For the last several days, I’ve been haunted by the news of the seven children who died in a Brooklyn house fire. And then yesterday came news of the plane crash in the French Alps, which killed 150 people. Tragedy in the news is such a constant that, like many others, I have developed a kind of emotional distance, and while a story might evoke a brief pang or gasp of horror, I move on–quickly and soon–to the normal routines of my daily life. Realistically, this is a necessity. If we were to react with the level of empathy we ought to for every event we hear about, we would all be incapacitated. But something about the Brooklyn fire story has staked a place in my heart, and I have found myself repeating–over and over–a short, simple prayer for the remaining family members and the community around them, whose pain I can only begin to imagine–Lord, have mercy. Kyrie eleison! For what else is there to say in a situation like this.
Another thing that’s been swirling around in my mind these days is something a friend wrote to me recently in an e-mail. We were discussing a piece he’d written for Good Friday that he realized had the potential to be controversial or upsetting for some readers. It prompted a thought-provoking discussion about what place boundary-pushing art and discussion might have in the church community, and in discussing his piece, my friend said, “Part of why I’m grateful for the Good Friday service is that for one night only, we allow ourselves to sit in the chaos and the pain and the hopelessness. We let Good Friday be what it was: a confusing swirl of horror, all drag and no lift.”
Seven children dying in a fire, 150 travelers crashing into the side of a mountain is all of those things. One of the ways we tend to respond to this is to try to make some type of order out of it, to frame it some way. Some of the responses I’ve already seen online are to proclaim the fire the result of blind adherence to religious orthodoxy or as a tragedy out of which God can strengthen faith. One of the first details reported in the article I read about the plane crash is how no one could understand the sudden descent of the plane to low altitudes but that a black box had been recovered and hopefully will provide some answers. We seek to explain, to understand, or to blame, and while that’s a natural impulse, it doesn’t do anything to diminish any of the pain or loss. It doesn’t offer any real protection against future tragedy. If anything, it is simply an exercise in creating a false sense of control and is an affront to the magnitude of “chaos and pain” afflicting those affected.
We are taught that the role of those of us who follow Christ is to be a light to the world and, in our own flawed and often clumsy ways, to bring life and hope to those around us. But we can’t really do that if we don’t fully acknowledge and accept that some situations are just incomprehensibly awful. Good Friday, with all its ugliness and despair, is a reminder of this.
The title of this post comes from Job, whose sufferings include his own friends’ attempts to make sense of all the tragedy and hardship that has befallen him. They start off as good friends, sitting next to Job in the ashes for seven days and seven nights in silence, weeping with him and rending their clothes. It’s only when they start to speak, to chastise Job or attempt to explain God’s ways to Job, that they shift from friend to further affliction. I am all too often the talking friend–the one who wants to advise, clarify, make meaning, or provide direction for someone who is suffering. And sometimes there are times for that and it is genuinely helpful. But there are also times to sit silent in the ashes, and this is one of them.
So, in case you didn’t know, it’s a new year. Of course, calendars and such aside, it’s impossible not to know given that nearly everything around us the past few weeks has been subjecting us to some type of “review” of our year. There’s Facebook, which chose my photo of a stack of graded essays (which, ironically, felt somewhat accurate) as the feature photo of my year, not to mention a Google+ slideshow I got in an e-mail, which completely freaked me out until I realized that they were pulling photos from my travel blog on BlogSpot and had not actually invaded my computer. And then there are all those resolutions friends post on Facebook, articles about people making resolutions, and articles about all the things people tend to make resolutions about, like losing weight or having more meaningful conversations. Actually, scratch the latter one–they’re all just about losing weight.
We are a culture of self-improvement, and while people have been making resolutions and trying to improve themselves and society for ages, never has achieving those resolutions seemed more possible. After all, we now have an infinite number of resources available online, and all the latest research on growth mindset, behavioral patterns, and neuroplasticity gives scientific support to the notion that we are all capable of being better versions of ourselves vs. the old stick-in-the-mud notion that people can’t and don’t change.
On the one hand, this is very exciting and positive. Who wouldn’t welcome the hope that something unpleasant, unattractive, or downright destructive in their life could be changed for the better? We like the idea that we have the power to change and control who we are and how we live. The notion is like catnip to me. In fact, I haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions for years because resolutions aren’t a once-a-year activity for me–they’re an ongoing part of a constant cycle I’m engaged in of reflecting on my life and thinking about what changes/improvements I want to make (which happens when I’m not getting sucked into marathon sessions with various television series on Netflix). There’s a down side to this improvement mentality, though, because if I have the power to change something and I don’t, that means I’ve failed. If it is possible to change, my inability to stop eating delicious snacks while watching too many hours of TV, for example, is completely my responsibility (or fault). Worse, my judgment of myself can lead to me judging others who seem to “fail” in some way or other.
Alain de Botton explores this tension quite nicely (and more eloquently) in this TED talk, which someone brought to my attention over the holidays:
While he focuses on job status and the notion of professional/economic success and failure, the principles apply in other areas of life as well. There are a number of interesting and thought-provoking insights in this talk (including the value of the literature of Tragedy) but what stood out to me was his acknowledgment that there are factors at work in our lives that are utterly beyond our control–that are random or haphazard “accidents.” This reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, which I read recently and makes the case that people’s success is often the result not only of their ability and hard work, but also factors like when and where they were born, where they lived, who their grandparents were, etc. that were completely out of their control.
