On Teaching.

Today marks my last day with students in the classroom. I've resisted the impending last-day nostalgia so far, though I suspect in a month or two it will creep in and I'll spend four days in continuous cringing at memories of lame jokes and accidental culturally insensitive remarks. But, there will be far more to be proud of.

Starting a new job on Monday feels like I'm getting divorced on Friday and remarried to an entirely new woman next week. I'll have the weekend to process and grieve. Really though, she's not new. She's who I've known and thought about for the past few years, it's a comfortable fit, though I'm still a little nervous; I wonder if our hands will still fit together the same way.

Teaching, for me, has transcended traditional connotation of "employment." It's been a vacation from the social expectations of "job." I can say without hesitation that there hasn't been a day I've dreaded coming in.

To be sure, I probably haven't been a real teacher, something more of an observer getting paid and treated like a real teacher. I'm much more interested in conversation and inspiration than curriculum and grading. Probably not the stuff of real teachers.

I think I've cheated the system. I know honestly that I've learned more than I've taught. When I think about it, most of the past two years flashes before me like a movie-montage set to bad (Read: Awesome) 80's music. I'm going to work on capturing as many memories as possible before they're stolen by time and coming priorities.

Some of the most profound realizations:

They're smarter than me. Any teacher would be amiss to think that students are the only ones learning. I learn from 150+ people a day. Each student has a story. Some good, some bad but these stories are, for the most part, true. To not learn from that would be an exponential waste of time.

They Remember. I remember halfway through last year, a student repeated a phrase I used on the first day of school. That moment changed me. He never knew the impact, after all, he was just being a good student, but it was defining for me. God used that moment in ways neither I nor that student can fully understand. Our words matter.

Teaching is hard. Teaching is freaking hard. Teaching is seriously hard. But it's big and it's good and it's worth it. I honestly feel that after this, I'll be fine anywhere.

These memories are mine. They're my story now. I've been in excellent company for the past two years, and it's tough to put words to exactly how undeserving I am, so I'll be quiet and thankful.

Durham Range of Emotion

If this were my group therapy session, what insights would you offer?

One is Not Bold in an Encounter with God.

One of the most beautiful quotes I've ever read. I teared up cried the first time I found this in 'The Ragamuffin Gospel' by Brennan Manning. Coincidentally, one of the best books I've ever read.

The quote is from Richard Selzer, a doctor who wrote a memoir called 'Mortal Lessons.' Manning uses the quote to metaphor our own palsy in relation to our God, and how he twists his lips to kiss ours.

Wow.

"I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face, postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove he tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve.

Her young husband is in the room. He stands of the opposite side of the bed and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? the young woman speaks

"Will my mouth always be like this?" she asks.

"Yes," I say, "It will. It is because the nerve was cut."

She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles.

"I like it," He says, "it is kind of cute."

All at once i know who he is. I understand and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with God. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works."

Knowledge is useless.

"The gap between ignorance and knowledge is much less than the gap between knowledge and action"

In my limited experience, this truth has been consecrated through thousands of repeated examples (very rarely my own, of course.) As I adjust to living on the wrong side of my 20's, I'm beginning to understand that knowledge is basically useless. Theories are little more than conversation fodder or mental exercise.

Though it has long decorated the halls of academia, upheld as the highest virtue, fought for and stolen like the breath of a beautiful woman- it's essentially useless.

-When it's naked.

In order for knowledge to bring about the promised fruits of the labors of cultivating and tending to it, it must be married to action. Knowledge cannot be alone. The very nature of action brings experience, and when action is one with knowledge, the resulting experience is always perfect (Note: The outcome or result of said experience is not always pleasurable, but it is always perfect; always usable.) My knowing how to perform CPR means very little to the choking man at the restaurant. My knowing how to subtract only takes on meaning when it is time for me to perform subtraction.

Rock climbing is composed of tons of intellectual and physical partnerships. The beta and the meta. The two are inseparable, (Think: peanut butter and jelly, Lawry's and grilled cheese) you cannot have one without the other. In order to physically assert strength against a rock (meta) you must first know what happens when you clasp your fingers around a hold (beta.) While the two are not exactly mutually exclusive, if you want the experience of reaching the top, a perfect marriage must be made. Standing at the base of a rock trying to know your way up will get you nowhere. Having the strength of Samson without the cognitive understanding of gravity (and your relationship to it) will yield similar results.

