliberately imprecise (believe me, if Paul wanted to be clear, there was Greek vocabulary for it). It is clear they are talking about sexuality and, likely, about some aspect of same-sex behavior. What wasn't clear was whether he could even conceive of the kind of monogamous, self-sacrificing relationships that advocates of same-sex marriage argue for. Instead, it is more likely that he was reacting to other practices such as temple prostitution or pederasty; both of which I think would cause most people, Christians or not, legitimate concern.

I'm conscious of the irony that I would have dismissed this kind of argument in my conservative days as an attempt to re-write the Bible. Yet, I would defend it by pointing out that we use historical criticism all the time, on controversial topics or not-so controversial topics. I doubt if this argument will convince anyone truly committed to a conservative view, but it fits what I understand about the history and the language of these passages.

If I am right about how to interpret these passages, then, what Paul is condemning is different from what we are seeing in same-sex marriages. If that is true, we have to ask entirely different questions. Do these relationships allow for the kind of self-giving love and commitment that we expect in Christian marriage? Can we see these relationships as a reflection of divine love through the everyday living out of this commitment? I think the answers to those questions are yes, we can. Or are these relationships, in fact, any different from their heterosexual counterparts? I think the answer here is, no, I don't think they are. And, if that is true, I really can't see how we can, in any justice, stand in the way of blessing these relationships in the same way that mine was blessed just over eighteen years ago.

I wish that I could stop here, pat myself on the back for being more affirming and press the publish button, but I don't think I can. I can't because I can't forget how much I wrote on the subject in multiple Internet venues as well as sometimes even in conversations and how easy it was for my words to wound, even when I was trying to be irenic. How easy it has been to be a part of the rejections that my LGBTQ brothers and sisters have suffered over the years. I have seen the effect of that rejection, as a teacher, in the lives of my students, even seeing a student forced to move out their house for being trans. Or hearing a brilliant former student fearing the reaction of their religious parents for coming out. I have seen it as a person of faith, who have seen LGBTQ Christians - lay people, priests, even bishops - rejected, not for the quality of their faith, but for how they express their sexuality. Yet, their faith remains tenacious and firm. I am in awe of that faith, but I am conscious of being a part of that rejection. If there can be any amends for my role in all that, I hope this entry can be a beginning.

I am writing this reflection at a crucial time for the Anglican Church of Canada. In around two weeks, the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada will meet in Vancouver to discuss national issues. A prominent vote will be this one in the form of the final acceptance of changes to the marriage canons which would permit same-sex marriages. I am neither a bishop nor a priest nor even a lay delegate to the General Synod. I am merely a lay person, who has thought about these issues, considered them, sometimes agonized over them, and has come to a different understanding of them from when I started. I offer these reflections for whatever they are worth, hopeful that they may offer a way forward, modest though it is, what feels very much to be a intractable deadlock.

History as Spiritual Discipline

The last week or two, I've been reflecting on a phrase that Rowan Williams uses in his Why Study the Past? where he identifies his discussion of the Christian past with other spiritual disciplines. He doesn't spend a lot of time on the idea, but what he means by 'spiritual disciplines is that they are 'decentring'- that is, designed to challenge the assumption that I am at the centre of meaning in the universe. Practices like, silence, fasting, receiving the sacraments all push us to realize that our tendency to think we are the centre of the universe, ultimately to remind us to look for the real action of God in the world.

What intrigues me is how this idea plays out in a study of history. To some degree, I think that any historian worth his salt will recognize history is a 'decentring' exercise. After all, it doesn't take a long time researching to discover the 'otherness' of the people or civilizations we study. The foreignness, the strangeness of people in the past cannot help come through as we discover that our assumptions about the world are not universal and that people in the past had very different assumptions about the world, the universe and, yes, even God. Thus, what seems to be extremely irrational, perhaps even crazy behavior to us, actually, makes sense when one takes the time to figure out what is it that people in a time period believed.

A case and point is St. Martin of Tours, a fourth century monk/bishop about whom I've been reading about for some fifteen years in a, perhaps, over-ambitious attempt to translation the writings about him. He first came to my attention because I have attended two churches bearing his name (one in London, Ontario and one in Toronto), so I became familiar with the popular stories about him. The two best known of these is his decision to cut his military cloak into two to clothe a beggar (who turned to be Christ) and his defiant refusal to fight in battle for the Emperor Julian because Martin was trying to live out his Christian faith out and so couldn't kill. Those are the easy to understand stories, but, when one delves deeper, one finds more disconcerting stories like his campaigns against pagan religious sites in his diocese, his regular encounters with demons and his miracles stories which looks so improbable that they defy belief. Indeed, even contemporaries weren't sure about him. His successor as Bishop of Tours, St. Brice, openly questioned Martin's sanity on, at least, two occasions, because the old man (by then) seemed to see demons everywhere.

Yet, when one realizes that his biographer's main concern in his Life and other writings was to defend Martin's status as a holy man of God, very much in the tradition of St. Anthony and the other monks of the Egyptian and Syrian deserts. All this talk of miracles and demons may still strike us as uncomfortably strange because we moderns usually tend to assume that demons are either the preserve of horror movies or the delusions of a mentally disturbed mind. Yet, the belief in supernatural beings, who could be benevolent or malevolent, was obvious in the minds of generations of humans in the late Roman and mediaeval periods as was the role of the holy man in banishing them.  We moderns don't really know what to do with these stories because we don't see the world this way- teaming with supernatural beings, benevolent or not. Yet, historians can't deny the influence of these beliefs on the actions of people. That this belief was so strong may be unsettling to us, but, perhaps, it is a good reminder that, instead of coming to history assuming we know best, we need to listen to what the past tells us before we try to interpret it. We might not believe what Martin's biographer, Sulpicius Severus, is telling us, but we would be wrong to forget that generations of people did.

I think that is what Dr. Williams is trying to get us to see with this image of history as a 'de-centring'spiritual discipline. Certainly, for me, it is my reading of history which taught me, and never fails to remind me, that even my most cherished ideas and assumptions are not obviously true and that I cannot assume that anyone is going to act the way that I expect. And, if my fellow human being from the past, with whom I share a common humanity, is so exceedingly strange to me, then, how can I expect God, who is another level of 'otherness' to us, will act in ways that I can predict or, even, understand. It reminds me that the world, and God, is a whole lot bigger than what I know and what I think I want. And that, given my limited vision and imagination, is probably a good thing.

