Results For "Month: February 2013"
Access Fun
For the past week, it’s probably appeared that I’ve neglected this poor little site. To the contrary: I had messed around a little too much with my .htaccess file and the result was, well, less than stellar.
#9 — Sin and Favor
I should look upon every sin I have committed as a favor of God.
It happens more often than I would really like to admit: the stumble, the trip, the knee to the ground. It’s never been something I would have thought to be thankful for. More often than not, stumbling into sin lands in humiliation of one sort or another, and humiliation is not something we usually look forward to or like to dwell on. Still, there’s a certain ageless wisdom in what Weil writes:
I should look upon every sin I have committed as a favor of God. It is a favor that the essential imperfection which is hidden in my depths should have been to some extent made clear to me on a certain day, at a certain time, in certain circumstances. I wish and implore that my imperfection my be wholly revealed to me in so far as human thought is capable of grasping it. Not in order that it may be cured but, even if it should not be cured, in order that I may know the truth.
Mistakes, sins, errors all mark progress.
#8 — Feeling Good About Oneself
Dear Terrence,
A brief respite from Weil, inspired by a few things in school from the last few days. It’s an appropriate supplement to yesterday’s post.
What are some of the things about yourself, about your life, about your future that make you feel good about yourself? What are the things in your life that are sources of pride? When you’re down, feeling a little low about yourself, what do you think about to remind yourself that you’re valuable, that you’re worth something? In short, what can you do to give your self-esteem a quick fix?
I have many sources of pride in my life. Most immediately, I’m proud of my family: my wife and my children make me feel like I am truly a valuable person. Other things I take pride in are my job (as a teacher, my job is essentially to help people), my time overseas (an experience that was as challenging as it was rewarding), and the respect and admiration of my colleagues (something I’ve worked hard to develop). When I’m feeling upset about something, I can think about or interact with these elements of my life, and I feel a little better as a result.
Occasionally, one of these very elements of my life leaves me upset. A bad day at school, an argument with my wife, an unsuccessful interaction with my daughter: all of these things can leave me a bit down, feeling a little less valuable, a little less important. Those moments are tricky, because I’m feeling bad about something which usually causes me to feel good.
That is the case today, because today you showed me, in no uncertain terms, that the best way for you to get your fix, the best way for you to feel better about yourself is to make someone else miserable through mocking, teasing, taunting, threatening, and seemingly countless other forms of bullying. It’s depressing to think of what your victim is going through, but it’s almost more tragic to think of what you’re screaming at the top of your lungs with those actions.
- “I have no self-esteem!”
- “I look inside myself and I see little of any beauty.”
- “I feel horrible about myself!”
- “I hate myself.”
- “I’m so afraid of what others will see if they look closely at me that I will do everything I can to deflect attention to someone else.”
- “I am terrible.”
- “I look inside myself and I see nothing — nothing — of any value.”
- “I am dumb.”
- “I am ugly.”
None of these things are true. You’re not dumb, ugly, terrible, or worthless.
You’re not any of these things, and you don’t have to try to make others feel they are just so you can feel equal. Pulling someone down is impossible: you can only pull yourself down. Or up.
You’re not any of these things, and insulting, threatening, and belittling others does not raise you up in everyone’s eyes. It lowers you.
You’re not any of these things because you’re a human being, full of dignity and deserving respect. Perhaps you’ve not gotten enough dignity and respect yourself from others around you. But does it really help you feel better to pass that pain on to others?
Concerned and in defense of others,
Your teacher
#7 — Authority and Legitimacy
Obedience to a man whose authority is not illuminated by legitimacy — that is a nightmare.
As a teacher, I think often about authority and legitimacy, and the simple fact that if I lack one, I lack the other. The problem with legitimacy, though, is that many of my students come with different definitions of what legitimacy looks like. I might just have two strikes against me from the beginning — two, or more. When our differing definitions collide, someone often ends up losing. Win-win is a lovely idea, but sometimes, it’s just not practical. Sometimes, the option seems taken before the situation even reaches a full head.
When I read Weil’s suggestion that authority without legitimacy is a nightmare, I realize that, from time to time, my classroom must be a nightmare for these students. It’s a difficult thought to accept.
#6 — Skipped
And how did I do that? How did I skip a day? How did I not realize this until twenty-four hours later?
#5 — The Source of Action
To transfer the source of our actions outside ourselves
Motivation is everything. An evil act can be mitigated, somewhat, when we realize the motivation of the act, though a purely evil act can never lead to a pure good. The opposite, of course, is also certainly true: many a good act has been tainted by a less than pure motive.
Weil’s aphorism seems to be one sure way to make sure our motives are as pure as possible. If the source of our actions is outside ourselves — whether in God or man — it seems less likely that we’ll be doing the right things for the wrong reasons.
