"And You, By the Way, Are a Heretic!"

Christopher West spoke just outside of St. Louis earlier this week, and I am incapable of summarizing in a word, a sentence, or a post. So my three loyal readers and their compatriots will either have to put up with at least a few posts on the talks, or else ignore them pleasantly and wait until I get to other parts of life.

For those who don't know, Christopher West talks on Theology of the Body. He calls it a "revolutionary" teaching of John Paul II, but it really finds its base in the Catholic theology of centuries. (JPII presented it in 129 lectures during the beginning of his pontificate.) It presents a theology (or religious philosophy) about the meaning, purpose, and experience of our bodies and often focuses on sexuality, though the scope of Theology of the Body is much larger than sex.

I want to start with the idea that fascinates me the most. Christopher West spent the first night convincing us of the embodiedness of the human person. You see, human beings are not spiritual beings in temporary physical bodies, or physical beings with a spiritual nature. We are physical and spiritual intertwined. The two together make up what it means to be human. He gave the example of a swirly ice cream cone : it is not chocolate, it is not vanilla, it is both together, and they cannot be separated if it will remain a swirly cone.

We call the separation of the two death. Christopher pointed out that in the Creed we state, "We believe in the... resurrection of the body..." Death, the severed state of body and soul, won't last forever. Heaven exists in a physical state as well as a spiritual one. Why else do we have the shining example of Christ's glorified body after the Resurrection?

His presentation of Theology of the Body hinges on this truth. If we are body and spirit, we live out our calling by living with both the body and the spirit. The Church, and Christians in general, can focus too much on the spiritual and forget that we live out our divine calling by living as embodied persons, men and women who are created in the image and likeness of God.

Christopher also explained that our existence as embodied spirits distinguishes us from the angels. "Next time someone calls you an angel," he said, "say, 'I am not! I am an embodied spirit, and you, by the way, are a heretic!'"

Turn, Turn, Turn

When explaining that we would host a spring break trip from Creighton, our director repeated the line, "I want you to be one community." For the week, we weren't to have two groups occupying one space; we were to become one group. The way that VSC groups live Sister's request differs as widely as communities differ each year. This year, we were happy to get to know and love the 8 of them for the 7 days we shared.

And then, yesterday, the Creighton group pulled out at 9:15 and left. We have clean house, a folder of evaluations, and a sprinkling of Omaha dirt by Mary's home in the backyard, and that's all that remains of the week. Except they also left the questions which I had to answer every week the summer of YouthWorks and regularly through my senior year at college, the questions I am beginning to ask about my year here.

We only had a week with them. YouthWorks happened the same way : we only had a week with each group of kids. Two and a half months as staff. New friends senior year, only for a few months. With VSC, a year, now scant months for anyone new. I am constantly meeting people for a day, an afternoon, an hour.

Two questions arise : What is the point? and How much do we give?

I had a professor who explained during the first class that he wasn't going to do much that day, because he didn't want to invest in us if we hadn't committed to the whole class and we would only be together for that one hour. He compared it to plane rides, where he never spoke to people, because the relationship never continued after the plane landed. Why bother to invest in what has no long term return?

This attitude presents a problem. It leaves open the question of how long is long enough to invest in someone. A plane ride is not. What about a day? A week? A month? A year? At what point do you reach out of yourself? Lines are arbitrary.

My reply and my answer comes from the simple premise that people are ends unto themselves. So each moment we spend with another person matters. It is hard to live this way, but it makes sense. And it means that when someone stays at your house for a week, you invest in them, knowing that you might never see them again.

Building off that premise, God uses us for each other. He certainly used the Creighton students, here one week, to reveal a little more of Himself to me. I hope I imaged Him as well. He uses us for a time, for a season, and then we move on to new adventures, but not without leaving His fingerprints, so that even if we forget each other, we carry something of the Other with us. That something might just look like God instead of the human person we met. And that is more valuable than anything else.

Out and About

The 8th grade teacher took the middle school on an epic field trip Thursday. The itinerary : the Old Courthouse, the City Hall, a black history wax museum, and the Scott Joplin House. We also had a McDonald's stop for lunch. We brought fifty-six students, three teachers, two TAs, and one volunteer from Creighton.

I found the Old Courthouse, now a historic landmark, fascinating. The Dred Scott case started at that courthouse. When the tour guide told us this, I got goosebumps : over the summer, I went to the federal Supreme Court, where the case ended. Full circles -- that have an infinite importance to the children with whom I now work. A women's suffrage case, Virginia Minor, started there as well. We got to walk into a courtroom and poke through the rotunda, but left fairly quickly after our tour.