 

"Blog? Me?" Redux

The last few weeks, I've been thinking about returning to blogging. I'm not sure for how long. I'm not sure to what end, but I miss the processing that writing does for me, so here we are. Since I'm hanging out with my youngest son (who isn't feeling well) this Sunday morning, this seems as good a time as any to start.

So, as part of the process of restarting, I thought I'd have a look at my first post on this now thirteen year old blog and see what might have changed. The full post is here, but I'll be excerpting it to see what has changed. The 2006 version is in bold. My updates follow.

I admit it. I resisted blogging. Oh, I've been interested, but I couldn't figure out what I'd be doing it for. I'm not sure that I know what I'm trying to do now, but this is an evolving project. For now, I'll speak into a vacuum and declare myself..

This is still an evolving project and I have no idea where I'm likely to go. See below for any ideas that I have.

Who am I?

I'm happily married.
I'm a high school teacher of Latin and Classical Studies.
I'm interested in patristics, theology and church history. And ancient Greece and Rome, of course.
I'm an Anglican of a moderately conservative variety. Perhaps I'm best described as a catholic evangelical Anglican.
I enjoy the give and take of debate on such bulletin boards as Episcopal Voices, the Orthodox Episcopal Board, and Ship of Fools Purgatory (my board name is Canadian Phil...long story)
I like to cook.
I am, in the last analysis, a geek. A proud geek, but a geek nonetheless
Well, I'm still happily married and a high school teacher of Latin and Classical Studies (and sometimes World History). I have two kids now (both boys 8 and 12).

I'm still interested in ancient Greece and Rome, but also patristics, church history and theology. My interests have shifted more towards monasticism, especially Benedictine monasticism. That isn't so much an academic interest, so much as a fascination with the application of the Rule of Benedict to the everyday life of a lay person whose call is very much in the world. I'm not an oblate of a particular monastery, but I read part of the Rule everyday and try to practice, at least, Morning and Evening prayer. I keep trying lectio divina too, as well as mediation.All this has really enriched my spiritual life and formed how I approach most aspects of my life. I suspect I'll have much more to say about all this Benedictine stuff in the next few weeks.

I'm still an Anglican, but not so conservative. I'm still a moderate, but I'd say a moderate progressive. I'm much more Anglo-Catholic than I was in 2006 and rather less evangelical. There are implications in all this, but not ones I'm going to trace out just now. Stay tuned.

I still debate from time to time on Facebook, but really this has fallen away with the falling away of the bulletin board format in the early 2010s. Besides, political and theological discussions online very often turn into steadfast un-listening more than listening. And it is that kind of debate that turns me off.

I still like to cook though. And with a busy family, I get lots of chance to do it. So, that is good.

And, yes, I'm still a proud geek.

Why hyperekperisou?

This is a sneaky reference to Ephesians 3, 21 and used commonly as a doxology at the end of Communion: "Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or image..." (Book of Alternative Services=BAS). The bits in italics are the part which express hyperekperisou (hard working word, isn't it?). I wanted it as a title partly because it is an expression of God's abounding grace offered to the world through Jesus Christ, but also because this verse has always had special meaning to my wife and I because we have both seen it in our own lives. In fact, we saw it as so important that we inscribed it on our wedding bands
This part has obviously not changed. I will note that my original wedding band is at the bottom of a lake in Quebec, waiting for Gollum to find it. My precious. (And, yes, we did buy a new band when we got back to Toronto).

What do I intend to do here?

My intention here is to reflect on my life as a Christian and as an Anglican. I have no intention to transform this blog into another angry conservative screed, but I hope it serves as a bridge between Anglicans and Christians of differing opinions. Perhaps understanding won't solve the problems that we as Anglicans and Christians face in living with each other, but perhaps we can start seeing each other as people, not as positions to refute.

I don't think my aim has shifted much. I'm not really a conservative, but I still don't intend to write any screeds, so not real change there.

 I also firmly agree with the last sentence. If anything the last thirteen years have taught me is how important it is to look for the people with whom I converse, not the abstraction (theological or otherwise) that I have made of them to make it easier to dismiss. That is no easier than it was in 2006. If anything, in our current polarized age, it is harder. I still stand by intention to see my conversation partners as people to listen to, not as ideologies to eliminate.

So, what is the plan? I'm just going to try to write once a week and see where this goes. I'm not guaranteeing anything, but let's see where this evolves. I'll also be refreshing the look of his blog over the next few weeks. I'm leaving the approval of comments as a setting, so I don't get spammed to death, so don't worry if you don't see your comment right away. I'll have a look and approve it as soon as I can.

I'm also leaving the archive from the last thirteen years accessible, although I caution that there are liable to posts that I no longer agree with myself. If you have questions about that, let me know.

Nicodemus

This last week, I've been thinking about Nicodemus. That is, I've been reflecting on that passage from where Nicodemus slips out and meets with Jesus at night, is told he must be born again and where he finds all this very confusing (John 3 1-15 Bible Gateway (NRSV))

It has always been easy for me to be a little dismissive of Nicodemus because he, for a long time, seemed little remote to me. As someone who grew up outside of a church and who came to faith in his mid-20s, Nicodemus was a bit hard to relate to because, as a convert, Nicodemus seem so much of what I was not. He was sufficiently invested in the religious establishment that he had strong enough convictions to align himself to a faction. He clearly was afraid of being seen to be too closely related to someone like Jesus in daylight hours, but, clearly, found him so compelling that he couldn't resist meeting him. However, when he did meet him, he really couldn't take in what Jesus was on about because he was so stuck in being seen to be pious. So, I didn't really have the best opinion of poor Nicodemus, but, then, I doubt if I thought much about him from one year to the next.

