Life, Death, and Other Mysteries

I don't think I could respect myself as a Catholic blogger if I didn't touch on the Holy Day that just passed. Yeah, that Christmas day.

I could spend time ranting about the commercialization of the feast. I think I'd get carried away and not say anything new. Instead, I'll offer a few thoughts inspired by a biography of JPII that I'm reading and my priest's sermon on the Feast of Holy Innocents.

Christmas, the feast of Christ's nativity, lasts for an octave. That's eight days. In those eight days, we celebrate the feast of St. Stephen, the Church's first martyr; the feast of the Holy Innocents, the children whom Herod murdered to try to kill Jesus; and the feast of Thomas Becket, a martyr of the Church in England. Nearly half of the days (maybe more that we didn't celebrate in my parish) of high celebration of a birth commemorate deaths. The Nativity and the Solemnity of Mary bookend these martyrs nicely.

Father explained that these feasts during the Octave of Christmas call to mind Christ's purpose for coming. The birth is inextricably linked to the passion, death, and resurrection.

While this is of course true, as logic it skips what I see as an important step. The main thrust of Christmas comes from the feast as a reminder of the Incarnation.

To focus on the Incarnation takes Christmas beyond crèches and images of Mary and the Christ child and all that. Christmas is like ogres and onions -- there are layers. Layer One : Santa and Christmas trees. Layer Two : the "holiday spirit" of loving and giving and family time and all those other virtues. Layer Three : the feast of the birth of Jesus. Layer Four : the Mystery of the Incarnation. [More layers which I have not yet discovered might exist. I am far from a theological expert.]

What does the Incarnation mean? I think I need a few years of Theology before I could begin to tackle that question as it should be tackled. But some of the more obvious bits that often elude my daily life come to mind. The Incarnation means God becoming human. A tradition (which I'm not sure I buy) says Mary had no labor pains giving birth to Jesus. But what was the baby Jesus like? Did he cry a lot? Was he ever sick? Even a sinless child might have to wail to let his Immaculate Mother know he is hungry or uncomfortable or tired. And he took on a human body like ours. That means susceptible to heat and cold, hunger and thirst; does it also mean disease and infection. Did he ever get a cold? Did he have acne as a teenager? Jesus did not assume a glorified body until after his Resurrection.

Of course, the answer to none these questions really matters. The implication of the answers and the very idea that the questions can be asked have a far greater reach. They remind us of the great humility that God demonstrated in his birth. They remind us that the child in the manger matters both because of who he would grow up to be and because of Who he always has been. And that is my Christmas Mystery and joy this year.

Talking to Volunteers 101

I've been home for a week now and have had the chance to have life dates with friends whom I have not seen in ages, some of whom I haven't spoken to in ages. And of course, everyone asks the same question: How is life with VSC?

If you really want to find out about someone's life for the past 7 months, this inquiry is not the way to go. It is just too broad. Either I'll find a way to answer in a word or two, maybe a sentence even, or you're asking for the unabridged version of a turbulent, changing time of my life.

Here are some good questions I've heard:

1) Tell me about the other volunteers. What has been your experience of living in community?

2) Do you like your job at the school?

3) What's an average day like?

4) What was it like to transition from college to the "real world"?

5) Describe St. Louis.

6) What are you planning on doing next? [I hate this one, but it's good for me to think about.]

Some questions I haven't heard but would elicit good responses:

1) Who are your favorite students? Who are the toughest?

2) What were some of your proudest moments?

3) What's the other staff at the school like?

4) What have you learned? How have you changed?

5) What is God doing in your life right now?

6) What gives you hope?

If you're really brave, you could add:

1) What has been one of your hardest moments?

2) How had God challenged you?

3) What are the things you've had a hard time letting go? What's kept you up at night?

The key when asking questions to find out about the long-lost parts of someone's life is to elicit stories. If you've taken any sociology or anthropology courses, you learn how to ask open-ended questions that let the person answering take control. The encounter with a returning volunteer is very similar. As long as you provide the opening, she will talk, because she wants to share. But she can't necessarily just verbally vomit five or seven months of life to you.