Knowledge is lazy. Knowledge wants to hang out on the couch, action wants to move. Knowledge wants to talk, action wants to work. Knowledge wants to read, action wants to write.

I don't mean to say that knowledge or wisdom are not worth pursuing. I'm just wondering - What would happen if we got it drunk, took it to Vegas and married it to action? What would the kids look like?

--- With that, here's a screenshot of a little chart-based motivation I've constructed for myself. The idea was borrowed stolen from Demetri Martin. I'm posting not for accolades (My total for the week was 12, yes twelve) but for accountability. I figure if I post this, you will all know what I suck at. This is this week's way of moving from knowledge to action.

Eldredge and Perspective.

Great Eldredge quote.

Have you ever had to literally turn a lover over to a mortal enemy to allow her to find out for herself what his intentions toward her really were? Have you ever had to lie in bed knowing she was believing his lies and was having sex with him every night? Have you ever sat helplessly by in a parking lot, while your enemy and his friends took turns raping your lover even as you sat nearby, unable to win her heart enough so she would trust you to rescue her? Have you ever called this one you had loved for so long, even the day after her rape, and asked her if she was ready to come back to you only to have her say her heart was still captured by your enemy? Have you ever watched your lover’s beauty slowly diminish and fade in a haze of alcohol, drugs, occult practices, and infant sacrifice until she is no longer recognizable in body or soul? Have you ever loved one so much that you even send your only son to talk with her about your love for her, knowing that he will be killed by her? (And in spite of knowing all of this, he was willing to do it because he loved her, too, and believed you were meant for each other.)

All this and more God has endured because of his refusal to stop loving us. Indeed, the very depth and faithfulness of his love for us, along with his desire for our freely given love in return, are what give Satan the ammunition to wound God so deeply as he carries out his unceasing campaign to make us into God’s enemy.

The Sacred Romance , 106

So often I minimize my own role in Jesus' life/death. Even as I type this (and it's hard to) I sit justifying myself. Measuring myself against the actions of "far worse sinners." Here I sit, polishing my pride.

In all of my attempts to run from him, every time I've shouted hate into the sky, every time I've wanted to disbelieve, he's purchased me.

God, save me from the times in my weakness that I fall into my enemy. Save me from the times that I am strong, and weaken myself to join my enemy. May your enemies be mine. And give me the eyes to know who they are.

Ceaselessly into the Past

I think about The Great Gatsby a lot. And by a lot, I mean that I could probably read and reread this book only and have a fine understanding of the entire world. Fitzgerald was one of the great ones; his insecurity and brokenness gave him the insight to write the perfectly imperfect character.

I don't know what it is about the last lines of the book, but since reading it for the first time in 12th grade, I haven't been able to shake them.

I think it captures the spirit of the book in perfect prose. For the few hundred pages before these lines, Gatsby had been crafting and destroying himself, trying to regain his past "Beating against the current." I love the wind-out-of-your-sails brand of hopelessness it evokes.

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning-- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

What's the best paragraph you've ever read?

On Sunglasses

I have diagnosed myself with a moderate-to-moderate case of "Photophobia." Which, according to my vast research (Wikipedia) and medical experience (WebMD) means that I'm either part vampire, or I have slight damage to my Oculomotor nerves.

Basically, when it's bright, my eyes hurt. Probably sounds like common sense to most (doesn't everyone's?) But for me, when it's even semi-bright my eyes try to commit ocular-suicide via hari-kari.

Fortunately, God has invented a solution: "Sunglasses."

The problem with sunglasses is that no matter who you are, no matter the style, brand or quality of sunglass, anyone who wears them looks like a jerk. Millions of sensible citizens have been unfairly prejudged in the hundreds of years since the invention of sunglasses.

Maybe it makes sense that the blooddrunk tyrant, Nero, was one of the pioneers of wearing them. After all, burning Christians is difficult in the bright Italian sun. Also, turns out Hitler was a big fan.

Bottom line, please accept my psycho-biological excuse for looking like a jerk.

You are not your job.

At what point in our youthful idealism have we outgrown the need for knowing someone? When did it become standard to evaluate a person based on their economic occupation? How did I become so lazy as to reduce someone's entire life into four easy, monosyllabic words?

"What do you do?"

Hang out with anyone 25 years old or older and I guarantee it's among the first of three (at most, three) introductory questions. Usually the newcomer's name will be offered, followed by some obvious commentary: "Crazy night, huh?" "How do you know John/the groom/my brother?" etc.

