Tag Archives: C.S. Lewis

Heavy Loads vs. Flying Horses

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In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ polemic against the Pharisees (my Bible titles the 23rd chapter of Matthew “The Seven Woes”), Jesus says to the crowd and his disciples:

“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.  So you must be careful to do everything they tell you.  But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.  They tie up heavy, cumbersome burdens and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.”

As I imagine most of us (certainly myself) were sitting comfortably in our seats at church this morning, considering just how terrible the Pharisees were, our pastor followed this passage with the question, “Lest we become prideful, we must ask ourselves, ‘On whom am I placing heavy, cumbersome burdens without being a part of the work?'”  Said another way, I am speaking the truth but withholding active love and grace?

Immediately a few of my math students came to mind.  For various reasons each of them is struggling to survive in my class, reasons which can basically be summarized as a lack of willingness to do the hard work that is required to be successful in this class.  After a rough test last week, my plan was to pull each of them aside tomorrow and have “the talk,” which would go something like this: “Suzy, I’m going to be honest with you, this class is only going to get more challenging as the year goes on.  It’s time to buckle up and resolve to do the hard work so that you don’t find yourself drowning a month from now.”

Okay, so I would probably be more gentle with them than that, but regardless of my tone, this is the message they would hear: it’s hard now, soon it will be impossible, and it’s up to you to dig yourself out of this hole.

How Pharisaical of me.  Why do I do this?  Because I get tired.  Because I don’t have time.  Because I have to keep moving and finish the curriculum.  Because I have to prepare these kids for what it’s going to be like in high school.

All of these excuses are at once true as well as invalid.  The real reason I tend to stack burdens on these kids’ shoulders without going the extra mile to help them is because I’ve forgotten about all the people in my life who have not only carried my burdens but have carried me as well. I have forgotten about all the times Jesus has walked with me where either I didn’t want to or didn’t think I could go.

Lord forgive me.

Lest we become like those Pharisees, our instinctive posture toward our students must be one of love and grace. But this need not be a “cheap grace” of which Bonhoeffer speaks. On the contrary, I think it is a good and right thing to invite our students to be a part of their own redemption process.  In his book The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship, Dallas Willard says, “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.  Earning is an attitude.  Effort is an action.  Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone.”  The “acted faith” is what I believe Jesus calls us to when he says, “Follow me.”  This is discipleship.  It is by God’s grace that we are invited into a life of transformation into his likeness.

God’s grace in my life has looked just like this–it has been an active, transforming grace that is rewriting my story, a revision with which I have been invited to take part. This journey has led me through some seemingly impossible circumstances, but God’s presence has been steadfast, just as it was with Moses, Abraham, Joshua, Gideon, and many others who took an active role in God’s redemption plan.

I am reminded of the moment in The Magician’s Nephew, when Aslan turns to Digory, who by now realizes that it is because of his own actions that evil (in the form of Jadis) has been unleashed in the newly-created Narnia.  Aslan asks Digory if he’s ready to undo the wrong he has done to Narnia, and Digory hems and haws about not knowing what he can do, what with Jadis disappearing and all, to which Aslan simply restates his original question: Are you ready?  Digory answers in the affirmative, but cannot help–despite knowing that the Lion is not someone to be bargained with–but throw in a plea for Aslan’s help in curing his ill mother back home.  The next passage is worth quoting in full:

“Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face.  What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life.  For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes.  They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.”

Do I pause to consider that something else besides my math class might be going on in my students’ lives?  Do I seek to know them, to empathize with them, to grieve with them?

After this moment of real human connection, Digory finds new resolve to take on the mission Aslan has set before him.  Even though “he didn’t know how it was to be done . . . he felt quite sure now that he would be able to do it.”

Do I give my students a reason to believe that they can do what they don’t quite know how to do?

Next Aslan asks Digory to describe what he sees to the West.  “I see terribly big mountains, Aslan,” Digory replies.  And this is only the first of three imposing mountain ranges that Digory describes.  Quite plainly, Aslan tells Digory’s that his journey will take him straight through those mountains.

Am I honest with my students about the challenges that lie ahead?  Do I invite them to assess the journey, or do I simply describe it for them?

Once Digory is informed of just what was going to be required of him on this journey, he says quite honestly to Aslan, “I hope, Aslan, you’re not in a hurry.  I shan’t be able to get there and back very quickly.”

And Aslan replies, “Little son of Adam, you shall have help.”  Turning to the cabby’s horse, Strawberry, Aslan transforms him into the winged Fledge.

Do I offer help to my students on what might seem an impossible journey?  To what lengths am I willing to go?  Sometimes it takes some out-of-the-box thinking, like putting wings on a horse.  In addition to inviting my students on an arduous journey, am I simultaneously embodying Christ’s active love toward them?  Am I walking alongside them?

Am I working as hard for them as I want them to work for my class?  Or, am I stacking heavy burdens on their shoulders and wishing them the best on their journey?

“But I’m not a miracle worker,” I have found myself saying.  I can’t make a horse fly.  What do I do when I feel like I have done everything?

Our pastor ended this morning by asking the question, “Do we petition the Holy Spirit as fervently as we petition those who we want to see change?”