Do we have personal responsibility and volition in who we are and the kind of life we’re living? Yes. Are our personalities and lives also–sometimes significantly–affected, both positively and negatively, by things utterly beyond our control? Also yes. This becomes even more complex and nuanced if one is a Christian since there is the additional paradox/tension of believing that we are created by an omniscient and omnipotent God who is actively at work in our lives with intention and purpose, while also believing that God has given us free will.
While there is the part of me that loves the idea that I have complete control over who I am and over my life, the part of me that finds this very stressful and burdensome loves these reminders that I do not. And if that’s true of me, that’s also true of others, thus ameliorating my impulse to judge. Also recently (all these converging resources a fortuitous coincidence or result of my own actions?), I came across this quote, which is attributed to the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is carrying a great burden.” As knowable as the world might seem in this information era, there is still a great deal that is a mystery to us. Certainly that is true when it comes to other people, and very often even true when it comes to ourselves.
Behind all the frenetic holiday activity that surrounds us this time of year is the powerful, beckoning reality that the creator of the universe, the Alpha and the Omega, entered into the midst of his own broken creation as a flesh-and-blood baby—tiny, vulnerable, fully human, and living in a specific place and time. God manifesting himself in a concrete, physical way. God losing all of his power in order to save what he loved. God dying so that he could live in each of us. Really, we celebrate a holiday of unfathomable paradoxes. God present and God powerless.
This contrast makes me think of Paul recounting in 2 Corinthians how Jesus said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (another paradox). In a culture that glorifies individuality, it’s tempting for those of us calling ourselves Christians to interpret this as an invitation to a private and personal interaction—us admitting our weakness and failure to God and then opening ourselves to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit like some kind of super power that charges us up and makes us ready to save the world.
But if the church is the body of Christ—each of us different parts of a collective whole, each of us reflecting various aspects of Christ’s character in a unique way—there’s another way to view that promise. Especially in light of the constant reminders throughout Scripture that God likes to do his work through people—so much so that he became a person himself. This is not to say that God’s power, healing, presence, wisdom, and love can’t come to us directly, but more to say that he seems to prefer bringing it to us through others. Which is an incredible kindness and grace because it draws us out of the isolation and loneliness we are so prone to.
In my moments of weakness and failure, often the last thing I feel capable of is connecting with God or feeling his presence. So in times I’ve been unable to pray, others have prayed for me. In times I’ve been cynical or discouraged, others have spoken words of hope. In my inability to forgive, others have modeled grace and love. In moments like these, the power of God is not some laser beam hitting me directly, effecting some type of radical transformation. Rather, it is reflected prism-like through another member of the body, calling me back into relationship, back into the fold, back into the love of Christ. Yes, the life of Christ resides directly in us, but the very nature of Christ—relational, personal, and incarnate—calls us to dependence on him through dependence on others.
This is not an easy thing. Many of us cling to our independence and self-sufficiency like Gollum to his ring, ready to dissolve in the fire before we’d ever let go. So Jesus did that for us. He let go by washing the feet of his disciples. He let go by allowing himself to be betrayed and captured. He let go by dying on the cross. And this letting go, this chosen powerlessness, is what allowed his life and power to be present in us. Thus, when we stray, the Shepherd calls us back through the voices of our friends, our family, our brothers and sisters in Christ. And he uses us to call them back in return.
Recently, I read an account of a woman working at a college as a psychiatrist who, after one of the students there committed suicide, said, “I cannot save them. I am not here to save anybody or to save the world. All I can do – what I am called to do – is to plant myself at the gates of Hope. Sometimes they come in; sometimes they walk by. But I stand there every day and I call out till my lungs are sore with calling, and beckon and urge them in toward beautiful life and love.” I was deeply moved by her words and struck by how well they describe the role of Christians. We do not have the power to save. If we are honest, we don’t even have the power to call out until our lungs are sore day after day. Not as individuals, at least. But as the body of Christ, we can take turns. On some days, I might be the person calling out to others. On other days it will be someone else calling out to me. All of us calling out Christ, all of us hearing his words in each other’s voices—God’s presence, the beautiful life and love we all long for made manifest in the midst of our weakness.
Years ago, a dear friend of mine’s husband died of brain cancer. He, along with their two sons when they were growing up, had been actively involved with Boy Scouts, and recently some old scouting friends and their current troops decided to do a walk in his honor and raise funds to fight the cancer he’d had. I called my friend after the event to hear how it’d gone and see how she was doing. She wasn’t doing very well.
“When I got there and saw all of them wearing their shirts with his face on them, I don’t know,” she said, “it just hit me. I wanted to run back out to my car and cry.” And then she said, “What is wrong with me? It’s been nine years.” And we talked about that, particularly her question, what is wrong with me? and the expectations and beliefs driving it–that grief has an expiration date, that the death of someone you love is something you are supposed to “get over” at a certain point (and that point is a final and definitive moment), and that the process of getting over it is a steady, linear progression, like a healing cut or a broken bone reforming itself.