Next we arrived at the City Hall. Our guide, an assistant to the mayor, took us to the meeting room of the Board of Aldermen. The students got to sit at the desks of the Alderpersons. The floor of the city was momentarily filled with a unique demographic and the question flitted through my head : what if these were the people running the city? Here the students, especially the 8th graders, asked a bunch of intelligent questions. After we ran out of Q&A time, we went into the Mayor's reception room, where the guide told us about the office of the mayor, the seal of St. Louis, and the St. Louis flag.

After a pit stop as McDonalds (pronounced MAC-don-alds by my kids) for a high-class lunch, we carried on to the wax museum. Wax museums creep me out in general, but I thought I could get through this one. Well, it was a house converted into a museum, which weirded me out, and as we approached the front counter, I had a gut reaction against the single wax figure there watching us. Luckily for me, though unfortunate for her, one student was not feeling well, so I sat in the hallway with her and avoided the displays. The kids seemed to enjoy it though, and this part of the trip brought them in touch with their heritage.

Finally, we stopped at the Scott Joplin house. The kids had told the Creighton volunteer with us that he "wrote the ice cream truck song." We walked through his apartment then listened to some of his music ("The Maple Leaf Rag") on a pump piano, that played for you as you plied the pedals. A couple of the kids really enjoyed playing it, although at least one show-off had trouble and was good-naturedly brought down a few notches. Sadly, we didn't get to watch their video on Joplin, because we had to get back to school.

My warm-fuzzy of the field trip came at the very end. The out-of-the-box student of Math Monster fame was chatting through his speech impediment with the ladies who ran the house. He came out with a job offer for as soon as he gets old enough to work -- in a year. He came out so excited and chatty and was still talking about it today.

Another warm-fuzzy came from having an outsider, our Creighton volunteer, there with me. She jumped right in, a natural at relationships and at people-herding. Also, she provided social analysis that is affirming to what I've seen this year, boosting my confidence in my judgement.

House Guests

This week we have had (and will have until tomorrow morning) house guests from Creighton University. They have come to St. Louis for several years now for their spring break. We have 8 students staying with us; they have been rotating through our service sites so that they get a tiny taste of everything we do.

Having an extra 8 people makes a household of 6 considerably larger, and there's been less alone and quiet, but the Creighton students are fantastic. They come into our sites with eyes more similar to ours at the beginning of the year than ours now, putting certain things into perspective again.

They also have been cooking for us, which is a nice relief.

Another Poem

I recall writing that I'd put school related poems up here...

1-800-392-3738

Make my arms your red:

please –

color yours the way they were before.

I’ll shelter you from every blow

as much as love can –

As much as love can from the classroom and the playground

mine will stand between you

and the nighttime specters that redden your arms and eyes and

narrate your stories. With red arms

I’ll hold at bay

all the drumsticks, belts, and bats

that enter this school in silhouette form

traced on twelve-year-old skin.

How We Celebrate Birthdays, Part VI

[Some of Parts I-V made it into this blog, but under different names.]

This past weekend, Byrd celebrated her birthday. Simple living makes us excited to celebrate the occasions we have in style and with enthusiasm, along with some creativity. Byrd is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan, so we had a TMNT themed surprise game, in which Mee-Maw, Ana, and Triss had colored masks, Em was Master Splinter, and I had an evil pink brain. We gave Em a mask, a turtle shell, and a plethora of fake weapons. She played "Pin the Mask on the Turtle." We proceeded to take a bunch of ridiculous pictures and decide it was time for dessert. (We'd had pizza for dinner earlier.) Much to Ana's discomfort, we decided to go out in costume.

We went to Ben and Jerry's on a busy stretch of road. The walk from the parking lot to the ice cream was a ton of fun. In Triss's words, "We just got the best double-take ever!" Most of the time, I don't admit it when people might be staring at me -- this time, heads were turning even from inside shop windows. When we got to Ben and Jerry's, the woman behind the counter was thrilled with our costumes. The man working with her didn't say anything, but I'll wager that was why my small cone had more than one scoop on it.

Special Blessings

Last Friday, I was having a specially difficult time with 7th grade. Most of the time, when people don't like me, I find it easy enough to deal with : they are not worth my time or emotional energy. About ready to write seventh grade off, I asked myself, "Can I do that? Can I give on twelve and thirteen year olds?" I answered the question several ways at several points in time throughout the day in an inner dialogue that went on all day.

That afternoon, the older grades (4-8) gathered in the church for the Stations of the Cross. As the principal followed the Stations for the kids, I began to think on them myself. The Stations focus on the Lenten theme of penitence, so the meditations center around where we are going wrong, so that we can work on going right. I considered what the Passion and death mean in my life -- that as many times as I mess up, God doesn't give up on me. I put him through a lot, and he already gave everything. Still, he keeps taking me back, when I'm dumb, frustrating, failing, falling, insufferable, disappointing... He doesn't give up.

Well. How do I give up on 7th grade (or any kid) after that?