Do I forget that ultimately it’s not up to me?  How often do I pray for my students by name?  How often do I invite the Holy Spirit into my classroom?

After all, there is a lot more at stake here than my students learning math.  Their time in my classroom is but a very short chapter in a very long book. Nevertheless, their journey at this moment includes my math class and, therefore, it includes me. How will I make the coincidence of our paths count?

Somehow Christ is able to say, “Take up your cross and follow me,” but also say, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  This is the scandalous love of the gospel.  I still don’t really get it.  But I know it.  And I want my students to know it.  And I do not want to miss the opportunity to embody this kind of love for them.  I may not be able to make a winged horse, but–like Polly, who sits right behind Digory on Fledge’s back–I can certainly go with them on this leg of their journey.

Natural Philosophy

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“For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious.”    – C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

I am at the Society for Classical Learning’s Alcuin retreat up in Grand Rapids, MI this week where the topic is “science and theology.”  Pre-meeting conversations and readings have already been such an inspiration.  I’m hoping to learn how better to, in the words of one of my fellow colleagues here, “move from teaching students to be scientists–technicians of science–to being natural philosophers: those who seek wisdom in the natural order of Creation.”

More to come . . .

Crossing the Finish Line: Two Ways (Part 2)

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I didn’t intend on making this a two-part post, but by God’s providence our sermon in church this morning picked up right where I left off in the last post and has added even more clarity to my perspective on finishing well.

One of our teaching pastors, Ashley Matthews, preached on a daunting lectionary passage from the book of Acts: the stoning of Stephen.  I think I’ll include the text here in its entirety:

“When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.  But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.   ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’  At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.  Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.  While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’  Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’  When he had said this, he fell asleep.”    Acts 7:54-60

Prior to this scene, Stephen had just ticked off the members of the Sanhedrin, comparing their current disobedience and betrayal/murder of Jesus to that of their ancestors who, despite being delivered out of slavery, yearned for Egypt, turned away from God, and worshipped a golden calf.  With gnashing teeth, plugged ears, and yelling voices they stoned Stephen to death.  They even took their coats off so they could throw that much harder.

But Stephen blessed them, even as he breathed his last breath.

The immediate application, I admit, I found a bit elusive.  “Where is Ashley going to take this?” I thought.  After all, we don’t get stoned to death these days for standing up for our beliefs (at least in the U.S.), and surely–no matter how tough life gets–I can’t compare any trial to the experience of being gradually and painfully murdered.  Is this where I feel guilty for ever whining or complaining about my life?  I mean, it’s not like people are ever trying to kill me by hurling rocks at my face.

No one who needs encouragement ever wants to be told, “Listen, it could be much worse!  Suck it up!”

However Ashley didn’t focus on the stoning of Stephen.  Rather, she focused on Stephen himself.

But Stephen blessed them, even as he breathed his last breath.

How in the world was this possible?  We are told how.  Stephen was “full of the Holy Spirit,” and in the previous chapter, described as “a man full of God’s grace and power.”  Like that tomato plant that turns its face to the sun because it knows of no other way to be, Stephen blessed his murderers because that is the nature of a man who is filled by God.  Said another way, if God is what fills you, then God is what comes out when you are squeezed.

How does this connect to finishing well?  Ashley quoted from an author whose name currently escapes me, but, to paraphrase, she said:

“Our culture lives in a reverie of lack.  As soon as our feet hit the floor, we think, ‘I didn’t get enough sleep.’  As soon as we step out of the shower, we think, ‘I don’t have enough time.’  As soon as we get into our car, we think, ‘I don’t have enough gas.’  We start and live every day in a deficit.”

I don’t know about the reader, but Ashley described exactly how I feel this time of year.

And why is this?  Jeremiah and C.S. Lewis would say because we are desperately trying to fill those broken cisterns; we are refusing that vacation by the sea and instead are complacent to wallow in the mud.  We desire too little.  Our expectations of Jesus are anemic.  We want control of the wheel even though we’re careening off a cliff.  And thus we find ourselves in a perpetual deficit, simply because we do not ask expectantly for something completely different.  Living water is available to us; we choose to stare into a dark well.

Lord, change my expectations, transform my desires.  Help me to ask boldly for the fullness of your Holy Spirit and, out of an unexpected abundance, may I bless those around me.

Crossing the Finish Line: Two Ways (Part 1)

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For teachers and students alike, the month of May is often approached with a “just try to get through it” mentality.  (If you’re an 8th grader about to graduate middle school, perhaps you’re just on autopilot trying to coast in for a landing.)  We are all tired, and for good reason.  Hopefully we have “run the race so as to win,” which necessarily means we’re going to be nearly out of breath as we cross the finish line.

But there is a “good tired” and a “bad tired.”  In an actual race, I have experienced that “bad tired” when, after crossing the finish line, I literally thought I was going to die AND not because I had just run the race of my life.  In fact, those types of finishes are often preceded by a painful several miles that either proved to me that I had not properly prepared or that my heart wasn’t really in it.  The collapse across the finish line is just the nail in the coffin.