 
Yet, what I found myself reflecting on Nicodemus this week, I started, twenty two some odd years after becoming a Christian, to identify a bit with Nicodemus. I am starting to see the subtle temptation of spending a long time with specific 'religious' practices- those practices which are intended to structure and contextualize spirituality, but which can seem to take its place because doing is sometimes easier to do than being. I'm fairly good at getting out to church once a week, volunteering for various tasks at church, praying in the morning and at night and, even, with trying to 'think' Christianly in my daily life. So, in the twenty-two some odd years since becoming a Christian, the 'religious' aspects of my faith are part of my life and that is, by and large, a good thing. It is a good structure and it gives a particular tone to my spirituality which gives meaning to how I understand, God, the world around me and my duty to my neighbour.

For Nicodemus, if we can judge by his decision to approach Jesus, that good practices along wasn't quite enough. There was something else missing. Nor should it be for me either. I can go through the motions, doing all the things that I do to keep connected, but the real work is to relate to a God, whose answers, when they come, are quiet and hard to discern, at best, but transform my reality in ways that I might not always anticipate or, even, sometimes, appreciate. As a convert, perhaps, I know a thing or two about rebirths, but what I know for certain is that the rebirth is nothing compared to the growing into faith that, naturally, follows that rebirth. That growth is slow and painful, but infinitely better than what stood before. That is, of course, why rebirth is a good thing, but not an easy thing. Usually, it is found by slowing down and shutting up in order to,connect with God and meditate with gratitude to the gifts I'm given as well as where I'm being called to. Then, and only then, will I find the courage to continue to grow in my relationship with God and to learn to become that person who God made me to be.

The simple fact that makes Nicodemus so compelling to me is that Nicodemus seemed stuck somehow and he had the courage not to accept staying stuck. Being stuck and the spiritual dryness which accompanies it happens. It happens because we are humans and our attention, sadly, wavers. Other thoughts come into our heads- anger or desire or any number of other distractions which fill our head in this distracted age (just like, I suspect, all the other distracted ages). Getting stuck is easy, but seeking the renewal which gets us moving again is harder, if only because we can get accustomed to our rut. By seeking out Jesus, Nicodemus was probably getting more than he had counted on when he went, but, at least, he moved out of his rut and sought out a better way. If I can do half as well most days, that would be plenty.

Ultimately, we don't know what happened to Nicodemus. We know that he had the courage to challenge the hatred of the religious leaders in Jerusalem against Jesus (John 7, 50-51), even if he was threatened back into silence. We know he helped prepare Jesus' body after His death rather lavishly. We know that he is considered a saint in both the Eastern and Western Churches. Sitting with Nicodemus this week has been good for me because he has helped me understand both the value of practicing the disciplines of faith and the necessity to go beyond them to deepen my relationship with Jesus. And those are good things on which to reflect.

Nothing Harsh, Nothing Burdensome

"nihil asperum, nihil grave, nos constituturos speramus" Preface, Rule of St. Benedict

That time has come, of course-the end of the summer. Pretty soon, schools will re-open, work will start and the standard routine of class prep, extra-curriculars and marking will take over the lives of teachers, parents and students alike. And, that is okay. There is an excitement around back-to-school and hope as well, because everything is, at least, a little new during Back To School.

For me, the lead-up to school entails a few things. First, there are the standard administrative tasks like revising course profiles and other administrative documents. Then, there is whatever class prep I can squeeze around the last summer activities of the year. It is also the time that the reality hits that I won't finish the gazillion projects I thought I'd like to do at the beginning of the summer. And it also the time for my annual reading of the Rule of St. Benedict.

I'm always a bit defensive about this annual reading because I recognize reading the Rule at any time may strike my readers as an odd practice for anyone who isn't a monk.  After all, what does a sixth-century AD monk have to say to a twenty-first century public school teacher. Plenty, it turns out. While there's no call for planning psalm readings or the Liturgy of the Hours in the life of a a teacher in the  secular school system, Benedict's Rule has much to say about the creation and maintenance of a community of teacher and students which I do think is essential for good teaching.  The guidance that St. Benedict gives is rooted in the fact that he firmly believed that people needed to be received as they were and they should be nurtured in a community which gives them a chance to learn and grow. That is, I suggest, what monasteries and schools have in common- communities in which people are welcomed, encouraged to discern their gifts and to develop them in a supportive environment. Benedictine wisdom about hospitality and community has become central to how I've learned to nurture the the community of students, who come to sit with me to explore Latin in my classroom each year. Besides, didn't Benedict characterize his community as a school, albeit for for the Lord's service?

So, one of the phrases in the Rule which stays with me as I consider this sense of community is the programmatic statement of 'nothing harsh, nothing burdensome'. This is a general statement of how a Benedictine community is supposed to run. Out of context, perhaps, this statement might be worrying because it suggests laxity, but, if one continues just one sentence, Benedict makes it clear that, that that aim may have to be adjusted to correct the conduct of community members and promote fairness (actually, correct sin and foster charity). Indeed, there are times in the Rule that St. Benedict seems pretty harsh, especially in his use of corporal punishment for children and 'simple' adults. That is, of course, to our eyes. By the standard of his much harsher and more violent time, he wasn't extreme in any of these punishments.

What St. Benedict does in his Rule is to steer a middle course between the excessive harshness of other monastic rules like the Rule of the Master and the laxity of some monastic communities like the much maligned Sarabaites in his age. Benedict realizes that neither extreme works in learning. Laxity doesn't push people to learn or grow. It just gives them permission to stay as they are. Harshness doesn't help much either  because, while it might breed outwardly obedient monks, it, also, fosters the kind of fear and anger which destroys not only communities, but also the chance to teach what is good. Benedict should know all about that because, in his first community, he was almost poisoned  by some lax monks who found his way of life rather too harsh for their taste (to be fair, he did warn them). That particular community, understandably, didn't survive.

Mind you, I don't expect to be poisoned by my students because of my teaching style, even if I give them the opportunity in my Roman food project each year. However, what the phrase 'nothing harsh, nothing burdensome' tells me is to avoid the extremes of harshness and laxity in my own conduct in the classroom. I know from my ten plus years of teaching that no student can function at their best  in a classroom where the rules are harsh and the work excessively burdensome. Sooner or later, anxiety and anger rob the student of the chance to learn and teacher of the ability to teach. Yet, having no standards creates a chaos in the classroom and an instructional void in which nothing nothing gets done and there is no learning. A functioning classroom needs its rules and it needs flexibility about how those rules are applied. That sometimes means negotiating with students about whether expectations are unreasonable in an assignment and that sometimes being firm with them when they want to take advantage of what they may see, early on, as laxity.  What that looks like changes from year to year and situation to situation, so I can't say that I'm perfect in keeping that balance, but St. Benedict's dictum reminds me to keep balancing firmness and fairness because that is one of the secrets of a truly effective teacher.

