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Bradie and Danielle were appalled when they found out Alex had never used a crayon; as you can see by the look on their faces, they are thinking, “poor child.”
After several hours of practice, Alex mastered crayons and drew a duck. To celebrate they all posed for a picture.
Next lesson: finger paints.
When I was a young human I read Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance by Donald Miller–this book has since been reworked and re-released as Through Painted Deserts. In this book, he recounts his roadtrip from Texas to Oregon with his close friend in a Volkswagen van; this book is the inspiration for my rim to rim hike of the Grand Canyon with my close friend Devin Tschirley.
Several years later I picked up his book Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. In this book one chapter really jumped out at me; it was the chapter on grace. He recounts a time when he saw a woman in a grocery store using food stamps…
It was obvious as she unfolded the currency that she, I, and the checkout girl were quite uncomfortable with the interaction. I wished there was something I could do. I wished I could pay for her groceries myself, but to do so would have been to cause a greater scene…
…I realized that it was not the woman who should be pitied, it was me. Somehow I had come to believe that because a person is in need, they are candidates for sympathy, not just charity. It was not that I wanted to buy her groceries, the government was already doing that. I wanted to buy her dignity. And yet, by judging her, I was the one taking her dignity away.
Not only do I lose sight of what grace really is, sometimes I forget that I need grace just as much as anyone else. Miller goes on to say…
I love to give charity, but I don’t want to be charity. This is why I have so much trouble with grace…
…It isn’t that I want to earn my own way to give something to God, it’s that I want to earn my own way so I won’t be charity.
This is humbling; not only to Miller, but also for me. I want to be worthy in God’s eyes, yet the only way is if I receive God’s full grace.
It is no coincidence that a kid in my class asked me to write a college letter of recommendation for her. As she told me her story, she told me about being a Big Sister for a little girl. I was blessed by her willingness to love this little girl. This story reminded me about what God says we should value. This is at the heart of what Jesus said as he started his Sermon on the Mount:
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
4 Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted
5 Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.Matthew 5:3-8
When we are in a situation where we need grace–we need someone to stand in and fight for us, that is when we understand the true blessing of God.
14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.
Exodus 14:14
I pray that I can be still; that I can take God’s charity–his grace.
My friend Brad, an elementary school teacher, decided it was time that Bradie learned how to read; As you can tell Bradie did not enjoy Brad’s two minute program to literacy. Brad had to think of another approach.
His new approach: teach her how to kiss. You can file this approach under “Kids will think this is cool.” Brad’s first step: Practice on your arm. After perfecting this, move to the next step.
Brad’s step two: Go for it. As you can tell, Bradie is trying her new found skill on Curious George. Instead of his two minute literacy program, Brad used the two step literacy program; for all of you skeptics, check it out:
After these two easy steps, Bradie can read. Thank you Brad; maybe someday you can teach me to read.
Reading is not the only skill Bradie picked up in Spokane. One skill rises above all other skills in the eyes of Sara…the ability to take a picture with a friend, without using the viewfinder. Here is Bradie’s first attempt:
Not bad for a first attempt; I would have tried to find better lighting and a shower for Daddy, but overall a good first attempt.
And Bradie’s final skill? Driving.
Who taught her this, you may ask. If you look in the passenger seat, it is none other than Grandma. What next, will Grandma take her to Silver Safari and a tattoo parlor?
Underlying classical economics is Adam Smith’s transformative understanding of trade. Smith argued that self-interest fueled trade–and all human interaction for that matter–and was governed by an invisible hand that you could not see but could see the effects.
Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.
There is no doubt that self-interest plays a large part of our decision-making process, but the question that arises is should self-interest play a large part of our decision making process? Theologically self-interest explains our brokenness and our need for grace; this puts me in a strange position for understanding economic thinking.
Before I continue, I must address a pet peeve of mine: prosperity theology. For those who have not encountered this hellish distortion of faith, prosperity theology teaches that God blesses those who are following him…with money or wealth. Conversely, those who are not following him will not be blessed with money or wealth. It is hard for me to believe that Jesus died so that I can be comfortable, a man who traveled the countryside without wealth and taught anyone who would listen before being killed. To argue that God is a capitalist or a communist minimizes his power, mercy, judgment, grace, and love into human conceptions. End rant.