Then there have been those “good tired” finishes: my body still cries out in pain as I sprint past the time clock, but I am immediately invigorated by a sense of accomplishment and healthy pride because I have indeed run a good race.  Somehow my legs don’t feel like jelly and there is still a bounce in my step.

I also feel “good tired” after a long Saturday of hard manual labor out in the yard.  Every muscle in my body aches, but the pain is almost satisfying–a “good pain,” we might say.  Those are the nights that I sleep more soundly than ever.

But I can feel “bad tired” after a long day at school during which I have been impatient with students, uninspiring in my teaching, and uncharitable with my coworkers.  I come home and the loud voices of my two little girls immediately annoy me.  I want to go stare at a wall or fall asleep at 7 p.m.  But those nights of sleep are not characterized by peace.

You see, good work–work that is pleasing to and dependent upon the Lord, work that is excellent–is tiring, but it leads to a state of restfulness.  Perhaps that is what God was trying to show us in the Genesis story.  God worked.  He said, “It’s good.”  Then He rested.

But work not done well–work that is done not as unto the Lord, work that relies on our own strength–is both tiring and leaves us feeling restless.  I think of Solomon’s words in Ecclesiastes:

“Then I looked on all the works my hands had done, and on the labor in which I had toiled, and indeed all was vanity . . . There was no profit under the sun.”

So how do we finish well?  The words of Jeremiah, quoted in a recent sermon, have been resonating in my bones for the past couple of weeks:

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

Does the prophet not sum up the essence of all sin–all bad finishes–in this one sentence?  Not only is the cistern a less preferred source from which to retrieve drinking water (standing water versus flowing water), we can’t even make cisterns that hold water.  As our bishop said to our congregation at a recent church retreat, “We are all leaky buckets.”

When these last few weeks of school get tough for me, my tendency is not necessarily to neglect God altogether.  On the contrary, I often find myself crying out to Him.  But what I have come to realize is this: I’m just crying out for Him to pour water into my broken cistern.

If we are going to finish well, we have to dive into that spring of living water.  We have to expect more from God than water in a leaky bucket.  As C.S. Lewis says, “Our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak . . . [We are] like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”

For me this means I can’t just ask God to pass me a cup of water as I run frenetically towards the finish line.  (Have you ever tried to drink from those little plastic cups as you’re stumbling dizzyingly through that last mile of a poorly run race?)  Also, I can’t go do work “just to get it done,” with the promise of summer vacation my reward.

Rather, I have to begin–each day–by going to where God is, sitting down, and letting Him fill me.  I have to ask boldly and expectantly.  I have to desire His will for that day.  Then I must get up, go do good work, and expect to be simultaneously exhausted and at peace at the end of the day.

May it be so.  Lord, help me.

Let it Snow: Science as Bible Class

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In light of the recent snowy weather in Atlanta, I put together the following slideshow of snowflake images using the stunning macro-photographs from a brilliant Russian photographer, Alexey Kljatov.  (Mr. Kljatov has kindly made his photographs available to the public as long as we credit him, so please go enjoy more of his work here.  You will be blessed.)

There are plenty of technically complex (and, perhaps, more pragmatic) things we could talk about when it comes to snow–a proper exploration of the intricate phase diagram for ice crystals alone is enough to fill at least a week of class time.  But sometimes it is a good thing to remind students in a classical Christian school the primary reason we study science: not so we can go do something, but so we can better know Someone.  So I presented the following slideshow to my 6th and 8th grade science students, then asked them to write a one-paragraph response.

If you can spare the time, please take five minutes, remove yourself from distractions, quiet your soul, and watch this.  Then read some of my students’ responses below the video.

Two of my students actually had tears in their eyes at the conclusion of the slide show–does the beauty of God’s creation still move us so?

Here are some excerpts from the student responses:

“In every piece of snow God has made a masterpiece, with shapes, varying in size, depth, and design.  It shows me that God really will take care of us, because if He puts that much detail into little snowflakes, He definitely put that much detail into us.”

“The snowflakes show how precise and perfect God is.”

“Since the snowflakes are so beautiful I can’t imagine how heaven will be.”

“Just like how God has made every snowflake different, He has also made every person different.”

“The detail God has put into all of these snowflakes makes me want to know more about the wonderful things He can do.”

“If God makes something as small and unimportant as a snowflake so beautiful and complex, how much care must He put into creating us?  If he makes billions of snowflakes every second of every day and each one is beautiful and unique in its own way, how important am I in God’s eyes?”

“To see the microscopic detail in a snowflake reminded me that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

“I realized that the things we take for granted are the greatest things in life.”

“The snowflakes are not much different from us.  We both have the same purpose: to glorify God.”

“I noticed that most were still symmetrical, but some had begun to melt.  It was as if they were created in perfection, but as they began to be influenced by the heat close to the Earth they began to melt and lose that perfection.”

— – — – —

That last statement really stuck with me.  This student was referring to the snowflake pictured at the top of this post.

We are all snowflakes.  Not only are we “fearfully and wonderfully made,” but we still bear that image of God’s perfection, though the melting power of sin has caused us to lose true symmetry with God.

But you can still look at a snowflake that has partially melted and imagine what it must have looked like in its perfect state.

