A Study in Membership: Part 03- The Hub

The question to conquer today- what qualifies as church?'

--It is going to take me a long time to write this one.

mother of God, i want so much.

i need a haircut.
i need to take deeper breaths.
i need to look more people in the eye.
i need to give away more books.
i need to forget reflections to grasp something solid.
i have mistaken wants for needs.
i need to learn not to do that.

"She is so nice!"

I am substitute teacher, but only for the past two months. In those two months I have become every student's favorite but not because I give out candy (which isn't allowed anyway) or let them use their smartphones, or not make them do the assigned work. I am their favorite because I am nice.

I'm nice?

While I am surprised by the comment, I do not believe it is said in jest. Students are perfectly serious when they compliment my niceness. I have had the chance to observe some of their other teachers...

Now, wait!

I know, I know, I am only a substitute teacher, and, like I said, have only been a substitute teacher for TWO MONTHS. The latter two months of what would be a college fall semester. I don't have the stress of lesson plans. I haven't had to plan lessons while I am sick, nursing children; trying to pay rent or a mortgage, or car repairs. I have not had to attend conferences or meetings. I have not had endless hours grading papers with indecipherable handwriting (worse if it's in neon gel pen!). I have not had to interact with ANY parents. I don't have to silently protest contracts. Nothing. I, as a substitute teacher, have nothing- no problems that stereotypically and truthfully run teachers' lives.

But, if in two months I astonish your students of four months with my niceness is something not wrong?

Everyone has off-days. Totes mcgotes. I get that. I do. I am person therefore I have off-days. You are a person therefore you have off-days, but surely your days can't be so off that you cannot be nice to your students.

I am convinced that adults never stop being children. Adults tell children to stop bulling each other. But do adults ever tell other adults to stop bullying adults? Do adults ever tell other adults to stop bullying children?

It is a lie to believe that bullying only happens to children, or that it's only children who bully other children.  I may not tease Susie about her pig tails anymore, but now her heels are too high and her hair too flat and fake.

What is wrong with me?

I don't understand how any school can promote anti-bullying but allow it to happen with its teachers.

Anytime I walk into a classroom I have had students approach me to ask, "Are you the sub?"

"Yep."

"Just so you know, this is a bad class." And they're not referring to the subject.

I simply look at the student and say, "We'll see." And they are never a bad class. They are just loud.

I've observed that most students associate silence with goodness and noise with badness which would be fine IF THE WORLD WERE THAT BLACK AND WHITE. Both silence and noise are detrimental depending on situation. Some students thrive on studying in puck-rock concerts, while others need places where talk is forbidden. And I understand how hard it is to provide both to a class of 15-30 students, but if you cannot cope with that requirement then you shouldn't be a teacher. Taking out your frustrations on your students is not the way to deal with your frustrations.

Taking out your frustrations on your spouse, or pet, or television, or vegetables, or boss, or peers- that is wrong.

Assuming that that one student who annoyed you once will annoy you all the time, forevermore, also wrong.

And let's be real here: if the worst thing your students do to you is annoy you, maybe you should teach in the projects where peoples issues depend more on life and death than attitude adjustments. I would like to see you solve their problems by yelling at them, or giving them detention, or sending them to the principal's office. Band-aid solutions do not work.

It is amazing how many 'silly', or 'off-topic' things students will say without intending to be 'silly' or 'off-topic'. If you, as a teacher, just ask your student to clarify his statement, he might actually have a point. It might make other students giggle, but it certainly got their attention in a way you couldn't. Students want you to take them seriously as much as you want them to take you seriously. It is a give and take; a two-way street. To suggest it is neither is to miss the point of education.

Sometimes the student isn't be 'silly' or 'off-topic' but is thinking out loud. Sometimes the student may have hit the ball too far left though he thought he hit center--he's not trying to distract you, he is thinking through what you are saying. And when you dismiss his thoughts as 'silly' or 'off-topic' you discourage how he processes things and you therefore discourage his opinion and his input. On a larger scale, you could be discouraging his input and opinion where it matters most: in politics, in economics, in relationships, in art, in science... (Maybe I should reread The Abolition of Man.)

We salute Einstein for being unable to pass elementary school maths but overcoming that, but that's because we know he ended up being Einstein. Will you not give your students the opportunity to be Einstein?

We all know that schools have flaws. Good God, schools are made by people who are flawed- of course our products will turn out flawed, but that does not justify meanness or anger. Anger is and can be justified. We should all be mad there isn't more being done to make better our education system. We should be mad that the ways in which we try to improve our education system are band-aid approaches.

But that isn't the students' faults.