Before I go any further with this, I need to acknowledge that every person’s grief is different, which makes sense given that every person is different, as is every relationship. Some people seem to genuinely embrace the idea of “moving on” in the straightforward sense we think of when we hear that term, and by all appearances this seems to be working for them. I might have some doubts about what’s really going on beneath the surface, but I also recognize that I am never in a position to judge someone else’s emotions or experience just because it’s different from my own.
At the same time, the fact that my friend felt bad about being sad about her husband’s death “nine years” later reminded me of how often we put pressure on ourselves and on others to be “better” according to an arbitrary time frame or define it as a once-and-for-all event. Part of this, I think, stems from an erroneous (and largely subconscious) view of human emotions as some kind of binary system. In other words, if you’re sad, you aren’t happy. If you still miss someone, you’re not living a full life. If some memories still cause you pain, you’re not healthy. For Christians, you can add that if you’re devastated by loss, you don’t trust God enough or have hope in the resurrection. You should be glad your loved one is in heaven.
In my experience, this is bullshit. It’s not an either/or. It’s an all-of-the-above. I have a good life full of joy and enjoyment and the mundane. I get excited about new possibilities. I enjoy my friends. I think about what I need to buy the next time I’m at Target. I delight in eating chocolate and look forward to seeing a movie I’ve read good things about. Stupid cat videos on Facebook make me laugh. But even though my mother died over twelve years ago, I still have dreams about her now and then that make me cry. Or I’ll see a mother and daughter shopping together and, out of the blue, find myself wanting to follow them and ask if I can just hang out with them for a little while because I miss that mother-daughter kind of relating. I also know that I’m going to get a little sadder than usual every September and October, because that’s when things started to get really bad for my mom. That’s when the tumors spread to her bones and the pain that neither oxycontin nor morphine could relieve began to torment her day and night. That’s when my own helplessness began to rise like bile in the back of my throat.
That sadness is part of who I am now, but it’s not the whole me nor is it my whole life, and I don’t think there’s anything strange or unhealthy or un-Christian about it. I have moved on with my life, and part of my moving on is missing my mom. Part of my moving on is remembering–years later–things that were too overwhelming and painful to process at the time. And having a healthy Christian perspective about her death means recognizing that death is the enemy Christ came to defeat. Anger and devastation are an appropriate response to disease and death because that is not what we were created for. Relationships with the ones we love were never meant to be severed in such a way.
Time helps, the love of friends and family helps, the grace and comfort of God helps. But the only thing that will truly and fully heal the pain of that suffering and death is to see her fully alive again in her resurrected body and embrace her. Which hasn’t happened yet. So no, I’m not “over it” yet. I’m happy/sad. I’m content/longing. My life is full/missing something. And that’s okay, just as it’s okay for my friend to want to sit in her car and cry nine years after her husband’s death, even though she’s also learned to be happy again and enjoy the many good things in her life.
After spending the first half of my summer gallivanting through Denmark and Scotland, I returned to Southern California and got down to the business of home maintenance. Not a fun transition (I may have wept a tiny bit my first morning waking up here instead of some lovely B&B in Scotland), but a necessary one. Among lots of smaller necessaries that kept my checking account working hard–replacing the water filtration system, fixing my air-conditioner, getting the piano tuned, etc.–the big task of the summer was painting the exterior of my peeling house and rebuilding the rotten fence in the front yard. Or, rather, hiring someone else to do these tasks for me (more checks!).
Choosing paint colors from the hundreds of options spread before me at Home Depot and Lowes made me think of this article I read a while back in The New York Times, which basically says that while the idea of having many options available is appealing to most people, actually having them can lead to paralysis and/or dissatisfaction: we either make no choice because we’re so overwhelmed, or we make a choice and are haunted by the ghost of what-could-have-been-better. My approach for the paint colors was the following:
1. Grab and bring home about 30 color cards to satisfy my American need to feel like I had lots of options (although I will never, ever understand why there are so many shades of white. Why? WHY?)
2. Go through all the cards SUPER FAST and immediately gut-discard about two-thirds of the colors (throwing them away in the nasty outside trash can so I wouldn’t be tempted to dig any back out later), thus narrowing my options into a reasonable amount.
3. Spend the next several days staring at my three color-combo finalists and ask my friends for their input.
Even with all of this, a process more intuitive than systematically planned, the color I (and my friends) thought was the best one turned out to be disappointingly drab and blah in reality. As in, looking at it made me feel like I might need to go back on Prozac. So out came the checkbook again, and the entire house was repainted in Option #2. The one upside is that having seen how bad Option #1 looked, Option #2 seemed pretty great, thus dispelling the ghost of what-could-have-been-better. Option #2 is the “better,” and I have the cash deficit to prove it.
Paint colors aside, I’ve found myself overwhelmed by all the options I’ve been seeing everywhere. As I sat at a red light yesterday, I counted six different restaurant/drive-thru food options in one corner shopping center with another three just across the street. At the next light, there was another slew of options. It made me think longingly of the little towns I drove through in the Scottish Highlands, which typically had about 2-3 food options. There were a few days when I’d drive for long stretches and just find one. Some of the time, the food I’d be served in these places would be really good. Some of the time, it wasn’t. But all of the time I was satisfied, because it came down to the bare bones of me being hungry and this place offering food. I didn’t have the luxury of choosing from multiple options and considering what I was “in the mood for” but I also didn’t have the burden.
