cairns

You can see it in their eyes — the teachers who have learned the Truth of diversity. There its a sparkle added by a happy successful child. Here its misty remembrance of a child who touched their deepest being. Everywhere it is a closer relationship to the Creator whose own expression is diverse enough to cause us to utter words like Trinity.

Comments Off

I just finished reading William Stringfellow’s The politics of spirituality.  As I was reading the later sections on the evolution of the technocracy with its manipulation through media, I couldn’t help making connections to current church practices.  I am wondering how much of the big screen media in mega (and now many other) churches is designed to promote acceptance of form and message without substance or critique.  I have often marveled at the pull of the big screens and how even I will sometimes be watching the screen image of the preacher instead of the live person speaking in front of me.

I know images are carefully chosen to add power to the presentation.  My son-in-law is in that department and is good at it. When I was active in Young Life we created some of our own that were so emotionally powerful we had to be careful about their use realizing they could create instantaneous but superficial decisions about the Gospel.  I also know there are good people ethically trying to enhance the worship experience through media.

But, I wonder how intentionally, or unintentionally through mimicry of the culture, the leadership uses the power of the medium to promote emotional acceptance of what is often an empty message?

That’s a real question if anyone reading here has thoughts to share!

peace,

Greg

Comments Off

I think I posted at least part of this before.  But, I find myself leaving port again, and I cannot say it better than:

Emmylou Harris’  “Shores of White Sand”

here i go again
back to that feeling
of no worthy cause
to carry me on

’cause my hearts been skipping
like a flat rock on water
and with each ripple
the further i’m gone

some say i’m sinking
to the muddy bottom
But somehow i’m sailing
to shores of white sand

i feel it raining
and the crosswinds are changing
blowing my chances
to make it alone

but should you get lonesome
and your child need a mother
just look for my traces
on shores of white sand

some say i’m sinking
to the muddy bottom
But somehow i’m sailing
to shores of white sand

yes, some say i’m sinking
to the muddy bottom
But somehow i’m sailing
to shores of white sand

some say i’m sinking
to the muddy bottom
But somehow i’m sailing
to shores of white sand

Comments Off

I think that I may die soon.  I think that I may die as the overabundance of life becomes too much for my mortal shell.  It’s not from lack of life, or too much disease or death – although those are included.  I seem to have become a magnet, sponge, vacuum, or perhaps more accurately a recorder of life in all its facets.  I am engorged with laughter and tears, sanity and absurdity, pain and joy, hostility and peace, avarice and virtue, wonder and ignorance…it all keeps flooding in, in ways that I record, retain, contemplate, lift to the throne, but am changed by nonetheless.  And it first left me thinking I was headed for a ministry here to pour back out was healthy and life giving.  Lately it makes me think I am approaching the point where my spirit will no longer fit in this body.  I remember the same feeling in days of innocence almost 50 years ago.

I believe I am eternal as are you.  I believe my limited mortal self already died and was reborn in the sacrament of baptism.  I believe I partake of the suffering, death, and resurrection each time I accept the elements of communion.  I believe God lives it out through me as I walk this mud ball of pain and wonder.

I know that I have been filled to the brim by Life and yet more pours into me every day.

I know I have been seen the Way and sometimes recognize the trail markings.

I know I have been given Life when my soul was already dead.

I know our Father.

I know Peace.

I know “I Am.”

I know Logos.

I know.

I am.

Comments Off

Just started this very promising book thanks to Tim, and already ran into this quote following a section on how often terms like spirituality or even the name of the Holy Spirit are used to manipulate, imply meaning where one does not know, or simply to seem superior.

Biblically, the Holy Spirit names the faithfulness of God to his own creation.  Biblically, the Holy Spirit means the militant presence of the Word of God inhering in the life of the whole creation.  Biblically, the Holy Spirit is the Word of God at work both historically and existentially, acting incessantly and pervasively to renew the integrity of life in the world. (p. 18)

Sounds to me like the God I grow to know.