And has it ever occurred to you that students annoy you just to see how mad you could get- that's worth a trip to the principal's office! Now they know ALL your buttons. Good you gave them that. Augh.





I understand it is naive of me to think this way. I understand that some students come with warning labels- some teachers do (there are websites dedicated to rating professors)! But if anti-bullying is supposed to stop children, adults, EVERYONE, from judging a book by its cover, then by being nice I choose also to ignore the reviews.

I do not know these students. I understand they have a reputation. I will let them show me who they are, thank you. They are not my enemy. They are people who want to see what metal I am made of. They want to know if I'll treat them with the respect I ask them to give me.

I wish students were not so dumbstruck by my niceness. I wish we were all nicer to each other. No one has to go to college or university for niceness so it can't be impossible to achieve.

I know the world isn't going to be nice to them, and "That's reality!" but when the world wasn't nice to me it was nice to know I had a few people I could turn to. I do think it's important to prepare students for the 'real world' but not to the point where I have to sacrifice 'niceness'. Once niceness is sacrificed, I've stopped being a student alongside them, and teachers need always to be students alongside them.

life and death in silence

i crave silence.
i eat it (sometimes with it).
i bathe in it (i could preserve water).
i breathe it in, and must breathe it out.
i live in it.
words are not damned here
but provoked to stampedes
or sentenced to death
but at least it was,
and may potentially continue to be.

silence,
death knell or midwife-
how may i help you?

A Study in Membership: Part 02- Guilt

Part 01 of this series was, admittedly, all over the place. I wrote it in about an hour with no prior planning, only a thought. However, Part 01 is not impossible to summarize.

1. I am humbly jaded for fear of arrogance and/or ignorance.
2. I don't understand what it means to belong to a community.
3. Community does not often go hand-in-hand with communing.
4. What is the purpose and intent of a church's physical location (if applicable)?
5. What is the general purpose of a Church member?, regardless of denomination or stature/class.

PERFECT

Numbers 1-5 intertwine. Frankly, they may be inseparable, or are indistinguishable.

But, I think, before I being, I need to clarify a few terms.

• church (lowercase 'c')- a building; an architectural structure; a room
• Church (uppercase 'C')- the body of Christ which is defined in Ephesians 4 (will usually have the article 'the' preceding it)
• visitor- a newcomer to church and has only attended a church once or twice; a person who is not yet a member of a church or the Church (the former refers to physicality; the latter refers to spirituality)
• member- official attendant/participant of a church or the Church
• Gentile- a non-Jewish person

note: These are not thorough terms, nor are they in any way extensive. you might find better definitions on Google. All other unclear terms will be provided with a link. Should you have any suggestions or questions please feel free to message or comment.

Anyway!

The church of which I was recently inducted as a member is non-denominational (it is not vastly different from the Baptist church I previously attended, but let's be real here it definitely wasn't a standard Baptist church). In order to become a member I was (loosely) required to attend a membership class. The class' purpose is stated as follows: "...You are a member of God's very own family...and you belong in God's household with every other Christian." Ephesians 2.19, The Living Bible

I learned from my pastor and Wikipedia :D that The Living Bible is "a loose paraphrase of the more literal translation of the Greek..." (I am telling you, if this were this many translations/interpretations of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice I'd stop reading it, too.)

This verse is not misapplied, but this use, I think, assumes much. I think my church's leadership assumes (and this is a broad assumption) I or any visitor must be visiting because I do not (have not, cannot, will not) belong elsewhere; but here I now can belong. Also, it is my biblical right and duty to belong, like it is my right and duty as a citizen of the USA to vote.

The context of this verse is an epistle, a letter from the apostle Paul to the Ephesians who are neither recently converted to Judaism nor are ethnically Hebrew, but have converted to the 'newest' religion of Christianity (no, it was not called 'Christianity at the time, not officially). Anyway, this is a huge deal! Jews hardly tolerated Samaritans (half-Jew, half-Gentile) how much more so full-Gentile who are converting to a spin-off version of Judaism! W-H-A-T?!

Essentially, the letter to the Ephesians is Paul's assurance (perhaps even reassurance) of the Ephesians new and equal place beside/with God's people; who, by default, because they believe in Christ's death and resurrection, have inherited the ethnic and religious history/foundation of Judaism.

Other than salvation, Christ's death and resurrection also made way for equality so technically, Gentiles are no longer Gentiles (thus neither are Samaritans 'half-breeds').

Broadly speaking, modern-day Christians, like the Ephesians are members not of the church, but of the Church. Individually, 'We also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the spirit.' Ephesians 2.22 (Talk about your body being a temple, eh?!)