When we look at our students, do we focus on their melted edges, or do we imagine what they must look like to God once Jesus has purified them and made them, well, whiter than snow?

As C.S. Lewis once said, “There are no ordinary people.  You have never talked to a mere mortal.”

Nor do we teach them.

The Tyranny of the Future

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I teach at a K-8 school, which means that our 8th grade students are inevitably distracted by the pressing and significant reality of choosing a new school.  A few years back one of my 8th graders said to me, “I feel like all anyone ever wants to talk about is ‘what’s next.'”  He was living in that difficult tension between wanting to play a responsible role in his high school selection process and wanting to be a 13-year-old kid enjoying his last year at a school he had been a part of for 10 years.

Life moves on for this kid, and for all of us, but this tension just finds a new manifestation in a new season.

I really like the way C.S. Lewis addresses this issue of man’s regard for “the Future” in The Screwtape Letters.  Once again we have the demon Screwtape writing to his protege Wormwood:

“It is far better to make [men] live in the Future.  Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear.  Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities.  In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity . . . To be sure, [God] wants men to think of the Future too – just so much as it is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow.  The duty of planning the morrow’s work is today’s duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present.  This is now straw splitting.  He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We [demons] do.  [God’s] ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him.”

“The Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity.”  I just can’t get that line out of my head.

C.S. Lewis on Social Media

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The demon Screwtape to his protégé Wormwood (so “the Enemy” is referring to God):

“The Christians describe the Enemy as one ‘without whom Nothing is strong.’  And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.”

Lewis penned these words in 1942.  I wonder if he could have ever imagined just how much more relevant they would be today.  And I wonder if Mark Zuckerberg read The Screwtape Letters before he invented Facebook . . .

Excellence

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In classical education, we talk a lot about excellence.  “Doing everything with excellence.”  We then invoke 1 Corinthians 10:31 to establish that we do everything with excellence “for the glory of God.”

And I think all of this is great . . . except when we become enamored with our own excellence – when we gaze too long (and too longingly) at the beautiful results of human-making.

In the “pursuit of excellence in everything we do,” we can be tempted to strive merely for the excellence of man for the “glory” of God, rather than ultimately seek the excellence of God for the transformation of man.

Too often we either make excellence itself the end goal (read: idol), or we choose what is important to man, do it “with excellence,” then ask God to bless our efforts.  So, effectively, we glorify man and then give God a high-five.

And this message of misplaced glory is subversively communicated in our schools, even in our Christian schools.  Do we recognize this?  We ask our students to strive for excellence in their academics.  When asked “why” we answer, “To bring glory to God,” then we give them a numerical grade for their efforts, which immediately binds them to a secular (and, I believe, broken) system of assessment that determines their “net worth” to other schools, colleges, and companies by “ranking” them among their peers.

“We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.”  2 Corinthians 10:12

All this “bring glory to God” talk is great, Mr. Faulkner, but I’ve got to get into a good high school, and that means I’ve got to strive as hard as I can for that excellence A.  (Notice the subtle shift from a virtue to a mark.)  And thank you, Jesus when I see that A on my report card!

And so, if we are not very careful, we establish in our schools – in our Christian schools – a metaphor for a nominal, compartmentalized Christian life in which the desires of man are sought and God is “tacked on” at the end so we can “give Him the glory.”

No wonder our students become disenchanted and disillusioned when they become old enough to see through our all-too-often “spiritualized” exhortations to otherwise secular ends.  No wonder I often get blank looks when I ask the question, “But what does that really mean – to glorify God?”

Striving merely for the excellence of man leads to self-sufficiency and the nearly inevitable establishment of success as a very dangerous and ultimately unfulfilling idol.  Or, as a colleague of mine puts it, striving merely for the excellence of man leads to a good high school, then a good college, then a good job, then a nice house and nice car, then a midlife crisis.  We may even find ourselves doing something with excellence that was actually never God’s will for our lives in the first place.  And in the worst case, we allow this credo of “my best for God’s glory” to morph into a works-based theology.

Alternatively, when we seek first the excellence of God, we are graciously brought into God’s will, and we are transformed because our own efforts are always found wanting.  Striving for the excellence (read: perfection) of God necessarily leads to Jesus.

“Be perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

Jesus did not end the Sermon on the Mount in this way to frustrate his audience with an impossible commandment.  Nor do I think he intended for everyone to leave that day and simply set out to make the best chariots possible.  He was inviting them (us!!) to a state of perfection – a state of excellence, a state of completion (the Greek here, teleioi, that is typically translated as “perfect,” can also be translated “complete”) – that only his death and resurrection could satisfy.  In short, he was calling them to repentance – repentance that would lead to their ultimate transformation into truly excellent humans.

I write all of this not to take a stand against exhorting our students to excellence; of course I will continue to ask my students to “do everything with excellence.”  My purpose here is a warning: this idea of excellence carries with it much weight and can easily (read: unwittingly) be used to curse our students rather than bring them into a transformative relationship with the only true Excellence.  How do we guard against the former result?  How do we ensure that we are doing everything with excellence for the glory of God?  I think we must ask (at least) these questions:

1)   Is the work which we “set out to execute with excellence” actually aligned to God’s will?