First Sunday of Lent 2013
Technically speaking, the Sundays within the Lenten season are not fast days; Sundays, the Church teaches, are always feast days. Which means that theoretically, all the things one gives up for Lent are fair game. “Isn’t that cheating?” I’m tempted to ask.
After all, I really didn’t sacrifice anything of real value — that’s sort of the purpose of Lent, that realization. What’s in my life that has any value remains: family. Cigars? Alcohol? Coffee? Sweets? These things are all relatively meaningless in the larger picture — again, what Lent helps us focus on.
It’s not like I’m only just barely refraining from desperately grabbing at this or that. Sure, the things I give up for Lent give me a certain amount of pleasure, but they come with a price. Cigars, no matter how infrequently enjoyed, are in no way healthy. Alcohol is easily enough abused and doesn’t add much to life other than some relaxation and pleasure. Sweets? No problem: it’s not really surrender if you hardly ever do it. Coffee? Well, I thought in giving up coffee for the first time this year I might actually be sacrificing something I would really notice, and believe me, that first day without caffeine, I noticed it.
But after that first day, it was no problem at all. (A small admission: I did drink coffee today. Couldn’t resist.)
Still, when taking into account all the things I could lose, voluntarily or not, I think most all Lenten sacrifices are fairly insignificant — again, a realization that gets at the heart of the whole point of Lent.
#4 — Goodness and Will
Good which is done in this way, almost in spite of ourselves, almost shamefacedly and apologetically, is pure. All absolutely pure goodness completely eludes the will. Goodness is transcendent. God is Goodness.
It started with a few, hard flakes that looked more like ice pellets than anything else. Perhaps it was ice. But I didn’t worry: it was good no matter what it was. I strolled back into the house and calmly told the girls, “You won’t believe what’s happening: it’s snowing.” Within a few minutes, the flakes were fat and heavy, a wet snow that accumulated quickly despite the relatively warm weather. L and I changed our afternoon swimming plans and got dressed as quickly as we could, both excited about the prospect of snow. By the time we made it outside, the flakes were enormous and plentiful, and I found myself watching both the snow and the Girl’s excitement with the snow.
Living in South Carolina, snow is such an unpredictable goodness. It’s so rare it can only be counted as a good: at most, it might disrupt traffic for a little while; it could close the school system down for a day or two; but even the most sour, pessimist in the Upstate must smile a bit to see the occasional snow.
Yet it’s so unpredictable. We can literally go for years without any snow, apparently. Every winter, we wonder: will there be snow this winter> Well, at least I wonder, K wonders, the Girl wonders.
First moments outside
I stood there today, though, marveling at the difference between our Upstate winter reality and that of southern Poland. Here, the question is whether nor not it will snow; there, the questions are when the first snow will come, how long it will last, and if it will melt completely before the next snow falls. There, the first snow fall is just the promise of more, just a whisper of what’s to come. Here, it’s the promise, the whisper, and the whole story.
Muddy snowball
Sometimes I wonder what it might be like to live in such a place with my family. Perhaps with that much snow, the Girl would come to take it for granted. Is that even possible? Can a child ever grow tired of making snowballs, of digging snow forts, of sledding?
And what of the good, the transcendent good that eludes the will? Perhaps sometimes that good comes from an unexpected change in the weather, a sprinkling of white in an otherwise gray afternoon.
#3 — Choice
When we become conscious that we have to make a choice, the choice is already made for good or ill.
I often speak to my students about choice and habits. So many kids have such ingrained reactions that they’ve brought into the classroom from various environments — home, the street, the community center — which simply do not work in a comparatively-formal setting like a classroom. Perceived slights or insults must be avenged, for lack of a better term, and often very little thought has gone into the decision. These habits, I tell them, are going to get them into some serious trouble at some point in the future. “It won’t just be a referral from some teacher who’s fed up. It will be dismissal from work.”
Hanging on my wall is an almost-cliche but very succinct expression of the principle I’m trying to explain:
Be careful what you think, for your thoughts become your words.
Be careful what you say, for your words become your actions.
Be careful what you do, for your actions become your habits.
Be careful what becomes habitual, for your habits become your destiny.
Yet even when some of them try to break their habit, even when they begin thinking before speaking, there’s something in them that just compels them, despite the newly-formed warnings and whistles, to go ahead and say it. That’s the habit part, because hidden in every habit is a bit of an addiction. And so these kids are aware of the choice, but in many ways, by the time they’re aware of it, they’ve already made the decision.
Certainly, to a greater or lesser extent, the same is true for almost all of us. The awareness of this tendency, though, like the awareness of an addiction, is the first step toward correcting it. Or so we tell ourselves.