Right now, part of my brain is screaming “First world problem!” and there is an awareness of all the people in the world who have no such options and live in the very oppressive reality of being unable to exercise choice over even the most basic things in life. But as someone who does live in the first world and recognizes the glut of options we have in the U.S. as a potentially unhealthy extreme, I’m wrestling with how to live with a little more balance. How to block out and simplify some of those options, not out of ingratitude, but more in a way that makes me fully present to and grateful for whatever it is I do choose.
A few months ago, I wrote this post about the role of fear in my life and made a comment that if it were possible, I’d like to conduct a study about whether fear and that internal sense of not being “good enough” was unique to accomplished and driven women or whether men experienced the same fueling anxiety. So when my issue of The Atlantic Monthly arrived in the mail last week, I was very excited to see this cover story examining that very issue and citing numerous studies. Turns out, it is pretty gender-specific, and women consistently rate their abilities lower than what they actually are while men consistently overrate themselves. Women also tend to be more perfectionistic than men, tend to take fewer risks, and therefore tend to have less confidence. This explains (“this” being a woefully abbreviated summary on my part–you really should read the original) at least in part why, even though a company might have just as many qualified if not more qualified female employees as male employees, so many of the top positions are still dominated by men. As the article states, if a man feels he has 60% of the qualifications for a higher position, he’ll go for it, whereas a woman would feel she needs to be 100% qualified and therefore precludes herself from even applying.
This has been an issue at the forefront of my own life in the past year as I continue my slow and sometimes painful but often rewarding self-education in risk-taking and building confidence. Recognizing that I was full of fear, anxiety, and a complete aversion to risking *anything*, I decided in my mid 30s to try a little behavior modification. In other words, I would force myself to do at least two or three things every year that scared me shitless and gradually build up (hopefully) some tolerance for that fear and an ability to overcome or at least get through it. And it really has helped. The more things I try and force myself to do, the more confidence I gain to try something else and the more opportunities and experiences open up to me. But it still requires a considerable amount of mental/emotional processing and sheer force of will each and every time.
For example, this past fall I found out that my alma mater offers a fellowship for alumnae to travel. When I first read the description of the type of person and the type of purpose the fellowship is meant for, I thought, “That kind of sounds like me” and got excited for about five minutes. Then I looked at the application and required proposal/forms and started getting overwhelmed and having “I’m not worthy” thoughts. Still, I made myself e-mail the contact person and ask for a list of past winners and their projects/proposals. Reading through that list just made the “I’m not worthy” voices even louder. Several years ago, I would have given up right then and this would be the end of the story. Instead, I thought about the other things I’ve tried in the last several years that have all turned out well, and I decided that it couldn’t hurt to at least come up with a proposal. I did, and then another stage of paralysis and doubt set in. This time to combat it, I had to physically write out all the things I was afraid of–that I’d look like a complete loser-idiot, that I’d impress them and not be able to actually live up to any of what impressed them, that my proposal wasn’t thought-out enough and wouldn’t make the most of this opportunity and I’d be wasting it, that the timing wouldn’t be right, and so on and so forth (it was a hefty list). I then made myself write out a rational response to each of the fears and called my sister and a friend to discuss it and get a little bolstering from their encouragement and support. Then I finally submitted the application, still full of fear, trembling, and nausea.
Apparently, if I were a guy, I would have looked at the fellowship description, thought to myself “Cool, I’m perfect for this!” and fired off a proposal and my application in the day or two after.
I can’t help but find some of my angst and hand-wringing anxiety and insecurity funny, because there is something ridiculous about having to go through such a process and requiring hand-holding and being on the verge of needing medication just to turn in an application. But I also find it very frustrating and draining. As the book of James says, “he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.” According to the Atlantic article, though, I am not alone and a lot of this has both physiological and sociological roots. There’s something comforting about that, because it means that I’m not entirely to blame for these issues (side note–another thing women tend to do is over-blame themselves) and I can stop giving myself such a hard time over this.
Meanwhile, I’m making progress. After going through such a thorough preliminary fear-abating process, I was able to go to my interview with a surprising amount of peace and confidence. Not confidence that I was perfect for the fellowship and would get it, but confidence that, like Popeye, I am who I am and there was no shame in interviewing for something and not getting it, because that’s just part of life and trying new things. As a result, far from being some gut-wrenching ordeal, the interview was truly enjoyable. I was awarded the fellowship, and now I am planning a month-long trip to Denmark and Scotland.
And writing out another fear list. But at least I’m going somewhere.
Recently, Apple came out with this commercial for their iPad Air product, which features an audio clip from the movie Dead Poet’s Society along with clips of people using their ipads in various creative endeavors:
I realized as I watched this commercial that Apple understands something very important that the policy-makers in public education are missing–that most people tend to find beauty, purpose, and meaning far more compelling than information and facts. Apple is using this understanding to sell a product, and so far this commercial has had over 1.2 million views on YouTube. While I don’t know whether or not it’s actually improved sales, it certainly has captured the public’s attention.