Inviting Temptation for Tea

There is a sense in which this post is long overdue. After all, the video that I'm writing about is from Lent and it is high summer now. That is true and all, but this is also the kind of meditation which, even now in the midst of Ordinary time, isn't just a Lent thing, but an every day thing. That is because dealing with temptations are very much part of being human. We can try to run from them, but we never get far because they go so deep that they are difficult to distinguish from our virtues or, sometimes, even our true selves.

That would be grim observation, if we took the reality of temptation as a way to beat ourselves over the head and as a prompting to pervasive shame. If we are constantly tempted, then, surely, we'll fail and Hell is the natural result, right? Certainly, there have been Christians who have believed something like that and come to utter despair, if they didn't also have a strong eschatological sense in which Jesus will snatch them up at the last second from Hell's torment. This is the subject matter of a 'fire and brimstone' sermon, but not this video.

What this video suggests is a different way to look at temptation then, perhaps we're used to. We know about the total depravity concept of humanity suggested in the previous paragraph. And, I'm sure, we've all heard the opposite reaction: "I'm a good person, so don't talk to me about sin". This second aspect is something that we Anglicans, in particular, are prone to, As Stanley Hauerwas has suggested, tongue in cheek, I'm sure, Anglicans probably should stop using the theological term 'incarnation' because they often really mean that God became man and said, "Hey, this is pretty good". This view understands that God has created this world and that it remains good, but it forgets that our relationships to ourselves, to others and the world around us has been warped by our habits of sin, so this view can validate the injustices and deformations of this world uncritically.

Instead of these two extremes, what we get in this video is a way of thinking about sin and temptation which recognizes the wrong path that temptation represents, but seeks to probe back and see why it is happening in the first place. Inspired by the Desert Fathers, it sees temptation to sin as a natural part of the spiritual life- thoughts which should be resisted, of course, but  also which teach us about our own faults, making spiritual progress possible. Quoting Abba Evagrius, "without temptation, no one would be saved". We need saving and it is temptation which highlights just where spiritual healing needs to occurThe point of the incarnation (if I can still use that term) is that God became human to deal with the deformations that human sin has created, not to serve out an antidote to a virus, but to show the way we relate to the world. Jesus, as the video also points out, was tempted. He didn't fall into it and sin, but he was tempted. And, if Jesus- God and human, was tempted, who are we to think we're going to be immune?

Yet, the most beneficial thing in this video for me is the suggestion to hear temptation out, without falling into it. Inviting it to tea, but no more, as this video suggests, means that temptation has a wisdom all its own and can teach us where we need to grow. Temptation warns us something is wrong spiritually, so we would do well to listen and, with God's help, try to work out what it is. That is, if you think about it, what Jesus did in the desert temptations at the beginning of his ministry. Jesus listens to the tempter's suggestions, pinpoints the nature of the temptation and counters it. The temptation to turn stone into bread isn't about food, it is about trusting the Lord. The temptation to gain power isn't about power, but about worshiping only God. The temptation to throw oneself from the Temple isn't about Jesus' special status, but about not doubting God's goodness. Jesus faces down each of the temptations because he has the discernment to see what the real issue is.

What resonates with me about this realization about the wisdom of temptation isn't necessarily that it is such a new thing, but rather that it counteracts a tendency that I have to just trying to shove the temptation aside without, necessarily, dealing with what it is trying to tell me. All to often, I try to let go of a temptation too early in the hopes that it will just go off and peddle its papers somewhere else, leaving me alone. Life doesn't work that way because temptation just comes back, tugging at my coat-tails and telling me to listen for God's sake. The only way to disperse it, I'm learning, is to stop, listen and throw the fault to which temptation is pointing back to God for healing. That means the uncomfortable work of self-reflection and confession to God, but that is the only thing that begins to heal me from my defects of character. That is the only way that I can grow as a person and as a Christian.

So, I keep coming back to this video, even after Lent, as a reminder to reflect on and confess my faults. Temptation remains in its multitudinous forms. It remains because I remain human. The important thing is to hear what I need to hear about myself and throw myself open for God's healing.

Advent

It's Advent. Finally. I often have that sentiment as I trudge through the last weeks of that long Ordinary time which stretches from Pentecost to the 1st Sunday of Advent. Ordinary time is so unchanging and fathomless that it sometimes easy to fall into abstractions and stale routine. This particular last few weeks has been tumultuous, stressful and an excellent arena to show off my many, many character defects. All through this chaos, I kept thinking- just make it to Advent- slow down. I was, in a sense, waiting for Advent; waiting for the time when we wait on the Lord.

I'm aware that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If it helps any, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. Yet, amid the busyness and stress and general loopiness of the last few weeks, not a lot has been making sense to me.

So, we're here- at Advent. The 1st Sunday of Advent, no less. What have I found? Hope. Not that, in the last few weeks or days, I've given up hope or anything. But, I've not been looking as hard for it. And, as I was reminded today, hope is the necessary precondition to faith. It is, one might say, its handmaid. So, I, actually had a look around and found hope sitting right next to me- a little battered, a little neglected, but still there.

Hope is a like a switch which reverses the polarity of my life. I go from trying to maintain an artificial sense of control and self-will which will ultimately collapse to remembering that hope tells me that God has it and I don't have to. Hope points me to a much, better world than I can sometimes conceive and places what I do now in that context. Hope points me me to a future instead of holding me in an awkward stasis.  Hope is where I need to stay as we settle into our long, silent wait over the next few weeks.

Happy Advent!