But invariably and inevitably the question comes.

"What do you do?"

For some, the question is met with pride and relief. Finally, you've been given opportunity to announce your station in life. Maybe your job connotes some prestige or respect or earning power and you're now allowed to bask in the validation afforded by your job title.

For others, the question is met with sheepish indifference, usually followed by some kind of qualifier. "I work in a warehouse, but I'm going to school to be a teacher" or "I'm a teacher, but I'm starting a small business." The question we've asked has now placed an uncalled-for burden of anxiety on the person, all in the name of "getting to know someone."

Since when has a person's job title been enough to know them? When has the way someone converts time to money ever been a sufficient peek into their lives?

The truth is, I cannot know someone by knowing their economic occupation. You cannot know their heart or their passions by knowing where or how they spend 8 hours of their day.

There are times when someone is genuinely interested in knowing your job. But, I would submit that most often the interviewer is simply too casual, too lazy to ask the hard questions.

It is always wrong to assume that someone's reply to the question will tell me who they are. At this point, all we're doing is sharpening our stereotyping skills (I call it discernment) by measuring them against our imagination. A losing game, for sure.

"I'm a lawyer"
"I'm a teacher"
"I work in a warehouse"
"I work in a restaurant"

It's the ultimate question in failure, there is never a right answer. Essentially, we're asking a new person to play some sort of mind-reading trivia game against all of our past experiences. Any answer the person gives is immediately measured against your unique and distinct emotional history with that occupation. We've got it so wrong. I have it so wrong.

And every assumption is never fully accurate and always fully unfair.

These four words have irretrievably and indiscriminately reduced someone to the answer of your careless line of questioning.

How disappointing it would be to realize that what you do for 8-10 hours a day has become your identity, your single identifying trait worn proudly/humbly/begrudgingly as a badge of introduction.

I think the offense goes beyond the laziness of the person asking the question. For so long we've supported the idea that our validation comes from our occupation. Our business has become our business card, our mutual link to the understanding of another. I've traded passion for pretense.

What if we chose never to ask the question? What if we decided that the value and estimation of a person is found in his passion or in her heart. There's too many proving this wrong. I know guys in "noble" occupations who aren't noble people, and I know just as many who carry mundane tasks with the heart of an adventurer. You are not your job.

I know teachers who "do it for the money," and lawyers who wish they were teachers.

What if we responded to the inevitable question by answering in passion?

What do you do?

You are not your job.

Longing for the Sea

• I want to go to Nepal
• I want to fly to London, alone, for a three-day weekend.
• I want to climb any one of the world's major peaks.
• I want to be a lawyer.
• I want to be a doctor.
• I want to be a teacher.
• I want what God wants.
• I want to hike the long way up Machu Picchu.
• I want to write something that inspires someone.
• I want to act in a small, sparsely attended community theater.
• I want to shepherd a few sheep.
• I want to bale hay.
• I want to breathe deeply and sleep.
• I want to sail a boat.
• I want to write a book.
• I want to stand tired and worn before a merciful God.
• I want to feel the cool spray of redemption.
• I want to drive my kids to school.
• I want to listen.
• I am no longer a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

God does not love the bottom of the ocean.

I don't like scary things. I most definitely don't like Oceany-scary things.

I'm well aware of the beautiful correlation between both the earth and our bodies being composed of 2/3rds water. I'm pretty sure it's one of God's profound metaphors for deep, worldwide connection.
I love that all of us are connected to the earth and each other, bound and branded by beautiful and purposeful design.

But.

God does not love this creature.


Maybe He does, but I hate everything about this shark. I hope he's swimming on the opposite side of heaven and we happen to "just miss each other" for all of eternity.

I hate the Goblin Shark.

Also, almost every other water-breathing, bottom feeder.

Freshwater Streams

Where do we draw the line between sanctity and sacrifice? Between commitment and compromise? How much compromise is healthy? How far do I run with idealism before it starts weighing me down? On what wings will I fly? Whose promises will I believe?

Sometimes it seems I'm working for Greenpeace while dumping oil in secret freshwater streams.

Lately, it seems marriage is for everyone else. That it's something true and good for them but not for me. Not because I wasn't designed for it, but because of my oil-dumping, you see.

A good friend told me that "a woman's heart must be so taken by God that I have to go to Him to get it."