Returning to the idea of self-interest, Thomas Merton speaks to this idea:
To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell. Selfishness is doomed to frustration, centered as it is upon a lie. To live exclusively for myself, I must make all things bend themselves to my will as if I were a god. But this is impossible. Is there any more cogent indication of my creaturehood than the insufficiency of my own will? For I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me. When I give it pleasure, it deceives my expectation and and makes me suffer pain. When I give myself what I conceive to be freedom, I deceive myself and find that I am the prisoner of my own blindness and selfishness and insufficiency.
This is why economics makes me uncomfortable; it is not that I do not have the intellectual fortitude to understand economics, it is that its basic premise asks me to put myself first. Underlying this premise is that the accumulation of wealth and stuff is desirable without looking at the human costs of this pursuit. Where does grace exist in a world driven by self-interest? Where is hope? Maybe this is why prosperity theology bothers me so much, but I digress.
Day three of my economic conference welcomed the beloved demand curve and supply curve. The fundamental assumption of economics is that people need stuff and want stuff; whether these are real needs or wants is not the point, what matters is the desire. Enter the supply and demand curves. Deftly they measure the relationship between price and quantity neatly packaging the equilibrium price–that is the point will supply meets demand perfectly, all things being equal. While it may not seem so, I believe economic thinking is useful. Economic thinking provides a great way to understand certain quantifiable human interactions; trade, time management, education, robots. But economic thinking does not concern itself with the underlying question of why we desire stuff and how human relationships should work. What should be the source of our desires and what should we actually want? Is there really an opportunity cost–the next best thing–that must be paid to spend time with a friend?
Before going to bed tonight I started chapter 2 of Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island. It is hardly chance that this is what I read:
We are not perfectly free until we live in pure hope. For when our hope is pure, it no longer trusts exclusively in human and visible means, nor rests in any visible end. He who hopes in God trusts God, Whom he never sees, to bring him to the possession of things that are beyond imagination.
When we do not desire the things of this world for their own sake, we become able to see them as they are. We see at once their goodness and their purpose, and we become able to appreciate them as we never have before. As soon as we are free of them, they begin to please us. As soon as we cease to rely on them alone, they are able to serve us. Since we depend neither on the pleasure nor the assistance we get from them, they offer us both pleasure and assistance, at the command of God. For Jesus has said: “Seek first the kingdom of God, and his justice and all these things[that is all that you need for your life on earth] will be given to you besides” (Matthew 6:33).
Supernatural hope is the virtue that strips us of all things in order to give us possession of all things. We do not hope for what we have. Therefore, to live in hope is to live in poverty, having nothing. And yet, if we abandon ourselves to economy of Divine Providence, we have everything we hope for. By faith we know God without seeing Him. By hope we possess God without feeling His presence. If we hope in God, by hope we already possess Him, since hope is a confidence which He creates in our souls as secret evidence that He has taken possession of us. So the soul that hopes in God already belongs to Him,and to belong to Him is the same as to possess Him, since He gives Himself completely to those who give themselves to Him. The only thing faith and hope do not give us is clear vision of Him Whom we possess. We are united to Him in darkness, because we have to hope.
Merton argues that misplacing our hope and desire will only create a hollow existence. The idea of creating something for wealth generation of to fulfill some perceived need misses the point. Our desire and hope is in God and through that we can see the usefulness of stuff, but it is not until we are willing to give up the desire for stuff simply for its own sake. I am not a strong advocate asceticism but Merton is right, in poverty is where we find hope. Why would hope be necessary for someone who fulfills all their wants and needs with stuff? Stuff is measurable; hope is not. Jesus spoke of this in Mark 8:36:
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
It is not right thinking to focus your desires on stuff no matter how noble your reasoning may be. Often economists argue that those that take the large risks that pay off with money (stuff) have the ability and resources to help thousands of people through philanthropy. Our hope in God stems from our poverty in spirit that is filled by Jesus. In the same way we can provide that hope to others by simply being with them; our philanthropy is not measurable by how many people we can help or how much money we give. We simply share our hope; this is how we nourish our souls
Those of you interested in No Man is an Island check it out:
As I continue my economic indoctrination education I have found that there are now commandments for economic thinking. Economists only need 8–I think it is because any more would be to tiring.
- There is no free lunch
- Economic answers to every question begins with “it depends”
- People respond to incentives
- On average people act in predictable ways
- All economic theory can be boiled down to two curves that cross or you should be able to explain it to the average person
- Where the curves cross is important
- People everywhere are the same; it is the constraints or incentives that differ
- Ask “why might the initial received wisdom be wrong?”
I did not have the courage to ask what happened if you did not follow the commandments; I was too busy eating cookies and being predictable. Oh well.