Anxiety

"It is fear--in the old sense of awe--that allows us to recognize the holy in our midst, fear that gives us courage to listen, and to let God awaken in us capacities and responsibilities we have been afraid to contemplate" Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace

I re-read this sentence this week at a time when I was feeling quite anxious and quite overwhelmed about the demands of this year. For most of the year, my stress and anxiety levels have been quite high as I'm taking on some new projects which I've never tried before and because of what I've felt to be an awkward start to the year for reasons not really in my control. My sleep has been a disrupted and that doesn't exactly help things either. I was feeling out of control and I didn't like it.

What this quote did for me was to remind me that fear and anxiety are rarely gratuitous; that what I was feeling was an indication that something was out of whack, likely related to trying to control some part of my life which I didn't have control over. It was a remind to stop spinning around in circles and listen to see what it was I was supposed to be paying attention to. What I heard wasn't a booming voice from God or even a little whisper on the wind. What came to me was a reminder that I was being stretched in ways that I wasn't used to and that I needed to remember that growth comes with awkward starts and stumbles. And that was fine as long as I learned (again) that perfection isn't in the cards for me and that a recognition of my imperfections is the necessary component of learning what I am capable of. It is that recognition of imperfection which opens me up to growth as long as I'm willing to drop my ego and listen. I'd sooner do everything perfectly straight off (like anyone else), but that is an egocentric dream of infallibility. Looking around, I know that all this fear and anxiety keeps reminding me of that central truth: fear and anxiety are just markers for the growth I'd, otherwise, wouldn't know I needed. It is a reminder to stop trying to control people and events and simply pay attention to just what is it that God is trying to awaken. If I can trust that God has all this in hand, I can take that stretching and those stumbles more in stride.

Now, if I can just keep remembering that, the busy year ahead will be much more serene.

End of Summer Preparations

This is around the time of year for my annual reading of the Rule of St. Benedict. The summer is ending; the start of a new school year is only a week and a bit away. My preparations for the new year are stepping into high gear and I'm honestly looking forward to seeing my students- both my returning veterans and my newbies. I can feel a mild anticipatory buzz in the air as I start thinking about school, although I have to confess that buzz has taken longer to gain my attention this year than usual. Still, the new year beckons and that means so is St. Benedict.

I acknowledge the oddity of this attachment to St. Benedict. I am not a monk nor am I intending to open a monastery in the middle of the public high school in which I teach. For that matter, while I know a monk or two, I haven't darkened the door of a monastery in my life. I come by my appreciation of St. Benedict through books: Kathleen Norris, above all the rest, but also Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton and many others. That I confess I find incongruous because, if there is one thing that Benedictines are known for, it is community, so it seems odd to me to come by Benedictine values outside a community which espouses those values. Yet, here I am with a copy of the Rule next to me, waiting to be re-read. What is which brings be back to Benedict at this time of year?

What St. Benedict has done for me is to suggest a life where one's Christian faith is central to all that I do and that comes out in the little things that I do from day to day. He incorporates prayer, work and study in such a way as to keep a nurturing balance between them. This isn't a question of praying the seven monastic hours or follow a full, rigid  monastery schedule of so many minutes to sacred reading, so many for work, so many for prayer: that just doesn't work in the everyday, hectic life of a high school teacher. The insight St. Benedict gives is the principle that all three, prayer, work and study, are important and, more significantly, that God is found in all three. Obviously, it is easier to accept that prayer and even study (especially if it is of Scripture) include God, but Benedictine wisdom has found ways to find God in the everyday work that we do.

It comes out in the reverence for the things and people around us, recognizing them as part of God's world and, thus, precious. At the beginning of the year, I look out over each of my classes and wonder just what is God doing in bringing us all together. Where I am going to find Him sitting, sometimes in deep disguise, in the lives of my students? And how am I supposed to respond to that disguise?

For that matter, how do I make good decisions about my teaching? Where is God in the decision to use a certain technology? What is the care I need to use in taking care of the tools entrusted to me? How do I decide what is a success and failure? How do I move past mere numbers and marks, so I can see the child of God before me? The more I teach, the more I know that I don't always listen to God attentively day to day, hour to hour and minute to minute, but St. Benedict's wisdom calls me to try, directing my attention to the daily routine and asking me to find where God is residing right now, in this moment. I know He's there, but it sometimes takes me a long time to notice.

All of those questions demand reflection and rigourous honesty, but they are, because of that, extremely important. They are important because I've seen what can happen when I listen to where God is leading and create that safe, reverent place for others to learn and to grow. I once confused an administrator one year when I answered her question on the value that was most important for me as a teacher. I answered 'hospitality'. What I meant by that is that one of the most important values for my teaching is the creation of that open space which allows my students to be themselves and, thus, to grow. That value is at the centre of the little community which has grown out of the Latin program at my school and it is at the centre of how I try to run my classroom. It is an ideal and I know too well when I fail to pay sufficient heed to it. Yet, at the centre of the hospitality I offer my students for as long as they are with me is that reverence for what is before me that St. Benedict teaches. The real challenge to live out that reverence every day, every class and in all that I do.

Summer Plans

As of Friday, the 2013-2014 school year is over. The marks are in. The clean-up from the last frenzy of assignments, exams and marking marathons is done. The obligatory staff meetings with their celebrations of our successes and reflections on our performance are all done. What is left is two months of summer in which to recharge our batteries and, if you are anything like me, start planning for next year. At this point in the summer, I have a long list of things that I want to do over the holiday. I probably even do some it. Just not as much as I think I will now.

Still, despite those plans, I have to admit that I never entirely know what do with my summers. Part of that, of course, is the challenge of summers with the kids home (at least my oldest, my youngest is still at daycare because we have to hold the spot). Yet, a certain sense of unease that two months of open time gives me predates kids and, indeed, even teaching. As a student, I made it a point to spend the summer reading background material. In fact, one year, I was so uneasy about the long four months break I had from university that I decided to write a twenty page paper on the decline of Byzantine power in the 14th century. All that summer, I worked forty plus hours at my summer job and massively over-researched this paper, despite the fact that there was pretty much no reason for doing it. It wasn't course work. It wasn't a thesis. I was simply doing it 'cause. You can imagine the odd looks I'd get when I explained what I was doing.