So, if I am individually inhabited by the Holy Spirit, and individually an important part of the body of Christ, I am, by default, a member of the Church. Because, you know, the Body of Christ and the Church are interchangeable.

A problem surfaces when people suggest that the Body of Christ is interchangeable with church. Which!- IMPORTANT!- I am not suggesting that is what my current church of membership is doing because that is an accusation one does not apply quickly (though it is often applied haphazardly).

Speaking of church!- I totes mcgotes did not attend one last Sunday!





My friend and I planned to attend a church not of my membership, just to switch things up a bit. But we didn't attend a church last Sunday because we mistook the starting time for an hour later. Oops. And I'll be totes mcgotes-honest: I did not want to attend church if I couldn't attend one not of my membership. I was not in the mood to socialize, I craved anonymity especially for the sake of this blog series. I wanted to compare two different churches' approach to membership.

Now, confession: I have previously visited the church my friend and I planned to attend, but it had been a while- I needed a refresher on their 'statement of beliefs'! But because we didn't attend, I found other fodder for thought: guilt.

We feel guilt after we have done something wrong. But then there is guilt for when we have done nothing wrong, but someone else thinks we have. Sometimes they are right, but in most cases (from what I have observed) they are wrong.






My alma mater 'forced' me to attend Sunday services, and chapel every MTWThF-morning which doesn't sound bad, but, I mean, when we were children and were forced to do something we hated doing it. This isn't different from being forced to bathe and brush our teeth- those are not things we were forced to 'enjoy'. We didn't need to be preached at to do those things...well, eventually, we did not need to be preached at for those things.

But being forced to go to church is, well, an uneasy topic for most people.

For me, I was not forced to go to church as a child. I just went; so it was really weird for me to have to go to church in college. And not even my home church, but I had to find one where I would fit. In my four at college, away from home, I never found a church I felt I could attend regularly. Now, mind you, emphasis on the word 'felt'.

None of these churches hurt people, or stole money, or anything like that, but I was blinded by the requirement of having to find a new church.

What do you mean I have to find a new church? What do you mean it should only take me two Sundays to find one I like? I've been at my home church for a decade! It's like trying to find a new spouse, after being recently widowed from a loving, and healthy fifty year marriage! And to continue that analogy, it has been ages since I've even considered what I look for in a spouse- what do I look for? The person I was fifty years ago has changed into who I am today!

What do I look for in a church? (There are books on this, you can google it. I have read none of them.)

Whatever it was I looked for, I didn't appreciate feeling guilty for not attending a service. I was in no way punished, but was looked down upon. Heavily.

I didn't understand why I needed to feel guilty for not attending a service. What if I had four papers I need to write that are due Monday? What if I went on a weekend trip? What if I was sick? What if I was going to attend but found a crying, hurting friend and helped her instead of attending church?

You're going to make me feel guilty for having priorities? Don't you want to me to graduate? Don't you want me to be empathetic toward others? Don't you want me to be healthy?

Okay, I'm ranting now.

But, the larger question, is church priority, or Church?

I understand that attending church is one way to worship God, but some people have made this one way the only way.

Tell me if I'm wrong, but there is no where written in the Bible that I have to attend church. No where. What I do need to do is tell others about Christ; to provide and help the un-helped; to love others- to do what everyone considers is good-person things to do.

Listen, I don't not want to attend church- like going to a library or bookstore and seeing others who are like me- that's what church is like: a place where I can find and meet and know people who are like me. Not likeminded, but like me.

This is something that everyone longs for- to connect to others, to make friends- why should something everyone desires innately be forced upon them?





Instead of attending church, me, my friend and her boyfriend went to Whole Foods and ate from their buffet. We sat there and talked and bonded...which is what we would've done had we attended church. I don't want to overgeneralize- I don't want to say that eating at Whole Foods is the same as attending church because it isn't always. But sometimes, it is.

That's probably what the next blog post will be about: what qualifies as church exactly?

the heartbeat

she took her pulse.

it said, "comeagain comeagain comeagain."

each beat encouraging the heart to

"comeagain comeagain comeagain."

goodbye, lost lovers! hello, new life!-

fodder for unborn mouths 

who will know a hunger deeper than ours;

for though closer to the end,

closer to answers

which are buried under questions

manure for vegetables to feed

an insatiable world.

"comeagain comeagain comeagain."

a lullaby for rest;

a trumpet for war--

"comeagain comeagain comeagain"

until Second Adam's heart beats no more.

we shall neither come 

nor leave to come again. 

"comeagain comeagain comeagain come..."