Honestly, these same questions can serve as a guide for mid-term phone, email, and IM conversations as well. They say, "What you do sincerely interests me, and I want to hear more about it and you," and they offer a path to walk in the conversation. That's about all a volunteer needs, because she actually is bursting to talk to someone who wants to understand.

Travel Plans

Love Actually begins with a voice-over:

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there [...] If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around."

And Robert Pinsky has a line in his poem "Ode to Meaning":

"You in [i.e. I find meaning in] the airport rituals of greeting and parting."

I can't walk into an airport without thinking of both of these. Airports really are non-space, consisting of sterile, nondescript waiting areas, chain eateries, kitschy little souvenir shops. Local time, arrival times, baggage claim labels. TSA men and women in uniforms, flight staff, and all the people getting ready to fly. Businessmen, family men, business women and family women. Families. Young men and women headed on adventures. People headed home, leaving home, excited, nervous, bored. Everyone is in transition and alive because of it. Hence, I love airports.

My father and I dropped my sister off at the airport for a trip to Dublin. I've never been out of the country, but I pretended for a few brief moments as I wheeled her suitcase into the airport for her that I was the one traveling to Ireland. In spite of the fact that I was not going anywhere but back to my grandmother's house, I caught something of an adrenaline rush by simply being in the airport. Part of this came from the energy of the other people there; part of it resulted from classical conditioning : I am used to being filled with excitement in airports.

I think I could sit all day outside a terminal, though, and people-watch the rituals of greeting and parting, holding tight to the outpouring of human emotion in its varied and beautiful forms.

Irony: Gift of the Magi Style

Virginia is getting the largest December snowstorm it's had in my lifetime, and I am still out here in St. Louis. Luckily for me, God was looking ahead on my flight planning, and I don't leave the city till Monday. That's a God-incidence, to use an annoyingly cute cliche, and not irony.

The irony comes from my cousin, stranded at school due to schoolwork and the wintery fun. Like any good college student, he stopped working (really, who works through a blizzard?) to go outside and play. He searched a long time for a sled and didn't find one.

My response to the story: Are your dining halls not opened? Use a tray!

As it turns out, they have gone trayless to combat global warming.

[Disclaimer: I can differentiate between global warming and climate change. I just like the story!]

Just for Kicks

This one cracked me up. I think you should see how it runs first. No point in taking it all apart if it operates smoothly.

Christmas, Christmas Time Is Here

Last night, the school had a Christmas program. Yes, one of those things where the children dress up in green and red and Santa hats and reindeer headbands and sing Christmas songs and tell the Christmas story approximately 8 different ways. Very cliche and cute and enjoyable to all the parents and kids. I apparently had a vital and superfluous role that two other people plus 8 teachers filled, so I spent most of the time trying to figure out if I needed to do my job or not.

It was the first time I had really been around children and parents at the same time. I've heard talk about some parents, some of it good, some of it bad, some of it slanted neither way. At the program, however, all the parents smiled and clapped and politely asked us silly white people to move out of the way so they could see their children. I remembered way back when I was in school, being at events like that and how I never knew quite how to interact with my teachers outside of school. Being on the other side, I was happy with a simply "hi."

Connections

I am currently reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry with the 6th grade. I have the upper level reading group, a fun group of kids. They read well enough to understand the story, and they think well enough to discuss it. For example, today the black father of the main characters told them they should not be friends with the white boy who likes them. We had a long discussion about whether they should or should not be friends with him (it might be dangerous, because white men might not like it), if the father was racist (probably, but also wise), and if things would be different today (yes).

The story centers around themes of race, family, and integrity, so that provides a lot of good discussion material. We also delve into elements of literature. I'm not sure if they don't get it in reading class, or they just don't remember, but I've taught them theme, similes, and metaphors.