Yet, I suspect that the real reason for writing that paper (and, I suspect, for my extensive plans for 'getting ahead on lesson prep for next year) was probably I'm not entirely sure about what to do with myself when not busy. Busyness for me is a way to to fill up the empty spaces in my life in a reasonably socially acceptable way. Busyness allows me to cover over my desire to to retreat from the social realm because it is just easier to be busy than engaged. It provides an ego reinforcement that I'm valuable because I accomplish so much. It provides a way to avoid myself and the reflection that, perhaps, I'm just not as great as I'd like to think I am. Busyness can be compulsive for me which is a tendency which I have to keep aware of.

Of course, I'm aware this compulsive busyness isn't a good thing, really. I do need to rest. I do need to recharge. Certainly, the experiences I had this year with the quiet time I had at the Royal Botanical Gardens and on my Greece trip show how much I need those moments of silence and meditation in order to centre myself for the challenges of my legitimately busy times. In addition, I also know very well that busyness often gets in the way of my other firm belief that, as Henry Nouwen reminds us, the point of one's work is often in the interruptions of one's work and I want to remain open to those interruptions. If I am so busy that I don't have time for people, then I probably have failed in my true vocation as a Christian; that of, seeking to live out God's kingdom here and now. After all, God has an awful lot of things going on at any given point, but He has time for me when I mediate and prayer. How, then, can I not have time for others?

I can't say I won't do any work over the summer break. I have my plans and my projects, like every year. However, I find myself noticing my need to slow down, connect with God and with the people in my life. The long summer stretches out ahead of me and that is, probably, a good thing.

Pride, Anger and Thwarted Lust

Over the last week, I've been reflecting on the Islas Vista shootings, along with, I'm sure, a lot of other people. That is, of course, a natural reaction to this kind of incident because it is disturbing to see open violence breaking out in our seemingly peaceful streets. What makes this all the worse is that the now dead shooter left behind a video and manifesto in which he declares himself perfect and, coldly and calmly, outlines his plans for retribution on his fellow students and the world. Watching normal human compassion and love shrivel in the face of an all-consuming rage is a terrible thing. To reach the pitch that one can declare oneself perfect and akin to a god, who can hunt down his fellow students like animals is something that should repel us. It also should cause us to wonder what is it about our culture which breeds this kind of hate-filled (usually) young men, whose only outlet for their feelings is violence and murder. How does this happen in a society which is supposedly at peace? And, if we are at peace, why are we not peaceful? Why do some young men, albeit a very small number, find the only solution to their everyday frustrations in a blaze of destructive violence?

 I don't know the answers to those questions. Of course, many explanations have been offered  for this and other shootings- mental illness, video game culture, gun culture, a crisis in masculinity or rampant misogyny. Indeed, it is more than likely that there is not any one simple answer. Certainly, all these reasons and more have been seen in the recent #notallmen and #Yesallwomen.  I admit that I haven't really followed this debate closely because I find what I've seen all too familiar. I recall vividly the same debate in the aftermath of the L'Ecole Polytechnique shootings in 1989. I can understand the temptation implicit in the #notallmen position because almost no man wants to be tarred with the same brush as an Elliot Rodger. That attitude reflects a repugnance for both the actions and attitudes of this person which is a good thing as far as it goes. We would be a lot worse position, if men didn't want to disassociate themselves from such an act.

Yet, it is also probably right to say that the #notallmen position sets rather a low bar for male behavior, if this disassociation is all that is needed. I am uncomfortably aware that the same attitudes of entitlement to sex, seeing women as collections of albeit desirable parts or as prizes to be won, have been a part of my own thinking and behavior. Certainly, my penchant for the Unrequited Love Olympics in my twenties and thirties reflected this because I was really more interested in keeping the image of the particular object of my affections on the pedestal I made for her or working out how I could win the prize she represented than in the real, breathing person behind the image. That this focus was an inherently de-humanizing and objectifying one is only something that I came to realize after I got married and lived with a woman in a way that forced me to see both the good and bad in her and loving her for who she really is, not as I want her to be. Even with that lived experience, I still have to monitor my thinking and my relationships with women to make sure that I'm seeing them as the people they are, not as extras in the (self-centred) drama of my life or, worse, as mere objects.

The challenge of Elliot Rodger, I think, is not to explain why he is different, but, rather, to identify those parts of one's own heart which are similar to his. About a week ago, when I watched the video he left behind before his rampage, what came to my head immediately was that the Desert Fathers were so right about the importance of what we think. These monks considered that they would make no spiritual progress, if they didn't confront the 'bad thoughts' which accosted them daily. These thoughts have been translated into the Western moral tradition as vices, but they are better understood not so much as actions as dangerous thinking patterns which leads the soul into a willful decision to pursue the objects of that thinking in the place of God. So, lust takes the desire to connect with another person to the point of wanting to possess that person as an object. Anger takes the desire for justice to the point of imposing one's will on another. Pride takes the recognition of one's preciousness in the sight of God to the point of displacing God and feeling one can be God in one's own life. Despite an alarming tendency of many Desert Fathers, like so many of their contemporaries, to find an infinite variety of demons in one's soup, these early monks seem to have understood something that we have problems seeing. They understood that one's thoughts makes one vulnerable to self-will and, from there, to displacing God from one's own life. That is why they gave so much attention on how to pray and how to deal with these distracting 'bad thoughts'.

I don't know what happened to Elliot Rodger to led him to think and act as he did. There is reason that those factors were amplified by mental illness. And, the way this mental illness manifested itself was, also, shaped by the misogyny of 'rape culture' which pervades much of pop culture and many sub-cultures in our society. What I see is the results of 'bad thoughts' running rampant through ones life. Ultimately, it was anger, pride and thwarted lust which led drove out justice, humanity and love out the heart of this young man. That a tragic thing but a tragedy further compounded by the murders that this young man perpetrated on his fellow university students. I don't know how else to react to this tragedy, but to mourn those who died, identify the lies I hear from society and keep a watch on my thoughts. That's not enough, but it's all I have right now.

The Tower of Babel

11 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward,they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” 8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

I've been thinking about the Tower of Babel this week, which is, I admit, kind of an odd thing to be thinking about. To some extent, I have to blame Jason Byassee, whose excellent book, Praise Seeking Understanding: Reading the Psalm with Augustine, has had me thinking about allegory. And that, by means I cannot quite explain, led me back to the Tower of Babel- on the subway, no less.