There is a lot about the Common Core Standards (CCSS) on the internet, and my purpose in this post isn’t to give a definitive explanation of them or to make an argument for or against them. There are some elements of the CCSS that I think could bring about some positive changes (“could” being the operative word since the implementation of these standards is one giant, national experiment) in terms of increasing the rigor of public education and encouraging teachers to regularly reflect on their teaching practices and to measure/monitor whether or not their students are actually learning and mastering skills. But there is a great deal about these standards, their adoption, and the way they’re being implemented that concerns me deeply, the main aspect being that the CCSS seem to view students primarily as future workers and consumers who need, above all else, to be able to make arguments, support their ideas with logic and evidence, and be highly skilled and conversant in reading and writing informational text. Some might point out that there are still a number of literature-based standards. The Common Core website even states that literature should amount to 30% of the content a high school student reads in the course of his/her day. The other 70% is expected to be informational text, which makes sense since English is typically only one class in five or six, and informational texts are a natural fit in subjects like history, science, and art.
However, many districts are misinterpreting this and emphasizing informational texts and writing over literature in English classes as well. Roughly half of the English CC standards are, in fact, based on informational text (which seems to contradict that whole 30% thing), but part of this overall imbalance may also be due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of sample Common Core ELA assessments available to the public primarily use informational texts. My own school districts’ two CC benchmarks for 10th grade English involve writing an argument based on 14 pages of informational text and an informational writing task. None of the literature standards are addressed, and no literature appears on any of the district assessments. Implicit though it may be, this sends a very clear message: literature should take a back seat. Creativity is at best a luxury, at worst irrelevant.
I realize we are living in an information age, and I am not naïve enough to think that teaching students how to analyze and write informational text isn’t important. I also have no problem with teaching students how to make evidence-based, logical arguments (many of us could benefit from a little more logic). But if we truly want students to be lifelong learners, if we truly want students to be people who can contribute something significant to the world, we need to recognize that they are not just future workers and information processors; they are human beings. They are complex beings living in a complex world that involves far more than simply information and facts and argument. Imagine if Shakespeare had been fed a steady diet of informational text and made to focus on informational writing instead of studying and imitating the tragedies, comedies, and poetry of the ancient Greeks. Shakespeare was able to write what he wrote because he was incredibly gifted, but he also wrote what he wrote because he was inspired. And while you might be able to measure a certain amount of skills and knowledge with standardized assessments and by analyzing data, there is no systematized way to measure the most important element to motivating deep and lifelong learning: delight.
Ask anyone who their favorite teacher is, or what their favorite subject is, and I’d be willing to bet some serious cash that there is a high level of enjoyment and delight involved. The same thing is true for any adult who still loves learning, who still is curious about the world–they do so and they are so because learning delights them. Because it is deeply satisfying, enriching, and inspiring. Informational text can certainly be interesting. There have been a number of articles I’ve read with my students that have sparked their thinking and that they’ve enjoyed reading and writing about. But none of them are impacted by the articles anywhere as deeply as they are by the literature we read. When they come back to visit me in later years, they don’t talk about the articles–they talk about the literature. They talk about their favorite characters, their favorite authors, their favorite works. There is no test that can measure the deep pride and satisfaction of students who announce to me that To Kill a Mockingbird is the first novel they’ve read all the way through, or the ignited desire evidenced when they ask me if I know any other “books like that” they can read.
Data doesn’t reveal the epiphanies they have or the empathy they develop when they experience life through someone else’s eyes, when they are outraged by the injustices those characters suffer or are moved by the courage or love they see modeled. It doesn’t measure the growth that occurs when they persevere through a text that slowly builds to revelation. I believe our students need revelation. I believe they need beauty. I believe we educators have a responsibility to cultivate their humanity and their souls as well as their skills. We have a responsibility to equip them to live good lives, which means preparing them not only for the workplace, but also cultivating their curiosity, their empathy, their self-awareness, their creativity, and their passion for life. Idealistic? Perhaps. Grandiose? Probably. But I think we should be aiming for ideals and grandiosity when it comes to educating young people, not just “proficient” test scores.
In true Common Core fashion, I ought to provide some evidence for this argument. As a believer in stories, however, I subscribe to the notion that anecdotal evidence is good evidence. So is poetry. I start every week in my sophomore English classes by reading them a poem. Most of the time, I just read it and they listen and then we move on to the next activity without discussing or analyzing the poem. I do this because I want them to learn that sometimes you can just receive something and appreciate it even if you don’t fully understand it. I am cultivating their open-mindedness and attentiveness. I also do it because I want them to encounter something beautiful at school at least once a week. I’m sure there are students who grit their teeth and simply endure it, but many of them love listening to the poems. Even my hyper sophomore boys, who think it’s hilarious to hide each other’s backpacks or try to twist each other’s nipples, will quiet and listen intently while I read. They spontaneously clap or snap their fingers when I finish. And on the rare occasions I forget, they raise their hands and ask, “Aren’t you going to read us a poem?”