While they tend to sugar coat economic thinking and try to divorce moral reasoning from economic reasoning, this conference is very good. For the first part of the day the teachers observe the professors teach the kids and run simulations. It is not often that teachers get to watch teaching, good stuff.
Okay I am going to not eat a free lunch. Peace out.
Now that I have filled my brain with all things Canada, it is time to fill my brain with all things Economic. My wife thinks that they must be communists because they schedule a conference during the Fourth of July; little does she know they are just the opposite. I did find one thing slightly creepy; whenever you talk to people who are really into economics, they talk about an economic way of thinking about things. This economic way of thinking, to bastardize it up a bit, consists of people making choices based on incentives–this is just fancy-speak for self-interest. Now imagine a room full of high school students and teachers (yeah kids chose to go to this) with the professor talking about changing the way they see the world, they would be different when they leave the conference. Do I have to sign my life away and forsake my family? Maybe donate all my money and rip my tunic? Sara may not be to far off; maybe it is a cult. After I get my decoder ring tomorrow I will let you know what the writing in my “workbook” means. Until then, think economically…think comically…think incognito-e…meh.
I am now in the fine city of Vancouver about two minutes away from going to my first Study Canada Summer Institute session. While perusing the real estate section of the local paper I noticed Seattle like prices; mind you a US dollar is about two cents more in Canada so that is two cents more house…meh. Wish me luck all.
Edit: It is more expensive than Seattle, not just comparable. Nice.
I will return to work tomorrow after a three week absence. I do not fear doing my job, teaching kids; but what I do fear is the pile of papers that I will have to wade through after school. Hmm, should I try to contract that work out to the lowest bidder? Does Northrop Grumman do consultant work in education? Apparently they have 24% of their business that is not directly related to defense. If they can build Nimitz-class carriers, they can correct American Government and World History classwork. It is quite possible they pay somebody to search the inter-tubes for even the mere mention of their name. Maybe I will get a bid. Oh well, good night.
As a high school teacher I often here people bemoan the decline of human civilization; they base this misguided rant on the next generation–my students. While I will not disagree that behavior overall has declined, I find it unconscionable that society place the blame on kids. Schools, and therefore kids, are only a reflection of society; and when society is rude, gratuitous, violent, and without a moral compass it has an effect on kids. Often I find the behavior of adults to be petty, cliquish, selfish, and without thought–these are the same accusations thrown at kids.
The Quakers have a belief called the Doctrine of the Inner Light. They believe that God is present inside of everyone and he speaks to everyone, if they listen. The basis of this belief is John 1:9:
9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world
The Quakers became early supporter of the abolition movement because of this doctrine. If we all have God present in us, how can we subject people or call them inferior?
It is when we refuse to listen to this Inner Light that you find people acting in ways that induce the aforementioned bemoaning. We all have a tremendous capacity to do great good and to do great evil, but the choice is left to us. God has given us the ears to hear, but do we listen?
Some times it feels like my two years of teaching has almost jaded me, almost; but kids bless my life in the most amazing ways. Sometimes I get a note from a kid thanking me for helping them or I have an entire period that is so caring that it feels like family or I have kids offering to watch my daughter because they think that my wife and I need to go on a date. I have hope for humanity because of the kids that I get to share my day with everyday. Here is an example:
Out of the blue one of my students from last semester emailed me a picture he took of my daughter at a basketball game. I received this just as I arrived in Virginia to spend time with my father. I responded to his email, telling him why I was not in school–my father was very sick–and to thank him for his thoughtfulness. Here is the reply that I received:
wow, that’s tough. i knew something was going on but i wasn’t completely sure. My grandmother just died due to cancer as well, and my grandpa just got diagnosed, with a few months to live so i can only imagine how you feel. But you have to look at death not as a bad thing, but a celebration of a wonderful life. and if your Dad is half the man that you are i know he must be great and at complete peace with himself.
i’m sorry to hear that, stay strong.
ill see you when your back and i’m sure everyone else will be happy to see you as well
This is why I have hope in humanity; A kid that I had just met nine months ago spoke wisdom into my life while I was in pain with elegance and sincerity. Don’t tell me that kids have no respect and do not care about anything; too often we focus on what bothers us, what annoys us. We do not spend the time to listen to what is inside of us all, this light that can guide us.
When I started teaching I jokingly told my wife that I will only keep teaching if just one kid gives me hope; I guess I am teaching again next year! God has blessed me through my work; it cannot be any more clear to me. Thank you to all my kids that have spoke truth and wisdom into my life. Fear not adults, you have blessed me as well; but that is a topic for another post.
