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Bradie help baby Beau fly the bird!
Before your mind drifts into 13 year-old boy territory, she was helping pull the string that spins the bird on his bouncy seat. Still, this might be the quote of the week.
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.
Hmm, does this sound like me?
| You Are An INTP |
 The Thinker You are analytical and logical – and on a quest to learn everything you can.Smart and complex, you always love a new intellectual challenge. Your biggest pet peeve is people who slow you down with trivial chit chat. A quiet maverick, you tend to ignore rules and authority whenever you feel like it. In love, you are an easy person to fall for. But not an easy person to stay in love with. At work, you are both a logical and creative thinker. You are great at solving problems. How you see yourself: Creative, fair, and tough-minded When other people don’t get you, they see you as: arrogant, cold, and robotic |
I have started a new book, or at least I am trying to start a new book. The Great Poems of the Bible by James L Kugel examines the Bible. Although my poetry chops are nearly nonexistent, I think I am going to enjoy this book.
Lately I have struggled with the connection between my intellectual life and my spiritual life; I know that I experience God through the brain that He has given me, but how that grows my faith is a mystery to me. Kugel explains in his introduction that he trys to “understand the way of seeing” of the texts that he selects. He continues:
Perhaps it is most natural for us today to explain the differences between our view of things and those of earlier civilizations by saying that in premodern times people simply did not know this or that fact, that they were under this or that misapprehension, from which we have now happily freed ourselves. No doubt there is some truth in this proposition. But it seems to me we ought at least to be prepared to entertain the opposite hypothesis as well, that however much progress the intervening centuries may have brought in some domains, they have also led us to lose a way of seeing that existed in former times. By “way of seeing” I mean to suggest something more than simply another point of view; perhaps people were actually enabled by this way of seeing to observe things that we no longer observe nowadays. It is difficult for one who reads the Bible carefully, and takes its words seriously, not to arrive at such a conclusion: something, a certain way of perceiving, has gradually closed inside of us, so that nowadays most people simply do not register, or do not have access to, what has been visible in an earlier age. What we have–all we have–are those texts of the Bible that bear witness to that other way of seeing (and perhaps invite us, with the use of some spiritual imagination, to try to enter in to it, open our eyes, and look).
This rings true in my life; I have been teaching about the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution which are steeped in the ideas of progress. It is important to remember change and progress are not synonymous with better and more important. In the same way, my intelligence–or lack thereof–does not supersede my faith. I hope that I can crack open that way of seeing that will let my faith grow beyond what I can think, explain, defend with logic, or reason because if my faith rests in my own ability to justify its existence, I miss God’s grace.
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.
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.