We also, from time to time, do dictation with the poems, where they’ll write down stanzas or chunks I read aloud, and then we analyze them together. Why do you think the poet uses that word? Why do you think she put a comma there? What’s the effect of that repetition? What I’ve noticed in the years since I started doing this is that students who don’t participate in any other activities will raise their hand and participate in our poetry discussions. Their heads come up. They engage. Recently, as a way to teach figurative language and other poetic devices, I had my students write an imitation of Seamus Heaney’s poem “Postscript.” Typically, about 50-60% of students will complete and turn in homework assignments (this is actually typical for most of the school). But about 90% of my students completed this poem. A number of my students are inclusion students–those with a “special education” designation, who often perform quite poorly on tests. Here is what three of those students, all of whom are labeled as either “below basic” or “far below basic” on standardized tests, wrote. These are my argument that literature and beauty and poetry matter:
#
And some time make the time to skate
In the park
In your free time.
Feel the cool breeze while you are zooming through the air
And your feet vibrating from the wheels.
Looking at the green grass
Hear the sound of the wheels rolling on the ground.
Useless to think you’ll be perfect at it.
You are neither here nor there,
A cloud full of worries that stops you from doing what you love.
#
And some time make the time
To go out for a run
Cruising through the countryside
When the light is mostly bright
Feeling the cool breeze rub against your skin
Hearing your heart beat through
The sound of silence
Seeing nothing but true green trees
Smelling the hint of spring.
Useless to think you’ll stop
And breathe it all in.
You are neither here nor there,
A flash within the blink of an eye.
#
And some time make the time to walk
At the beach on the sand during summertime.
Feel the breeze on your face
Breathe in the ocean’s fresh air
Hear the roar of the ocean and feel the warmth
Of the beautiful sunset on your face.
Useless to think you won’t fall in love with this sight.
Recently, the worship director at my church sent me an excerpt from a work by William Stringfellow where he talks about how early Celtic Christians had a notion of “thin places,” places where the boundaries between this world and the heavenly realm thin and the divine becomes more tangible. Stringfellow suggests that perhaps it’s not just certain locations (such as a mountain top or the seaside) that are thin, but also times of the year–in particular, times in the church calendar like Advent.
As I thought about this over the next few days, I was reminded of a sermon my pastor delivered a few years ago in which he explained the history of the Jewish Tabernacle and connected it to the idea that Christians are the new Tabernacle. In other words, whereas God’s presence was once located in the Temple and known as the Holy of Holies, accessible only to the High Priest, now God dwells in us through the intercession of Christ, the new High Priest. The idea of Christ indwelling me is not new (that’s kind of one of the basics of being a Christian), but in modern-day Christianity, the whole inviting-Jesus-into-your-heart thing has, in many respects, become fairly casual and/or saccharine: Jesus as your Best Buddy, co-pilot, or the invisible dude carrying you across the sand. In other words, a relationship that is completely personal and best illustrated by non-threatening clichés. The God that we enlightened moderns pray to is totally different (in our minds) from the God of the Old Testament, who would strike people dead if they accidentally touched the wrong thing or looked in the wrong direction or went past the curtain without the proper authority and rituals.
But it is the same God–we’ve just sanitized him and made him in the image we’re most comfortable with. And a lot of us have turned the notion of holiness into a way of being judgmental and/or fearful about everyone else rather than considering what it actually means to have that holiness living inside us–to be the living, breathing, walking places of God. That sermon gave me a bit of a shake-up, and the dissonance it awakened me to inspired this poem:
Day of the Tabernacle
Today my holy of holies ate cereal for breakfast
while checking e-mail and Facebook updates.
My holy of holies drove to work and cursed
the woman driving too slowly in the car ahead.
My holy of holies got a headache and wished
she didn’t have to work with such incompetent people.
My holy of holies ate too much candy
then examined her belly fat in the mirror.
My holy of holies went for a jog,
knowing cardiovascular health is important.
My holy of holies ignored her sister’s phone call,
preferring to read a magazine instead.
My holy of holies took a shower
and ate dinner in front of the TV.
Then my holy of holies turned off
all the lights and went to bed.
I had forgotten about this poem and the perspective-altering sermon (I think this is one of the great sins, actually: constantly forgetting what is true and real and challenges us) until this whole Thin Places business. Because really, we who profess to be Christians are the Thin Places. Or at least we ought to be. We ought to be the places where others catch glimpses of the facets of God’s character we were created to reflect. We ought to be thin enough for Christ to shine through so others might see something of his beauty and goodness and peace. But instead we are so often–or rather I am so often–busy running around and living one task or event or problem to the next that instead of a glimpse there is only a blur. I get so caught up in seeking to gratify and fulfill myself that I forget I am not here for myself.
One of my favorite verses in the Bible is the command to “be still and know that I am God.” True stillness, especially for someone like me, who likes to optimize her time and measure success by tangible productivity, is a constant struggle. And yet I yearn for it and hope that in practicing even tiny moments of stillness (where I can cease striving long enough to be fully present to others and truly listen as others have to me) not only would I know God and remember that he is in my midst, but those around me would as well.
Recently, when discussing a fellowship I was considering applying for with a friend, I found myself saying, “It can’t hurt to try, right?” It’s one of those clichés you hear all the time, and here I was saying it myself. But the truth of the matter is that actually, it can hurt to try. It can hurt a lot. If you decide to try something, there is obviously at least part of you that wants or cares about what you’re trying, and since trying means the possibility of failing, that means you might fail at something you want/care about. I know there are people out there (and I admire them tremendously) who seem capable of shaking those failures off as no big deal, so perhaps for them it really doesn’t hurt to try. I, however, am not a shaker-offer. I might appear to be on the surface of things, but with every failure there’s a stinging wound inside with a tiny trickle of blood welling out from it. Just think of it as a bleeding heart, only one that pities itself rather than the rest of the world.