2)   Is the excellence in our work characterized by humility?  Said another way, when we achieve, do we find ourselves on our knees before God more or less?

3)   When we do excellent work, are we conformed more into the likeness of Christ or do we seek the praises of men?  Said another way, does our excellence serve God or ourselves?

4)   Do we hold on loosely to our accomplishments, ultimately finding peace and satisfaction in God himself, or do we place our excellence in a display case and gaze at it proudly and longingly?

I will end this wandering post with words that are much more excellent than my own.  As is his custom, I think C.S. Lewis drives the fourth point home much better than I do (and in this excerpt from The Weight of Glory he is referring explicitly to beauty, not perfection, but I think in Philippians 4:8 terms the two are analogous):

“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

Fur Coats vs. Fir Trees: Part 1

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I am currently reading James K.A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom, upon the recommendation of a colleague and friend.  I am about a third of the way through the book and I must say that it is already transforming the way I view education.  Smith’s book is one of those that you don’t even bother picking up a highlighter for, because every other sentence would be yellow.

I am sure that I will be referencing this book in probably multiple future posts, but today I want to throw out a quote from his Introduction:

“What if the primary work of education was the transforming of our imagination rather than the saturation of our intellect?  What if education wasn’t first and foremost about what we know, but about what we love?”

There is so much wrapped up in this quote that it’s hard to know where to start.

So let me pose a couple of questions: To what part of our students’ nature are we making our appeal?  Are we filling their minds or engaging their imaginations?  Are we primarily honing their intellects or is the stewardship of their hearts a priority?

The great early 20th century educator Charlotte Mason said, “The question is not, — how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education — but how much does he care?”

In Desiring the Kingdom, Smith goes on to posit that humans are by nature “desiring” beings first and foremost, rather than “thinking” beings or even “believing” beings.  What all humans desire, Smith maintains, is “the kingdom,” which most generally (i.e., not biblically) translated, means “their particular vision of ‘the good life’ or ‘human flourishing.'”  Much of the balance of the book is then spent dissecting the implications of this common desire on education, specifically Christian education.  There is much more to say about these implications, but that will have to be another post.

What I want to park on at the moment is Smith’s conclusion (informed heavily by St. Augustine and Martin Heidegger) that humans are first and foremost “desiring” beings.  Smith continues:

“It’s not so much that we’re intellectually convinced and then muster the willpower to pursue what we ought; rather, at a precognitive level, we are attracted to a vision of the good life that has been painted for us in stories and myths, images and icons.  It is not primarily our minds that are captivated but rather our imaginations that are captured, and when our imagination is hooked, we’re hooked (and sometimes our imaginations can be hooked by very different visions than what we’re feeding into our minds).” (emphases by Smith)

Again, there’s a lot we could unpack here, but I want to focus on Smith’s statements about our imaginations.  I think he suggests that the type of teaching that truly forms (and transforms) who we are is the type of teaching whose focus is trained on our hearts and imaginations, rather than solely our intellects.  In other words, what truly “sticks” in one’s soul – what truly informs how and what he will love – is what he is taught from the heart up, rather than the other way around.  And one way to get to our hearts is via our imaginations.

C.S. Lewis clearly got this.  His Chronicles of Narnia are so beloved by children and adults alike because the truths embedded in that wonderful series are aimed first at our imaginations.  And I believe that true learning – true “education,” true “drawing out” – happens when the hearts and imaginations as well as the minds of our students are engaged.  Said another way, what we are feeding the hearts and imaginations of our students (whether explicitly or implicitly), must be consistent with, must shore up what we are feeding into their minds.

I must pause here to make something very clear:  This is in no way saying that we should throw the baby out with the bath water and diminish the value of sound thinking and logic; this is certainly a both/and situation rather than an either/or.  After all, much of this blog will hopefully be aimed at “the renewal of our minds,” which I believe comes largely from engaging in intellectual discourse.  As our pastor often says, “We need to have a rigorous faith,” to think about why we believe what we believe, to engage in deep theological study, to read challenging books.

As my students will tell you, I constantly exhort them to think more critically and rigorously.  But why do they take me up on the challenge?  I think it’s because I go after their hearts and imaginations first.

But most modern (progressive) education has redefined our students as merely brain-holding containers, which must be filled, rather than spiritual, loving persons, whose natural desire to love must be stewarded.

In other words, what I think I’m saying here (and I have to believe that Smith would agree with me, or worse, find this blog and post to the comments section: “You’re just stealing my ideas and putting them in your blog!”) is that it might be more important to teach our students how and what to love than to teach them how to think or what to believe.

For those of you who teach, we’ve all had those moments in the classroom when we feel like we are just hitting a wall with our students.  Sure they may be thinking, they may be processing – and I’m going to go out on a limb here and propose that they may even be thinking rigorously –  but they are not wholly engaged.  Formation of their minds might be happening, but transformation of their souls and spirits may not be happening.  In the extreme case, they are simply becoming “more clever devils,” as C.S. Lewis would say.

