September 2006

Last week, I discovered a post waiting in moderation that I found to be quite intriguing.  Below is a bit of the post which can be found in it’s entirety somewhere on this Blog if you look hard enough.  It also has a link to a very interesting magazine article.  I’ll include the link in this post for those who do not enjoy the thrill of the hunt.

Post:     I am very interested in your concept. Although I am a very conservative evangelical (and work at Focus on the Family), I consider myself a Christian humanist and your introductory writing explains my thinking as good as anything I have seen. Also, beyond creation, the incarnation is HUGE on this point.

I wrote an essay on this recently in Christianity Today.  You might find it interesting. http://www.christianvisionproject.com (then scroll to conservative humanist).

I would be interested in hearing more about your mission with eikon and some of your influences.

Below is my response to the post.  Enjoy!

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
       - Albert Einstein

I wrote this quote on the dry-erase board in my classroom yesterday, for the young Eikons to write in their journals.  It has stayed with me and and has triggered emotion, thought, and inspiration. 

I read the introduction to the Books of History in The Message this morning. 

“History is the medium in which God works salvation, just as paint and canvas is the medium in which Rembrandt made created works of art.  We cannot get closer to God by distancing ourselves from the mess of history.  This deeply pervasive sense of history, the dignity of their (The Hebrews) place in history, the presence of God in history, accounts for the way in which the Hebrew people talked and wrote…there simply was no secular history.  None.  Everything that happened, happened in a world penetrated by God.”

Albert Einstein and Eugene Peterson colliding in my heart this morning as I sat on my front porch in the cool of the fall morning.  And I wondered, when did the split happen.  When did secular and sacred divide.  When was it decided to equate someone’s spirituality to the distance they were removed from the world.

Choose to believe something different.        

I have spent the last two Friday nights with my daughters, watching high school football at the school down the road from our house.  My daughters watch the game a little, watch the cheerleaders a little more, and spend the rest of the time dancing to the band.  It’s a mostly black high school.  The band has soul.  My daughters recognize good music.  I spend my time watching the game a little, watching the crowd alot, and clapping with my daughters as they dance to the music played by the band with soul. 

Tonight’s game was a good one, and school that is just down the road from our house lost by one point.  There were some controversial calls that seemed to go in the other teams favor that created a great deal of visible frustration for the players, who are mostly black, at this mostly black high school. 

The people and the culture are different from my native culture.  As I sit in the middle of it with my daughters, I begin to ask myself…what is it like to be black.  What does it feel like when the aging white referee makes a call that is perceived to be grossely incorrect, and you are the young black man being penalized?  Whether the call is correct or not, how do you overcome what you perceive? How can you begin to even perceive something different? 

One moment in a football game made a lasting impact on me this evening.  Whether or not the perception is reality anymore, seemed so irrelevant.  The perception still exists, which creates a reality. 

Why follow the rules of the system when the system is not designed for me to succeed?  What is it like to be black?  How do the black students in my class feel about me, their white middle class teacher, disciplining them for not bringing their math work to class?  Do they feel I care about them and want to see them be the best they can, or do the feel something else, and are they justified in feeling that way?

My family moved to the urban area because I felt like I, as a white middle class man, had something to offer the poor mostly black urban neighborhood.  I’ve got love, which I can offer to anyone.  But maybe I should spend a little more time with the culture, before I decide I know what it needs.  Maybe the culture is showing me what I need. 

Choose to believe something different. 

          

   

I’ve been teaching for three weeks now and it struck me today how mentally challenging this is.  This must be what it feels like to be smart!  The amount of mental energy that is involved in staying sharp and focused for a school day is unbelievable to me.  I’m thinking a small town could be lit with the energy that is being created beneath my scalp.  

Do you remember in Phenomenon with John Travolta, how he just starts knowing stuff, that he didnt’ know before…it’s real.  This last week, I fixed a flat bike tire, a broken milk foamer, and a computer cord.  I never knew how to fix anything before I became a teacher.  All of this after only three weeks.  Who knows where all by by Christmas break!

Choose to believe something different.