The best part comes from the teachable moments. We have impromptu lessons about the Civil War and civil rights movement, about values and morality, about friendship and finances. My favorite moment, however, happened after the play, outside the Fox. We were waiting for the bus to pick us up and watching buses full of students pass us. I asked a couple of my kids if it reminded them of anything. And they remembered the scenes of the bus of white kids passing the main characters on their walk to school! As well as the subsequent prank the black kids played afterwards. Which apparently was the moral of that story.

8th Grade Maths

The title is in honour of a British friend, who pointed out that as teaching philosophy is developed, these newfangled math teachers are more concerned with students understanding why something is true than that something is true. Which I think is what the 8th grade math teacher was going for. Every student in that room understood why

x+3=6 can become x=6-3

Students in the lower level math class sometimes still write it out

x+3+(-3)=6+(-3)

to understand the process. Interestingly, I intuited that my method worked, but as soon as an 8th grader hollered out a different answer, I started second-guessing myself and had to logic through the why of my method.

Nostalgia in Harmony

Our community time for the past 2 nights has taken 2 hours longer than normal, informally, as we sit together to watch The Sing-Off. The show hosts an a capella competition, whittling down to a winner from 8 starting groups. It's fun on our quirky TV. If you walk across the room, receive a text, refresh a Facebook page, or stretch your legs, the sound stutters like a broken record and the visual pixelates.

On our side of the screen, I get to watch 4 girls (self included) swoon over male groups and cheer for the female and co-ed groups. And it takes me back to college, where we have more a capella groups than started on the show. Hands down, a college group called the Beelzebubs takes on the role of the Gentlemen of the College, and I am finding that the swooning is less annoying when television glass and several thousand miles separate them from us. But mostly, it makes me homesick for Wren 10s and Yule Log and the Gala and my EWC team (I can't link a seranade) and beginnings and endings at W&M.

I also have confirmed the fact that I actually like a capella better than music with a band, and it's not just the fact that it's a "cool" college thing. And my barbershop love isn't just because I knew someone who sang it. I'm not sure what it is about only having human voices, but it enchants me. Even "Stayin' Alive," sung in falsetto by a group of Latino men.

8th Grade Math

Friday, I helped out with the advanced 8th grade math class. It brought me straight back to middle school. However, I also realized that my brain works differently from these students. Maybe a great portion of humanity. They did mental math. For example:

x+3=9

Of course, x=6. We also had

8+x=4

x=-4, obviously. But the math teacher asked about how they got the answer. Apparently, most people moved the constant to combine like terms. That is, they rewrote the problem mentally to read

x=9-3=6

x=4-8=-4

On the other hand, I did no math. I simply asked myself, "What do I need with 3 to make 9?" Or "with 8 to make 4?" A subtle difference, but I realized I was in no way doing mental math. It got more obvious with a more difficult problem:

12+x=2x+8-3

The class all matched up terms in their heads:

12+x=2x+5

12-5=2x-x

7=x

Easy as pie, but not what happened in my brain. I didn't combine like terms. I cancelled. Before even combining 8 and 3, I balanced out 12 and 8. Now my problem read

4+x=2x-3

Except, at the same time, I did the same thing for the x terms:

4 = x-3

And them you have x=7. The process happened quickly, so did not cost me time. It was simply completely different from what was happening in the brains of other people in the room. I'm curious to know if this is because they are 8th graders, because of the fact that they have all been taught the same way, or because my mind is a strange place to me.

A Christmas Carol

The history teacher arranged to bring the middle school to the historic Fox Theatre to see Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. The theater is significant for these kids, although I'm not sure they realize it. Apparently, a few decades back, it was the theater where African Americans used to go, because they weren't allowed in other places. Walking in, I couldn't think of the history of segregation. Instead, I was blown away by the elaborate decorations and elegance of the theater.

As we were seated, I kept admiring. It made me think of days before modern movie theaters, when going to a play or a movie was a big deal. I know I'm romanticizing, but I like the idea of places to see and been seen, to watch people and shows. Dressing up, making it an occasion.

We had the students dress up for the occasion this time. They cleaned up sharply, including a couple of bow ties. Although they clearly had little experience in an elegant setting (cultural capital!), the behavior was overall something to be proud of.