But then we have those moments when we see the hearts, the true identities (the God-reflections) of our students breaking through to the surface, discussions are charged with life (not just intellectual and rigorous in thought), e ducere is really happening.  Our students are being their most human selves.  Those are the transformative moments, I believe.  And I really don’t believe those moments happen without the hearts and imaginations being involved.

I have a good friend who teaches high school math at another Christian school in the area, and he refers to these moments as “the Narnia moments.”  “But then,” he goes on to say, “we all have those days when we just hit the back of the wardrobe.”

Like all good teachers do with good ideas learned from other good teachers, I’ve since stolen his analogy – hence my desire for my students to grasp at fir trees rather than fur coats.  If I could put an early 20th century London lamppost in my classroom I would.

So what does this mean for our teaching?  Those of you who tire of philosophical discourse and crave practical application, here it comes.

I’m talking to teachers out there now: I don’t know about you, but every teaching methodology/mode that I have read about or been taught remains in the realm of theory until I actually see it work in my classroom in this big “Aha!” moment that I almost always have to giddily share with my students.  That’s right, I share some of my teaching secrets with them – they just love being invited “behind the curtain.”

The other day I had one of those “Aha!” moments, and not because I had never used this technique successfully before, but because – for the first time, perhaps – I took notice of what I was doing and realized what was actually happening and why it was working.

So here’s what happened: every year around this time our students start practicing for an end of year performance.  It has been the tradition that the middle school students have the responsibility of setting up the risers on the stage every week for practices, and the 8th graders have the distinct honor of being the leaders of the crew.  Now why these kids love hauling heavy wooden boxes from the bowels of the sanctuary and setting them up is beyond me, but literally these practice weeks are one of the highlights of the year for them.

But this year our administration decided to get dads to do the setup (maybe the child labor laws were discovered??).  Well I had to break this (bad?) news to the 8th graders one morning, and you would have thought I had taken away P.E. class for the rest of the year.  They were up in arms.  Oh the injustice!  How could anyone dare rob them of this pure enjoyment and esteemed honor??

Well they were going on and on, which I let them do for a few minutes, as I typically like to do anytime they are airing their grievances (I mean, you learn so much about them during those few moments), but our science test was only a week away and I just had to get on with the business of teaching them vector diagrams.  But it was very clear that this type of transition was going to be nearly impossible.

Younger teacher me would have pulled the authority card and said, “Alright, alright, I get it.  You’re upset.  It’s so unfair that manual labor has been taken from you.  But we have to get to work, so take out your notes and let’s go.”  I would have then wrote on the board, in all CAPS and with deliberate and firm pen strokes, “Vector Diagrams,” underlined, of course.  Then I would have started teaching from my notes.  And sure, because my students do respect me and are very well behaved, they would have done just what I asked them to.  They probably would have even engaged their minds.  But oh, the irresolution and angst remaining in their hearts!  At this point I would have most certainly been simply dumping ideas into their brains.

And I have done just that so many times.  Students, please forgive me.

But this particular day I took a different route.  While they were still very much in the midst of their gripe session, I drew on the board a picture of a riser sitting on a stage.  My drawing skills are mediocre on the best day, but I guess they could tell what I had drawn because they quieted down and look intently and with anticipation.  “So here’s one of your risers sitting on the stage, one of the heavier ones, you know.  Now, the way I have this riser drawn, is it going to fall off the stage?”

And despite the fact that I was using rectangles to introduce vector diagrams (could it get more plain than that?), they were captivated.  No, I wasn’t resolving their dilemma of injustice, but I was still talking about those silly risers.  And the doors to their hearts stayed open, and the doors to their imaginations stayed open, and boy did we ever learn about vector diagrams that day!  I think it might have been one of the most enjoyable discussions we’ve had this semester and let’s face it: vector diagrams aren’t that particularly fascinating.

Now maybe this was just a coincidence, you say.  Or perhaps I was just leveraging the energy from their cries of injustice to fuel the discussion of an otherwise dry topic.  Maybe so.  But I can tell you this, when our vector diagrams morphed from a riser sitting on a stage into a dinosaur walking a turtle who was running after a cobra . . . well, I think there was some imagination involved – oh, and some thinking going on too.  And somehow the riser issue fizzled away naturally – well, at least for that day.

Imago Dei and the Holy Act of Diaper Changing (or, Where This All Might Have Started)

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In an earlier post I mentioned that part of the reason for starting this blog was a sudden outpouring of thoughts and reflections on education – and my experience with education, specifically – that I felt the need to write down.  Whether or not these thoughts are truly for a larger audience or not remains to be determined.

But what catalyzed this compulsion for reflection?  Well I think I can answer that question definitively.  What follows below is something I wrote a few weeks ago while my students were taking ERB tests.  In fact it was very fortuitous that the students were in standardized testing for two hours, because this was just enough time for me to completely soak the computer screen with a story that I just had to get down in writing that morning.  Perhaps this story will give better context for where this blog might be headed.

So, without further preface, here is what I wrote that day.