What a beautiful metaphor. for everyone else.

America and the American.

America is changing. Collectively, independently, completely. With it, the American is changing.

For me, the most heartbreaking change has not been the economy itself, but what we're finding in the wake of such a massive splash.

The American landscape has suffered a Pangea-sized economic earthquake and will be changed forever. The outlook, whether eventually positive or negative, is inarguably and radically alien.

The American ideal, once fortressed by pages of historical success stories is being crashed against; wave, after wave of desperation. Now, the country built on hyper-idealism is having it's head dunked in it's own ice-cold water.

But still, I think the most heartbreaking blow has been to the average American spirit. Each of us, for all of our lives have been told that we can be "anything we want." Selfish-ambition praised as virtue. Self-sacrifice praised as necessary. Owning your own company has long been termed the "American ideal." We're a nation built on small-business owners. And most of it, whether deserved or not, has evaporated.

Maybe our egos have too-long been as inflated as our credit limits. Our security has been in home equity and our anxiety tempered by the ease of withdrawing from it.

Everyday I wake up to a different news piece chronicling a different national collapse and the subsequent lament of the average American tax payer. Honestly, it's scary; I think for the first time we're all tasting the bitter taste of our own blood.

I think the one cloudbreak throughout this storm is that, for better or worse, we're seeing the widespread and very public failure of so much greed. We're all lined up watching the American balloon lose air.

We wanted to be the guy in the Mercedes until we realized he's been falsifying our investments and draining our retirements.

We wanted to be the guy neglecting family and friends to grow his construction business.

We wanted to be the guy in the movies, until we realized he wanted to be us.

I'm predicting (and praying for) a return to values. Where we save money competitively. Where our lives are defined by friendship rather than ownership. Where our popularity comes from our simplicity. Where meals out with two people become meals in with 10 people. Where passion replaces ambition, and its intensity raised exponentially.

The shallows are drying, leaving us exposed. We have to dive in, and we have to dive deep because the next wave is coming.

More to come. Thoughts?

Our Real Selves

"Well, it's rather like that with Christ. When you've completely given up yourself to His personality you will then, for the first time in your life, be developing into a real person. he made the whole world. He invented it as an author invents characters in a book, all different men that you and I were intended to be.

Our real selves are, so to speak, all waiting for us in Him. What I call my "real self" now is hardly a peson at all. It's mainly a meeting place for various natural forces, desires and fears, etcetera, some of which come from my ancestors, and some from my education, some perhaps from devils. The self you were really intended to be is something that lives not from nature but from God."
-- C.S. Lewis

A Coffeeshop Conversation

I thought they were having an affair, but it's much worse than that.

Affairs always end one way, but this is much worse.

She's beautiful, her hair, while once en vogue, is styled, but no longer stylish. An oval face with nearly perfect skin, probably late-thirties, early-forties.
I've never seen such an intense look; she hasn't broken his gaze once. He's handsome but not too much so, someone out of an older soap opera; dated clothes and matching hair.

"After this, you're going to be a better mother." He says.

She plays with her hair, and apparently thinks Radiohead "sounds a lot like Neal Young."

"The place is real nice, the judge is real nice." She says.

They've each removed their reading glasses and placed them on the table on top of loose papers. He has a accordion file-folder, she has water purchased elsewhere and a tall coffee.

"I would never mess up a 'seven and seven'" she says. "There's a very real way to make those, and I'm the best."

She gazes, he returns. His face doesn't match his voice, sounds like he's missing teeth, but I looked at him, he wasn't missing teeth. She plays with hair, studies her water bottle, spins her reading glasses and returns his gaze. God, I wish they were just having an affair.

"Step three is giving it to a higher power. God, Jesus, Buddha, Dionysus, you can make one up if you want to, but you've got to give it to a higher power."

He starts telling a story; animated and convincing. She smiles a weak smile and buries her head.

He stops the story.

"Do you think I'll get my daughter back?" She asks, her voice surprisingly composed.

"I don't know. You have to stop drinking" The man says.

"I really hope so."

"I hope so too."

I wish it were just an affair.

Listen

These two bands have been changing me lately. Please listen to anything by either of them.

Recommendations:

Sigur Ros - "Glósóli"

Explosions In The Sky - "Your Hand in Mine"

These aren't some best-kept-secret kind of thing and I'm not touting any band credentials. Both of these are kind of ubiquitous, and I'm certainly not gaining any kind of indie-credibility by mentioning them. They are just that good.