This (over) sensitivity is a source of great irritation to me, so lately I’ve been challenging myself to risk more, hoping that with enough bleeding cuts, I’ll eventually grow some scar tissue and toughen up. With each risk and subsequent failure, however, I’m beginning to wonder what the line between necessary persistence and deluded stupidity is. Am I in the process of becoming a better writer with a stronger sense of myself and an ability to shake off disappointment and rejection, or am I slowly whittling myself down to utter hopelessness? One of my favorite rides at Disneyland is the Tower of Terror, which hauls you up to the top and then drops you, hauls you up again and drops you. This past four months, the cycle of submissions/queries and rejections (including the rejections that tell me how much they liked my novel but just not enough to represent it) has felt like that ride, only all of the plunges without any of the thrilling fun.
It’s been a struggle not to throw in the towel and succumb to the idea that my novel is just meh and this is never going to happen. After all, I have a long-instilled habit of maintaining low if not outright negative expectations for things, and over the years it’s worked pretty well at keeping me from being too disappointed or hurt by anything. But, if I’m honest, it’s also kept me from experiencing some things I’ve secretly longed for but was too frightened to go after. To hope for.
This morning my pastor started off his sermon by reminding us that God doesn’t simply tolerate us–he delights in us. That struck a nerve with me. My desire to write, and especially my desire to be published, seems to me like something that God simply (or barely) tolerates in me. I sometimes imagine him shaking his head at me. A lot of this comes from growing up in a church that taught me anything I loved that wasn’t directly ‘spiritual’ (e.g. reading the Bible, praying, attending church functions) was inferior if not straight out bad. We were taught to mistrust our own interests, talents, or anything in this material world that brought us pleasure. Even though my family left that church when I was in high school, it hasn’t quite left me, and I can still find it hard to believe that God might actually care about my writing, unless I’m writing for my church, of course. But novels and poetry? Pshaw!
This, of course, is ridiculous, and I won’t go into the whole discussion of the goodness of writing and stories and words and how they are all deeply part of the Judeo-Christian tradition in the most ancient of ways (screw you, Gnostics!). But what I’m realizing is that this mistrust connects very deeply with the whole risk-taking/rejection/failure thing, because at the heart of all of this is the fear that what I long for and hope for might be wrong altogether, and each rejection/disappointment is more confirmation that I am The World’s Biggest Fool (because negative thoughts like to be all-or-nothing and grandiose). I think, deep down, I’ve been making each risk I take a test of whether I’ve got some kind of divine seal of approval or something, which makes about as much sense as plucking petals off a flower to determine whether or not someone will love you. In other words, a wee bit childish, and certainly a mean and miserly view of God.
So time for a bit of re-orientation: 1. Rejection and failure are simply part of a normal life, not some sort of cosmic litmus test. 2. If I don’t allow for the possibility of rejection and failure, I am also not allowing for the possibility of acceptance and success. 3. While there probably are more than a few things God is shaking his head at in my life, one risk I’m going to have to try taking is to believe and have faith that God is also sometimes nodding yes.
A couple months ago, I decided to finally heed the advice of all the advertisements and refinance my mortgage. While going through that process, I received an e-mail at one point asking me to confirm that my title details were accurate. Those details were my name followed by “A SINGLE WOMAN.” I forwarded the e-mail to a friend and asked, “Do they really need to put it in all-caps like that? I mean, why not just add the adjective ‘SAD’ before ‘SINGLE’ to really drive it home?” I was joking, of course, but only partially. While the all-caps did make it more judgmental and accusatory than it actually was, there is still a kind of negative association attached to “a single woman” that has nothing to do with capital letters.
I am a single woman. I am not married and I have no children. I have no romantic partner in the background to give the impression that at least some sort of official coupledom is imminent. These are facts, and yet as I’ve made my way through my 30s and am now about to enter my 40s, these facts have often felt at worst like a stigma, and at best like something vaguely off about me that I need to explain or justify. Obviously, there’s the whole historical/sociological tradition of women not being recognized as entities in their own right, which manifested itself in certain linguistic double standards (single women were “old maids” and “spinsters” while men are simply “bachelors”) and which some people are still building academic careers on in colleges across the country. But I’m not really concerned with the lingering sexism in some of the assumptions about women and marriage. I’m more interested in the tension that exists for all people—women and men—who remain single well into adulthood if not their entire lives and exist as a kind of strange and generally unrecognized (if not marginalized) minority.
I didn’t set out in life intending to be single. Growing up, I always assumed that of course I’d get married and have kids. But somehow, in spite of the fact that my mother gave me a copy of How to Find the Love of Your Life when I was in my early twenties and I read at least three chapters of it, I haven’t ever even come close to marrying. This outcome would have been shocking to me 10 years ago, and I understand and appreciate that most people who comment on my lack of husband and children do so out of kindness and caring, not judgment. The most typical sentiment I hear from others on this topic is surprise that I’m not married, usually followed by some kind of statement implying that I’m a great catch and/or would be a great wife and/or great mother. I’m genuinely touched by the compliment people are paying me in these statements, but I always feel a little bit depressed by them as well, because they imply that something is wrong with or deficient about my current state. That things are not as they should be.