I had a very teacher moment there. Well, actually, several. Other children ran up and down aisles, made loud sounds in loud voices, loitered, and lingered. I had a quash impulses to whip them into line.

Kicking the Vending Machine Doesn't Always Work

Tuesday after work, Ana and I headed further into the city to pick up a friend of hers whose job had brought him to St. Louis for a few days. Brad does lighting at conventions, so we took a quick tour around the convention center where he lit up a stage for us to show off his skills. Other than the perpetual arch, which got annoying fast, it looked pretty awesome, with colors and shapes dancing behind the podium. Plus, we parked in a secret hidden drive right behind the convention center, where only cool people get to park. It had the effect of walking through an "Employees Only" door.

After the tour, we headed out to dinner. As we left the restaurant, we were stopped by a man asking for money. It's the first time that's happened in this particular area, and I don't know if the cold holiday season has made people more desperate or if it makes it easier to play people's emotions. Is it bad that I am getting that cynical?

Well, we handed him a couple dollars and hopped into the car. Then Ana shut her door -- or tried to. With a sound of metal hitting metal, the door hopped back open. She tried again. The door wouldn't close.

Brad jumped out of the car to do the man thing and fix it. He had already fixed our television by turning a button off and on again, but this proved no easy fix. First Brad, then Ana and I, examined the latch, the alignment of the door, the other door, anything we could think of to help. I know I know very little about cars, but Brad was determined to fix it. Finally, he told Ana, "Turn around and don't look." Which she promptly did, and he employed the strategy often used against ornery vending machine: brute strength applied in a generally helpful direction. He slammed the door.

It shut.

Something cracked as it did, and he opened to door to investigate. We heard a rattling inside the door, and Brad felt no click as he pulled the door handle. The latch had broken and sounded to be rattling inside the door. The door now shut, but didn't lock and could be pulled open without the use of a handle.

Ana called AAA and we got the car towed. The end result? Simple living does not provide much spare money, so car repairs mean no Sister Hazel concert.

Seamless Garment, Part III

Today I did something I've been meaning to do for a while. No, I did not attempt to enter seminary, nor did I propose to Prince Caspian, though those were legitimate guesses, if you happened to have made one of them. I finally watched the Law and Order based on the murder of George Tiller. In case you haven't seen it, click here.

It takes guts to present a TV show on abortion to start with, and the makers of Law and Order didn't hold back. Characters discussed the pressure from boyfriends as a reason to abort, genetic defects, and born-alive cases. A mother of a child with a genetic disorder testified about holding her child who lived only 21 hours, with the same kind of love and joy that I have seen in real-life mothers. A nurse told the story of a child born alive in a botched procedure, and the jury listened in horror to how the abortionist killed him. The trial ended with a photo of a baby scheduled for an abortion, who had now been born.

The "law" and "order" people also added to the discussion. Of detective and lawyer pairs, one of each took the pro-life side and one the pro-choice. The debate between detectives got a little preachy at times, but someone had fun with the lawyers. The "pro-life"/"pro-choice" roles were complicated by the fact that the pro-life ADA wanted to win the case (convict the pro-life murderer), while the pro-choice one felt ethically obliged to help the defense. In the end, the pro-choice one began to question her assumptions, something I did not expect to come out of this show.

To my relief, the jury found guilty. I'm not sure how that factors into an overarching message about life/abortion, but the closing argument captured how a lot of the pro-life movement felt about Tiller's murder. No matter what our disagreement on where life begins and what dignity means, we can all agree that the violence of that murder was wrong.

But the best statement of all came in the last scene. It summed up much of what's wrong with various movements for justice in this world. Jack McCoy: "I used to expect people to be consistent, that pro-lifers would oppose capital punishment, that champions of human rights would claim some for the unborn. I don't expect that anymore. It's a big messy world."