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“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” 

Genesis 2:26-27 (NIV)

This morning I had what can only be described as a conversion experience.  One of my coworkers recently turned me on to the Circe Institute, an organization whose expressed purpose is to support and promote classical Christian education.  The Circe website is loaded with great resources, my discovery of which came at a time of greater than average hunger for better articulation of the classical Christian mission.  Well this morning I was listening to a conference talk by the Circe Institute’s founder, Andrew Kern.  In this talk Kern articulated so well what had, to that point in my teaching career, only lived and occasionally welled up inside of me as a passion for what I called “Kingdom teaching.”  I knew that this teaching gig was serious business – eternally serious.  And I felt like I was doing a decent job.  But my articulation of what this “Kingdom teaching” looked like was lacking.

Kern helped me with fleshing out this idea.  In his talk, Kern stated very poignantly that our whole purpose as teachers is to strive for the blessedness (i.e., “completion,” “perfection”) of our students – to see them fully realized, that is, to see Christ fully realized in them.  Said another way, we are to steward them towards their created purpose: to be the reflection of their Creator.

You have heard it said perhaps many times in church or even educational settings, that if you are having trouble loving someone, think of her as being created in the image of God.  I would like to go further though and say that the only way to truly love someone is to love him as an image-bearer.  And by extension, the only way to educate someone is to love him as an image-bearer.  After all, the word “education” comes from two words in Latin, e ducere, which together mean “to bring out from within.”  What are we trying to bring out?  I would argue that we are trying to bring out – to draw out – that image of God, that Holy reflection, that Kingdom purpose.  And since by teaching we are essentially saying to our students, “Imitate me,” the only way we can draw out that image of God within our students is to be that image ourselves.  Lord have mercy.  Holy Spirit help us.

That moment that we are reflecting God’s image to our students, and we see that reflection when we look out at them – that is the Narnia moment, the moment of passing through the back of the wardrobe.  That is the moment at which we cease to tug at fur coats and begin to grasp at fir trees.  That is the moment that we transcend fabrications and encounter authenticity.  That is the moment at which the lesson plan falls away and the teacher becomes the curriculum.  That is the redemptive moment.  That is why we teach.

But redemption does not come without repentance.  There is a humility that we must embrace as teachers: this high calling spoken about above is not to be undertaken by our own white-knuckled manipulation and toil.  It is only by being in right relationship with God – it is only by being broken, by realizing our utter depravity and God’s infinite goodness, by holding our hands out in total surrender to God – that we are in a position to reflect Christ to our students.  We must be washed clean.  Daily.

And is that not what our students want as well?  The request just looks a little different coming from them.  Their moment of repentance in the classroom is the moment at which they confess: “I don’t know.”  That is the teachable moment.  That is the poverty of spirit that invites redemption.  As Andrew Kern says, “The person who is not brought to repentance cannot see the Truth.”  Our students want to be washed clean – they desire to embody their created purpose, they yearn to reflect their Almighty God.  Will we lead them in this transformative experience?  Will we cultivate the trusted relationships and create a safe environment in which they are willing and able to be drawn out – ah, to be educated!?

Do our students know that we desire above all else for them to be washed clean and made perfect in the eyes of God – to be made into the image of their Savior – to fulfill their created purpose – to return to the Garden?  Do they trust us enough not to be ashamed?

Let me now return to my experience this morning.  Immediately after finishing Kern’s talk, I jumped into the shower, as is my morning routine (it was a school day), but I couldn’t get the talk out of my head.  I kept thinking about the significance of this Imago Dei approach to teaching.  And then it hit me: I was overwhelmed with grief at how much violence I myself have done to this Truth, how I have not taught as if my students were little image bearers.  While washing my hair I was compelled to get down on my knees in the shower and repent.  I sobbed.  I cried out to God with the same phrase over and over: “Wash me clean, wash me clean.”  As I felt the hot water raining down on my head and running across my back my request to God left metaphor.  It was a baptism like I had never experienced before.  I felt as if God himself was pouring water over me.  My only possible response at this point was to worship God, and I did – kneeling right then and there in the shower.  I praised Him for His goodness, thanked Him for His redeeming power.  I felt clean like never before.

Now I should say at this point that rarely do I get overly emotional about my faith.  I will lift my hand in worship at church from time to time, but rarely do I allow my arm to be fully extended.  In fact, perhaps my biggest sin is that too often my faith lives in my head and forgets the path to my heart.  My point in saying this is that I am not a “fall to my knees” kind of Christian – God have mercy on me.  This shower moment was not a normal scene in my faith journey.  God truly got to me that morning.  He drew me out.  He educated me.

So as I continued to do the normal, mundane things of my morning routine, I was still walking on air.  I had just gotten dressed, though, when I heard my 23-month-old crying at her bedroom door (which we lock from the outside these days, as she is quite capable of exiting her “big girl bed” and, thus, her room).  I walked in to see what the problem was (which usually means just putting her back in bed and telling her that it’s not yet time to get up), and she immediately said, quite pitifully and urgently, “Daddy!  Poopoo!  Tee-tee!”

Now I have to pause here and insert a disclaimer.  I am not about to go into unnecessary detail, but for purposes that I hope will soon become readily apparent, this next part is kind of gross.  But I know that for you parents out there, the moment I am about to describe will resonate with you, even if discussion of poopy diapers is typically taboo in any formal social setting, particularly one of higher education.  For those of you who are not parents, I apologize in advance.

