Bound Together

I was a child in the 70’s.  At one point, my mom, who is an incredibly talented craftswoman, decided to try out macramé.  Man! Was it ever groovy!  She even taught me how to do it.  I think I made some sort of a wall hanging.  I remember taking the rough jute and knotting the different strands together again and again.  All of those strands came together and formed a design.  Mom made a plant hanger, I think.  She was also good at knitting.  Mom has always been good at taking something simple and turning it into something beautiful. My wife shares that gift as well.  So many of my friends here at church knit or sew or both.  I was certainly passed over for those kinds of gifts.  The gift I have been blessed with is appreciation.  I can appreciate the work that goes into a piece of knitted, woven, sewn art.


I used to believe that knitting was taking many pieces of yarn and linking them together – like weaving a tapestry. When you knit, what you actually do is take one piece of yarn and tie it all around itself into a sock, scarf, or sweater.  Do it wrong, and you have holes all over the place.  Or you find yourself with a big pile of knots.  It’s almost magic, really, that something knitted doesn’t just come apart.  Pull too hard, and you can be left with a big mess. On the other hand, once it is knit, it becomes flexible, bendable.  Capable of being wrapped around someone to give warmth, comfort, and, in the case of our prayer shawl ministry, even healing.

When Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, he talked about the church as being like parts of the human body which are “knit” together.  In the version we read today, the phrase that is used is “joined and held by all the supporting ligaments”.   It is no big secret that our bodies are made up of bones – strong, sturdy, as long as they are undamaged, and muscles that allow us to move those big hunks of calcium rock around.  What holds the muscle TO the bone, however, is the connective tissue.   It knits the parts of our bodies together and allows them to do the work it is meant to do.

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

I have to tell you that as an English teacher, I really enjoy what Paul has done with prepositions here.  He is leaving no preposition unturned, as it were.  God is ABOVE the body and THROUGH the body and IN the body.  There is no relationship with God, with ourselves, with others, that God is not involved in.

Above all.  We are up close.  We see the pieces of things.  Yarn, bones, chaos.  God is above all of this.  Seeing the big picture.  Seeing the final product even while it all looks like a mess to us.  The blanket from the knots.  And if that were all God was in our lives, it might not be enough.  But God, Paul reminds us, is also IN all that we do.  In the very structure of things.  A part of us.  OF me.  OF you.  OF each of us.  So we have God within us, guiding each of us to the calling to which we are called, if we listen for God.  Seeing the whole picture of our lives for the beautiful final product it is meant to be while leading us through each knot – each struggle, each decision, each moment.

Yet again, that is STILL not all that God is.  God is also THROUGH all.  Running through all of the disparate parts of the body and knitting it together.  Binding it together.  Not in the sense of being bound up, constricted, but in the sense of being held together, connected – each separate part to another.  Allowing it to stretch, flex, bend and not be broken.  All of the pieces.  Each member of the body of Christ.  Just as God is in our lives as hope, faith, baptism, so God is still one.  Many different manifestations of ONE.

 “Uni or unus,” the root of the word “unity,” means “one”, and when we experience unity, we are one.  But here’s an interesting thing:  “unique” comes from the same root.  “One.”  Unity is being combined into one as parts of a whole, while unique means one of a kind.  This is something I find amazing about Paul’s idea in Ephesians – and indeed in several other places in his letters –that unity doesn’t mean the same thing as conformity.  God has made us unique, yet calls us to unity.

Taking our one-of-a-kindness and combining it to each other’s one-of-a-kindness and making us into one.  What is strong enough to do this?  God.  The God that is above us, watching the body take its shape.  The God that is within us, guiding us from within with his wisdom and strength.  God is strong enough.  God who is moving through us, holding a crazy collection of different people together and forming them into the body of Christ.

This is something we at Gobin rock at.  I truly believe that God is going to use this church mightily through our diversity.  The fact that we can all worship together while being so different is a blessing and will be a blessing to even more people as time goes by.