Another quote for any who find my humble efforts in the posts below odd, or obscure:

Yet, no idea of god is God; no image of god is God; no conception of god, however appealing or, for that matter, however true, coincides with the living God — which the biblical witness bespeaks — present, manifest, militant in common history, discernible in the course of events through the patience and insight of ordinary human beings.  The living God, whose style and character the Bible reports, is subject now, as in the biblical era, to the witness of human beings, to their testimony describing what they have beheld of the intent, involvement, self-disclosure, effort, and concern of the Word of God [Tao in Chinese] in this world.

peace

Comments Off

Truth is
Tao is
Life is
Accept is

Comments Off

truth isn’t

tao isn’t

life isn’t

accept isn’t

Comments Off

It was a good, but very emptying, day with the Masters class today working on the course nobody wants to teach.  Students routinely give faculty lower evaluations after this course.  My last group did.  But, I think it is one of our most fundamental offerings and gladly accepted this request to teach it again two hours from home.  Helping teachers develop eyes and hearts for the unity in uniqueness among children is more important to me than how to do a little more math or English.

But, it is getting harder and harder for me to do, and I didn’t see it coming.  I celebrate diversity.  I see the glory of God in it.  I love to discuss it and explore ways that we all can grow past where each of us now is in worshiping God more by better loving the wild variety in creation.  But, today it was almost too emotional to handle.

It is no longer an academic subject to me.  Any pretense I ever had of objectivity or old school detached professionalism has been stripped away.  Every single topic brings floods of memories of specific children, the people who hurt them, and the ones who loved them.  Every attempt by a teacher in the class to become more open, see more fully, and love kids more deeply brings a wave of awareness of God’s love for the one allowing themselves to grow.

Some of it is just too deep and powerful to share in any normal academic way.  Now, I just have to decide whether its time to stop teaching it, or whether I am finally becoming qualified to start.

peace

Comments Off

Years ago the teachers at Christa McAuliffe and I worked for about two years to create a mission statement that truly said who we were and what we did.  What we were inspired to choose after many too complicated efforts was, “Christa McAuliffe is a safe place for every member to learn and grow.”  We used “member” instead of “student” partially as one of many efforts to be less like what the kids had previously experienced as schooling, and partially to indicate that it included the adults as well as the young people.  The Superintendent who sent us there, understood…mostly.  The one after him did not understand anything we did.  He is the one who allowed the program to be dismantled, and caused me to choose life back in the classroom.

The new Superintendent is a person of intelligence, vision, and action.  My daughter’s high school was in bad shape.  Her health was in bad shape partially from the psychologically toxic environment there.  Our family was in bad shape because the poison came home.  This summer the new Superintendent replaced the leadership of the high school with people who reversed the trends there in the very first day of student attendance.  What did the principal tell them?  “This is no longer a dangerous place or a jail.  This is a place dedicated to knowledge and growth.”

I still cannot say it any better.  If I ever get the chance to create another space that is Truly safe for people to continue to learn and to grow, maybe I will call it a school.  Or just maybe, I will call it a church.

peace

Comments Off

My daughter’s assessment of the teacher she is assigned for Statistics, “They say he his tough, but he explains things well and will give you extra help on his class and on really preparing for the college entrance exams.  I’m glad I got him.”

High Ability Fourth Graders assigned to my class this year and asked by me today what they hoped happened — “We want to learn a LOT, do homework, go places, read lots of things, and have FUN!”  They still have the ability to see learning as the fun!

But they do want to learn, not just do work because somebody chose it for their year in school, decided it was good for most kids their age, or put it on the state exam which they can pass without trying.  Like my daughter, they will work for a teacher who is taking them someplace.  That’s my job this year.  Sometimes on a bus, sometimes in the classroom, sometimes as they explore on their own, it is my job to create an environment and invitations into new areas of knowledge where they can learn, grow, and become themselves.

Asked to tell me about themselves, one little girl wrote, “You will learn more about me as you get to know me.  I know little about myself.”  She doesn’t know how wise that answer is!  This year she will learn more and more about her world, other people, and about herself.  And what she decides is True about herself will affect the rest of her life.  It is an incredible responsibility and an honor beyond description to be a teacher and take that journey with her!  Parker Palmer named his second book on teaching very well, The Courage to Teach. To walk daily into the middle of these young lives is an activity not to be taken for granted, but fearfully treasured.

Today I looked into a lot of eager glowing young eyes.  We are off on the journey of another year!  And, I feel like a kid in a candy store!

peace,

Greg

Comments Off