My daughter Alice had what we call in our house “an epic diaper,” one for the record books.  This I knew the moment I walked in the room.  It was at this point that I said, “Really, God?  I guess this is your way of taking me off the mountaintop and back down to reality.”  “The end of my enlightened morning,” I thought.

Now for those of you who have or have had toddlers, you know that diaper changing can sometimes be like the calf-roping contest in a rodeo.  Often times Alice will try to outrun or out-climb you in order to avoid a diaper change.  And even once you get her on the changing table, often she will arch her back or kick her legs.  This does not happen every time, but it certainly happens a lot.

This particular morning was not one of those calf-roping experiences, however.  As soon as she announced to me the problem – her filthiness – she walked of her own volition over to the changing table and lifted her arms out for me to pick her up.  I placed her on the changing table, and rather than put up a fight, she just laid there peacefully – in relief, even – while I changed her diaper.  And it was a messy one.  Lots of wipes.  Parents, you know what I’m talking about.

But as I was cleaning her up, still a bit aggravated by this “down to Earth” moment coming at the end of an otherwise “heavenly encounter,” I saw out of the corner of my eye my daughter looking up at me, so I turned to look her in the eyes.  She continued to fix what I can only describe as an adoring gaze on my face and, when our eyes met, she touched my arm gently, smiled, and said, very softly and peacefully, “Daddy.”  I replied, “Hi Alice.  Daddy loves you.”

It was in that moment that it all clicked for me.  I had come to my daughter in a moment in which she was totally helpless to change her state of being.  She was filthy, and she knew it.  And she could do nothing about it.  But rather than run and hide, she called to me, she told me that she was filthy, and she submitted to the process of being cleaned.  And in being cleaned, I think she felt truly loved.  I can’t help but contemplate the significance of her naming me in that moment: “Daddy.”

Fathers, I hope you are all changing poopy diapers out there.  Don’t let your wife steal all the God-moments!  In some gross but very human, very real, very palpable way, I now believe that changing a poopy diaper is one of your first opportunities to reflect the image of Christ to your child in a way that he can truly internalize, long before he will be able to articulate.  In a moment of vulnerability and helplessness and filth – filth that always seems to be more disgusting to a father – you have the opportunity to wipe your child clean.

I think God used this experience of changing a big, messy diaper because it is so visceral.  I mean, there is no avoiding a physical reaction to an “epic diaper.”  Rarely does filth take on a more tangible form.  But how often, as adults now, do we underestimate or totally ignore our own dirtiness?  As infants and then toddlers we are forthcoming with our filth (do we have a choice?), but sometime very quickly thereafter we learn to hide and then we spend our entire lives trying to “clean ourselves up” or at least pretend to be clean.  (Is this not what Adam and Eve did with the fig leaves when they first discovered that they were naked?)  By the time we are in middle school, like the students I teach, we have gotten so good at hiding and covering that we don’t even know anymore what it is like to stand in the clearing fully naked – to be fully known.  Perhaps we don’t even know who we are anymore.  And right about this time adolescence kicks in and we are given even more tangible reasons to run and hide.  We eagerly want to be known – to be washed clean – to find our true purpose, but we have no idea how to articulate this let alone where to start.

Folks, I am not just describing teenagers growing up in secular families and attending public schools.  I am describing so many of the students in our own Christian schools.  Am I not?  Sure, our children know how to parrot the Sunday school answers, but they might as well be saying, “I know that I am made in the image of a peanut,” as their likeness to a salty ballpark snack is probably just as ethereal as their Godly birthright.  And this is because the world – and so often, too, Christian schools – have hijacked (sometimes without realizing it) the true purpose of education.

And so I was reminded this morning – by God speaking through Mr. Kern and then my daughter – that my role as a teacher, as a father, as an adult in authority over children, is to see Christ fully realized in the children who sit under my tutelage.  This necessarily requires that I am in right relationship with God so that I can clearly embody the Truth, this necessarily requires that I am in right relationship with my students so that they trust me enough to adopt a posture of spiritual poverty in my presence.  This necessarily requires that I restore the true purpose of education IN MY CLASSROOM.  Redemption is always a personal experience, so the recovery of education’s good and proper purpose starts when we close our classroom doors, doesn’t it?

The book of Revelation tells us that our students will one day be priests and rulers in God’s kingdom.  Do we believe this?  Do we discern within even the most frustrating student the very image of our Redeemer, the very countenance of a king?  It is there, that much the entire Testament of our Lord tells us.  But are we looking for it?  Are we listening for it?  Do we even hear it within ourselves?

C.S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory:

“Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth.”

Do we know what is at stake here?  Do we truly know what it means to teach a “Christ-centered” education?

Will we humbly fall at Christ’s feet and let him wash us clean so they we can see the Truth clearly?  Will we invite our students into the same transformative relationship?

Will we, as Kern says, “arouse, listen to, and train this inner voice” that Lewis speaks of?  Will we regard our students as the very imago dei?  Will we draw them out into the clearing?  Will we educate them?