I need to write more. I'm suffocating.

On Marriage.

This is still no substitute for a real essay, though one is in the works, I promise.

Has anyone else noticed (maybe/hopefully it's just me) that Marriage is under attack lately? Have you heard more stories recently of stumbling marriages, failing marriages?

Last week I had a parent/teacher conference with the father of one of my students. He was doting and proud, but concerned. He gave his family's allegiance to their daughter and her education.

This week, the student is pulled from school because he and her mother are divorcing.

The neighbors I used to wakeboard with are walking through the details of an exposed affair.

A friend of a friend found out that the guy she'd just rekindled a 5 year relationship with is actually now married.

If I'm honest, it's really hard for me to hear. It's hard for me to hear because it's something I want so badly, but I'm afraid of being that father of my student, the neighbor, the friend of a friend.

Maybe Marriage is so warred against because it's a direct invasion into enemy territory. It's the human manifestation of God's perfect metaphor. He in us and we in Him. It's marriage right?

I've been wooed and courted, loved and married. And I cheat and lie and demand divorce.

More to come. I truly do hope you haven't felt the same way recently.

Blogging from the Teacher Convention

I've been lacking in inspiration lately, I feel dry;dusty even.

But we have to fight for inspiration because it doesn't always fight for us.

I think so often we leave joy to chance, hoping it finds us. But while we're out experimenting, it's a bound captive waiting (needing) our ransoming.

So we fight for joy and we fight for passion because we have to.

How do we change the world? How do we come alive?

Update

Conjuring up a new essay, but wanted to post this picture (I stole it from another blog.)

I just think it's perfect.

The Politics of Distraction

I’m going to make a bold statement.

I believe there is an enemy among us who loves this election; who loves our backbiting and our bitterness and our division. He loves this election because it’s got us distracted. Whether we’re screaming at the opposing protesters across the street, or quietly speculating about the salvation of prominent Christian authors, there is an enemy between us and he’s smiling.

We’re fighting so hard to deify this election (albeit not as bad as 2000 or 2004) and we’re using our Christian spirituality to fund and further our political agenda. With swords drawn and theology ready, we’re calling for the might of God to push forward our personal, political agenda.

I think this excites an enemy who hates us; we can see his work in taking us down, firing bullets of disillusionment, resentment and resignation by way of self-superiority.

It’s not just the religious-right either. Each side of the coin finds itself abused by religion-isms.

We make for ourselves our own partisan Jesus, wearing a red or blue robe, bleeding glory and promise for the Religious-Right or the Liberal-Left. But I think when we assign Jesus to our own political party we steal him from God, we strip him of the same power we’re seeking.

And our enemy is excited because the tinder is finally sparking.

When a Christian institution tells me, in no uncertain terms, that we need to pray for the passing of a certain proposition, what they’re asking me to do is join them in calling God to rescue our agenda, to sponsor our Manifest Destiny paradigm through legislative might. How far is Caesar going to take us this time? How far is too far?

We’re fighting boldly, but we’re fighting the wrong war. We’re taking the wrong tools into the battle, and the collateral damage isn’t worth it. I think that while we’re fighting from within the political realm, we’re failing to use our greatest means of social change.

Love.

It’s all about Love isn’t it? But isn’t Love the enemy of power?

I will no longer pour my passions into the red-herring of political arguments and infighting (thus satisfying our enemy’s agenda of trusting in our own might) because I believe that real change is only possible if we walk down the capitol’s steps into the capitol’s streets. If we truly believe that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness…” (Eph. 6:12) then we must question WHY we are spending so much energy in that arena.

Jesus’ work was done socially; he lived and worked in community, he opposed the methods of religious rulers. His healing was never for political gain, most of the time it broke the law.

We’re so vehement about Proposition 8 because the gay community hasn’t seen Jesus in us. We’re condemning those who have abortions because we haven’t loved them enough.

I believe we’re intent on pushing our political agenda because fighting is so much easier than loving.

And we have an enemy who would love for us to keep fighting.

This is It.

She'll sing me to sleep tonight. I know she will.

She has for years.

Dreams crash against me like waves frustrated by steadfast rocks, stubborn in their pride.

And like them, I do not move.

Our pulses screaming through our chests tell us, "this is it"

This is it. But we lay heavy and we do not move.