I recognize that there are beautiful, enriching, soul-deepening experiences that I am missing out on not being married or having children, and there are times I’ve really mourned the loss of those experiences and imagine I still will from time to time in the years to come. But I’ve also begun to realize that some of the negativity attached to singleness is disproportionate, if not flat-out wrong, and a reflection of a distorted world view—one that views marriage and family as a superior and more fulfilling life option than being single. What’s particularly troubling to me since I am a Christian is that this seems to be even more true in the Christian community than in the rest of the world. In fact, “Christian” values and “family” values have become synonymous in many venues, and even in churches where they’re not (like my own), much of the culture and language still revolves around marriage and family. I love my church and find the people there to be some of the most intelligent, thoughtful, and respectful people I’ve ever met. No one has ever overtly said anything to make me feel uncomfortable or ‘lesser’ about being single, and yet the large majority of analogies and anecdotes shared in sermons involve marriage and parenting. Obviously, there’s a natural fit since marriage is supposed to be a picture of Christ and the church, and God as our father and us as his children is a frequent biblical motif. Plus, all of our pastoral staff are married and have families, so it makes sense that they would draw from their own lives. Most of the time, this doesn’t bother me. But every once in awhile I wonder, what about those of us who don’t have spouses or children? How do we fit into these analogies and anecdotes? Does my church value singleness as much as it values the states of marriage and parenthood? I can’t help but question this when my church addresses its correspondence to me as “The Lo Family” and prays for children to find a godly spouse during the baby dedications.
In all the churches I’ve been part of throughout my life, singles and singleness have rarely been mentioned or addressed. When they have, it’s often been in reference to the passage in the New Testament where the Apostle Paul says it’s better to be single than to be married. Yet when (usually married) Christians reference this and address “all you singles out there,” instead of being compelling and inspiring, it tends to feel like a vaguely insulting consolation prize—the ugly girl being told she has a good personality. The Bible might say singleness is better, but based on church culture, it’s clear no one actually believes this. The other favorite is to talk about the “gift of singleness,” which has always managed to come across as the kind of gift someone leaves on your front doorstep before ringing the bell and running away. It’s certainly never come across as a desired state or a valid alternative to being married. Unless, of course, you are planning to be a missionary. Then singleness is all good and makes perfect sense.
But what about those of us who are not missionaries? What about those of us who are no longer waiting (like we were in our 20s) for the right one to come along? As encouraging as they’re trying to be, those who tell us that the right one could still be ‘out there’ (kind of like extra-terrestrial life) or that we can always adopt are perpetuating the idea that all singles are in some kind of incomplete state that a spouse and/or children would rectify. Galatians 3:28 says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” I think this primary and unifying identity in Christ also trumps the distinction of single and married. To lift up singles and include them and their experiences in conversations about life and faith as naturally as those who have spouses and children, to deconstruct some of the false hierarchy and distinction between those who are single and those who are married, would be far more scriptural and Christian than praying for them to find The One. I also think it would be extremely encouraging, both to those who are single and feeling deficient or left out AND to those who are married and discouraged that having a spouse and children hasn’t lived up to the shining ideal it was supposed to be. They are simply different versions of being human and being a Christian.
Both states have positives and negatives. Both single people and married people experience longing and struggle. Neither state is capable of fulfilling us completely or of giving us a meaningful life—only the one who created us can do that. Perhaps a place to start in all of this is to remind each other of these truths and to even affirm some of the positives of singleness as a community of people. Not in a way that tries to make singleness superior to marriage (that would just be the same problem in reverse) or in a way that dismisses the sense of loss many single people experience, but in a way that demonstrates to those currently single and those who will grow up to be single that it’s not a sub-par state. That God’s favor and blessing on their lives has not been withheld in some way but pours out as freely to them as it does to those who have families.
I would say that I’m actively happy and content with my life about 75% of the time. That seems like a pretty good percentage. Part of what makes me happy is that I frequently have long blocks of uninterrupted time that I can devote to reading and writing. I can plan trips to Europe and run out to see a movie completely spur-of-the-moment. Being single, I’ve also had the time and energy to emotionally invest in the thousands of students I’ve taught over the past 17 years in a much deeper and more generous way than I could have if I’d had my own family. I can also call up my teenage nieces and happily listen to them talk about their lives for an hour or more, something I doubt I’d do if I had daughters of my own. One of the things that makes me happiest is having great conversations with friends, then coming home and being by myself. I like that balance of meaningful human connection and then the quiet and the chance to process and be completely myself without having to adapt to anyone else’s mood or personality.
I like being able to write a ridiculously long blog entry.
I still shy away from the notion of being “gifted with singleness.” With all its associations, it sounds so narrow and anemic and permanent. Who knows what the future will bring? I could still end up married. Maybe even with a family. But I no longer see that as a better life than the one I am currently living. What makes my life anything is that I am made in the image of God, and he lives in me and through me. That’s the gift that matters, whatever state I’m in.