I should explain that the Tower of Babel story has fascinated me since my early twenties, while I was still very much at a beginning stage of seeking my spiritual way. Something about that story caught my attention to the degree that I, eventually, wrote a short story set in Babel in the aftermath  of the confusion of the tongues. What attracted me, I think, to the story wasn't so much God's action as the alienation which resulted from this hubristic endeavor to reach the heavens. From a unity which seemed to be able to accomplish everything, the people of Babel, after the confusion of tongues, fragmented and scattered all over the world. It seemed an allegory of humanities' profound alienation with itself which fit, almost perfectly, my thinking in my early adult existentialist phase.

Besides, it was an excellent metaphor for the other, ulterior motive for the story. The last two or so pages of the story featured a reflection of the narrator and his lover, who, as luck would have it, found themselves divided by a linguistic chasm and were unable to understanding each other any more. That was a rather pointed allegory for the person I was writing it for- a girl at work, in whom I had been, rather obsessively, interested in and who was off to university in a different town. Back in those days, I was in rigourous training for the Unrequited Love Olympics, so the whole theme of estrangement and loss fit in well with how I was thinking and feeling around that time. I can't say whether the story was a good story (I didn't keep an extra copy) nor can I, honestly, say the story delighted the poor girl. I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't delighted me, if I had been in her place. No one likes two-by-fours being slammed into their heads-allegorical or not.

Yet, the Tower of Babel has stayed in my head over the years. I think that is because my twenty-three year old self seemed to get something right with that story. What I wrote about, I think, was not so much the self-exagerrated loss I was feeling for the loss of a love-interest, but, rather, a greater estrangement with the world and the people around me which was something of a common place in the existentialism I was reading at the time. More important I think, the story of the Tower of Babel story resonated my own growing disconnection with other people at the time as I began to retreat more and more into my head- a disconnection that would continue to grow over the years and one which I've only really started to slowly emerge in the last ten or fifteen years. The estrangement at Babel made such profound sense to me because I felt I was speaking a language no one else knew and, as a result, I really didn't get how the world worked.

Still, I don't think I quite got all of the story. The estrangement and the alienation was, for me, easy to understand, but it has taken this long for me to realize that the Tower itself represents our efforts to control our lives and, if possible, our own salvations. By building a tower to heaven, we don't have to rely on God for redemption. We can climb there ourselves. Given human weakness, that is unspeakably arrogant, but it does seem to be something shared by a lot of people, including myself when it comes down to it. I know that, for me, the temptation to make myself my own God and, then, control my salvation is a real and attractive one. It would be so much easier to decide what is best for myself, rather than wait on God's own timing and the chance he'll redirect me, albeit to something better. I know I want what I want, so why would I bother with waiting on God's answer, when I obviously know better myself?

Yet, what I've learned over the years is that I don't know better myself. Time and again, I've managed to prove that my attempts to control my life have proved pathetic failures which cause more confusion and pain in my life, not less. I want to build my own tower to Heaven, where I will find fulfillment on my own power and my own terms, but I can't. I don't have the ability.

Instead, what I have to come to realize is that this kind of tower building leads to disconnection for me. When I think I have control over my spiritual life, I manage to prove to prove I don't really understand God or other people or, ultimately, myself. That tower represents for me a delusion of my self-sufficiency which is a delusion which, for my own good, needs to be confronted and scattered to the four winds. In sharing one language, the people of Babel were able to keep up their delusion of a power greater than God. When their tongues were confused, they confronted that delusion and, as a result of that confusion, scattered.

Yet, the story doesn't end here. The confusion of the languages is a vivid image of the disconnect with God and other people, but it isn't the last word. With the onrushing of the winds of Pentecost, all the languages of the world ultimately combine back together as they translate our one true language: the language of God's love. When the disciples miraculously praised God in many, many languages, the effects of the Tower of Babel were, for that brief, but important moment, reversed, prefiguring our reconciliation and the adopting of that common language of God's love which really binds us together.

That is, of course, which provides the way forward for me. God's love may prove to be a difficult second spiritual language for me, but its very universality opens the way to share it with those people who are in my life. Learning that language means a reliance on God and a willingness to love my neighbour, which exactly is needed to turn back the effects of my own tendency to build my own tower and control my spiritual life. Translating it into my life means more serenity about my place in the world which can only lead to reconciliation with God and the people He places in my life. I'm still not very good at that translation, but I can see my progress along this road which is all I can hope for. Perhaps that is all we can all hope for.

Phil

Evidence of Failure

This is the time of year when, for me, the prospect of failure becomes the most strong and the hope, carefully nurtured since the beginning of the year, becomes most faint and fleeting. This is the time of year when I become aware that the bold plans of the fall have not entirely been realized and that there are loose ends which I won't get a chance to tie down. This is the time of year when I know I didn't reach that kid, that's right, that kid, who began my course with great enthusiasm, but has become discouraged and listless. This is the time of year when I'm aware of the mistakes I've made and the lessons not quite learned. As the snow melts and the spring gradually begins to warm the air, I realize that there are only two months to go and I'm not, again this year, the perfect teacher.

Of course, that isn't a stunning realization for me. I've been teaching for ten years or so now, so I'm familiar where this reaction comes from. I know that I'm the one who is expecting perfection from myself and that I'm expecting too much when I do. As the saying goes, 'perfect is the enemy of the good', so I know not to worry about my lapses in perfection and that I should start looking at the good I've been doing. That good is, usually, pretty substantial. I have a wonderful job, teaching courses that I love to students who, mostly, appreciate what they're learning and experiencing in the time they have with me. I can look for where I've touched the lives sometimes by providing a safe place to land, or a place to belong or simply a sympathetic ear. I'm happy with those goods because they are what I have and they remind me of a God who, while being perfect, created a world which he did not pronounce perfect, but rather good and very good.

Ultimately, the drive for perfection is a desire to control; a desire which I recognize in myself whenever I set up an impossible standard and, then, berate myself for not achieving it. Ultimately, perfection, as an ideal, means that everything is predictable and controlled, so nothing goes awry, so that all that I demand of the world and the people around me is done. That means that, whether I want to admit it or not, I'm asking for God's power to control and manipulate my own private world. And God helps us all, I, or anyone else, ever manages to achieve that degree of control in their own and other peoples lives.