Math Monster

Yesterday, the 6th grade math class had a group project. They had to design a walk-a-thon course, using ratios and fractions to mark food, water, and rest points. Their teacher let them divide themselves into groups, which provided some interesting combinations. Two of my favorite kids were working together and they were pretty much the definition of opposites. Student One is a quiet, studious, meticulous child who does his work quickly and thoroughly. He is a rule-follower, by-the-book type person. Student Two is constantly out of his seat, has difficulty with a lot of his work, doesn't speak clearly, and rarely if ever does his work. But he is constantly creating things and his mind works constantly outside the box.

I came over to check on the pair and see how they were doing. They had settled on the floor. Student One was bent over his paper, hard at work figuring out where to mark things with his paper ruler. Student Two was halfway underneath the teacher's desk. He told me, "The desk is eating me!" And sure enough, he kept sinking farther and farther underneath the desk.

Undaunted, Student One looked up. "I've got it under control," he said. He stood up and shook his hand over the desk. "I sprinkled pepper." And obviously, this would make the desk sneeze Student Two back out.

Sociologist Becomes Teacher

This week, the 8th grade had research papers for history class. They were due Friday, which meant, of course, that Wednesday people started research, and Thursday they wrote papers. Each of those days, I got a group of 8th graders in the library to work with me on their papers. Wednesday, the topic count stood: slavery 3; Middle Passage 2; the lost colony of Roanoke 1. So, unsurprisingly (especially since at least one of the girls came to the library to talk, not work), the research party turned into a discussion. I let it go, however, because it was the first time these girls had talked openly to me about race.

My main talker wanted to know why black people fought black people, when they had come through so much to get where they are today. She also said that she didn't understand people who threw away their opportunity at an education, when their ancestors had fought hard for it. The other girls chimed in, complaining about the lack of leadership from authority figures : for example a black mayor who refused to change the times that clubs were open, in spite of the crime rate that might be reduced by earlier closings.

Then someone came up with the idea of a play, to show their classmates visually what their people had gone through. Another girl had the astute thought that for something to make an impact, they needed to take it to DC. For a second, I thought they were ready to plan a march, but they narrowed down to a petition. I explained 1) that petitions didn't just appear, someone (such as themselves) had to write it; 2) they would need to figure out something more specific than "we want racism to end," if they wanted to make a petition; and 3) there was no reason why they couldn't. Or, we concluded, if they made a play, they could videotape it and send it to Obama.

Because I'm the white teacher, I don't hear very often what my students have to say about race. Even in this impassioned discussion, I got a lot of "I'm sorry"s and "no offense, but"s. So this conversation gave me an insight into how my students perceive and live their race. For them, it seemed that race was more poignant than gender. No one talked about the fact that after slavery ended, only men got the vote. No one talked about the ways that being a black woman was different from being a black man -- in spite of the fact that they used gender-charged language in their discussion, showing that they at least subconsciously picked up on the differences. In all my sociology courses, we talked about how people experience class, age, race, gender, and sexuality, but never about how one becomes more important than another.

I wanted to probe it further to see if and how they thought about class and gender, but the teacher kicked in over the sociologist. Rather than impressing upon them how they were oppressed in another way, I asked questions about how they can change things and how they are going to succeed in the world as is. To my joy, despite the language of oppression, these girls have every confidence that they can take life for all it's worth -- one big fat "gives me hope."

The Office: Spoiler Alert!!!

When I watched Freedom Writers with Em, I expected it to hit hard. That movie is about an idealistic teacher in an urban school. Sound familiar?

But sometimes life hits you when you don't expect it. The Office normally brightens my day. Today, however, half the plot focused on "Scott's Tots," a group of students to whom Michael had promised he would pay for college. He made this promise when they were in 3rd grade; they now were graduating high school. Of course, Michael can't pay for the college education of 15 kids.

It broke my heart. Those kids were my kids in 4 or 5 or 6 years' time. I know how much hope it would give them if someone promised them college, and I know exactly how they would react if someone broke that promise to them. I know only the iceberg's tip of the promises that have been broken for them, of the people who haven't come through, of the ways they've been let down. I couldn't find it amusing to watch that happen on TV.