When that mirage of perfection shimmers before me, the most important thing for me to recall is that, day to day, hour to hour, I deal with people-not the least, myself- who, by definition, are simply not predictable or under my control. They have their own free will (and so do I) and their own minds. And that is all to the good. Who wants automata, when they can rejoice in the much more interesting mystery of those persons who they meet and interact with day to day?  And, given our lack of omniscience, how could we not fail to be perfect, while succeeding at being ourselves, faults and all? So, most days, I try to let go of control and for the perfection which is supposed to be the manifestation of it, so I can embrace the good of the world as I find it.

So, I'm okay with this evidence of failure this time of year because it is a good reminder that, thankfully, I'm not really in control. I remember that, when I teach, I'm dealing with flesh and blood, spirit and mind, so I can only yield to the mystery of who God has thrown my way in the hopes that I can, somehow, do some good with my life and, maybe, just maybe, be an instrument of God's redeeming love and peace for the people I am with. Not perfection nor control, but, if I can manage it, good and, yes, even very good.

Back from Greece

It is probably true that one of the last places that one might look for quiet and solitude is on a March Break international student trip to Greece. International field trips with teenagers are many things. They are both rewarding and challenging in roughly equal measures. The sheer joy and enthusiasm that a group of teenagers can produce when confronted with something new and cool (like ancient ruins!) cannot fail to lift the hearts of those around them. The teenaged interpersonal drama and testing of limits which are inevitable on these kinds of trips are equally challenging. None of this is surprising to those who know and love teenagers, so no one really comes to a trip like this with an actual expectation of peace and quiet. There aren't any dull moments on tour with students. That is a good thing...mostly.

Yet, to my surprise, I found myself, on this trip, reflecting on the importance of silence and solitude in my life. Not just as a 'Gee, I wish I had some', but experiencing little moments breaking into the busyness of a student tour. That solitude, the solitude of the heart that the spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen, talks about in his many books, is one which calls my attention to what is real and important. It is a solitude in which we are"no longer pulled apart by the most divergent stimuli of the surrounding world but [are] able to perceive and understand the world from a quiet inner centre." It is a reality check and a reminder of the ties which matter, instead of the trivialities of our busyness, fears and anxieties That kind of silence come just like a river of grace, unexpectedly and joyfully flowing through our hearts.

 It comes as a few moments shared with a colleague sitting atop a Bronze Age citadel with only a few students around, who, oddly, were respecting our space. Gazing over the valley ahead of us and right down to the sea, the beauty of what was set out in front of us became a reminder to me about the goodness of this world and the wonder of being there. That quiet and the landscape before us, I think, became a restorative moment for two busy and conscientious teachers. The silence and solitude allowed us to "strengthen each other by mutual respect, by careful consideration of each other's individuality, by an obedient distance from each other's privacy and by a reverent understanding of the sacredness of the human heart" (Henri Nouwen). It should come as no surprise that our conversation on the way down from the citadel was about that sense of restoration and healing we found in the silence a short time before.

Or it comes as a few minutes on a headland, surrounded on three sides by the sea. In the late morning sun (the first extended period of sun for that trip), the chance for quiet came as the students filed down the hill for gelato in the restaurant down below near the gate. Up there on the cliffs, almost surrounded by the sea, the silence called me to prayer. More specifically, it called for praying Psalm 19:


The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands
Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they display knowledge
There is no speech or language 
    where their voice is not heard. 
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
     their words to the ends of the world
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,
which is like a bridegroom 
coming forth from his pavilion,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
It rises at one end of the heavens
  and makes its circuit to the other; 
nothing is hidden from its heat. 
                                  
At that moment, at that place, the silence called me to worship, to seeing the touch of God on the earth in front of me. The sheer joy of feeling the sun on my face, watching it run its race and looking out over the life-giving sea connected me with the joy behind God's creation. How can one not respond with gratitude and happiness?

Or it can happen in a crowded city square, sitting at rest and watching the life of a strange city go by. As I sat there, I kept remembering that famous quote of Thomas Merton on the streets of Louisville: 

“I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness…The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.”

I can't say I reached that level of exaltation, but I felt the wonder of being here and I found myself wondering what the lives of all these people around me were like. What was that mother and child and friend doing there right now at this moment? Do those skateboarders always come here to film themselves doing tricks? Who is that man waiting for? I knew, amid the bustle, that God loved this city and its people as surely as He loves me. As my students trickled back to return to the hotel, I felt a bit less tired and a lot more at peace. The things that divided us weren't as important anymore and I knew that these were the people I was meant to be with at that moment.

I wish I could say that I could sustain this solitude of the heart the entire trip, or even for a substantial time in it. Each of these moments of solitude and peace only lasted minutes; fifteen minutes here, a half an hour there. For so much more time, I remained in the busyness and anxiety which is also a part of these life on student tours.Yet, these moments of peace and solitude of the heart remain precious to me because they represent a life-giving river in my life, connecting me to what is important- my students and the joy of being in the moment. The healing and restorative power of even a little bit of quietness was crucial for my peace of mind and my capacity for enjoyment of the trip itself, allowing me the chance to quiet down, listen and return to the tour with a truer sense of who I was and the wonder of being where I was. It is, as Henri Nouwen, says

                             "The movement from loneliness to solitude is a movement 

                               which allows us to perceive interruptions as occasions 

                               for a conversion of heart, which makes our responsibilities

                               a vocation instead of a burden, and which creates the inner 

                               space where a compassionate solidarity with our fellow 

                               human beings becomes possible. The movement from 

                              loneliness to solitude is a movement by which we reach out

                              to our innermost being to find there our great healing 

                              powers, not as a unique property to be defended but as

                              a gift to be shared with all human beings." 

I recognize, as Nouwen himself did when he wrote this, my own incapacity for achieving this solitude of the heart for any extended time. Those glimpses I get, on this trip and other times, are moments of grace from God, but, perhaps, it is their quality as sheer gift which makes them so valued and important for me. My hope and prayer, then, is to stay open to these gifts of silence and solitude and ready to take back into my life what I learn at those quiet times.