God doesn’t need us to all be the same.  God doesn’t WANT us each to be the same as each other.  God wants us to be ONE out of our different-ness.  God wants my crazy Maisy girl to wiggle and dance during church, AND God wants bell-playing, math-loving Brian Howard.  Who may wiggle and dance, but he doesn’t do it in church, for heaven’s sake!  God wants some of us to write gorgeous prayers like Marilyn and some of us to be Ernie and shout “Amen!”  God wants Emily to belt it out and another to close her eyes and feel the blessings of it.  God wants quiet contemplators to think about what the church should do AND loud evangelists to shout it from the rooftops.

There isn’t just room for all of us in the church – Paul says the church can’t exist without each and all of us.  John Calvin put it this way: “No member of the body of Christ is endowed with such Perfection as to be able, without the assistance of others, to supply his own necessities.”  God wants you and you and you and you so he can make us into ONE body.  Knit together, bound together by one God.  That one God and our love for him and worship of him and our faith in him and our desire to follow him – that trumps everything else.
That one faith is above and through and in everything else.  We ARE one body.  A crazy blanket of people, knit together by an invisible strength and guiding force.  Bound by one spirit, one God and father of all.  It’s so crazy that it couldn’t possibly work.  But it does.  And there is only one thing that can tear it apart.  Us.  We can.

It’s actually pretty simple.  Grab a string and pull it apart.  Take your own part of the blanket and go home.  Have a stronger desire to turn us back into a big pile of yarn, and you can make it happen.  Split us into different camps.  Break us into cliques.  Then, we are not knit or held or bound.  Then we are alone.

Paul says that it takes spiritual maturity to be one body.  We have to value the body more than our own part in it.  To tear it apart, to be spiritually IM-mature, we have to value our own calling more than the calling of others.  We simply have to value being right more than one.

Paul reminds us that, in a life of following Christ, what matters most is the unity, the oneness holding us together.  Our workshop this afternoon focuses on just this idea.  Our Core Values.  What is it that holds us together when there are so many differences that could pull us apart? What are the beliefs that we hold in common?  Those are the beliefs that hold us together.

One of my favorite writers and theologians, Frederick Buechner once said, "Wherever people love each other and are true to each other and take risks for each other, God is with them and for them, and they are doing God's will." This could describe not only a church, but our own families.

We have Core Values in our families, don’t we?  Families are made up of a crazy collection of people, each of whom is different from the other.  Yet our core beliefs as a family hold us together.  Our love, our hope, our faith in one another binds us.  Well, welcome to your church family.  Welcome to the body of Christ.  There isn’t simply room for your weirdness; we NEED it!

Don’t worry.  We can focus on the ties that hold us together while still celebrating who YOU are.  Are you called to sing?  Sing!  Some of us will add our harmony, and some of us will sway to the music.  Are you called to heal?  Heal!  Some of us will run and bring you more bandages.  Are you called to knit?  Knit!  We will gather together as the body of Christ and pray God’s blessings on the shawls that you make.  We will do this with “all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Because that is the one thing we are ALL, every single one of us, called to do.  To love one another, be patient with one another, humble ourselves and be gentle with one another, and maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  We are not in bondage; we are held, embraced, knit together by the bond of peace.  God’s peace.  A peace that passes understanding.  A love and a hope that holds us together even when we feel like we are falling apart.  May we all hold to those beliefs rather than ever letting our differences pull us apart.

Amen.

Heaven on Earth

"Maisy, will you love me when I am very, very old?  When I'm as wrinkled as your feet after the bath?"

My five-year-old Maisy girl loves to snuggle in her bed for a bit before she goes to sleep. It gives her one-on-one time and a sense of security.  Truth be told, it gives me all of that, too. On those nights when I am just counting down to bedtime so I can move into mommy time, I balk and even complain.   Shame on me. I really love lying close to her in the dark, smelling her strawberry shampoo hair or that hot smell kids get outside in the summer. (There is something primal about smelling your own child, isn't there?)

When I let her coax me away from the world and into that flowery butterfly bed, I stop time from passing. I am a sorceress freezing the planet in its spin.  She tells me about her day, what she will name her children someday.

So I don't know why it was so startling when she answered my question tonight.

"Of course, Mommy. I will always love you."

And then she said,

"And when I go to heaven, I will look for you."

My eyes teared almost before I processed what she had just said.

Since our golden retriever, Clare, died a few years ago, Maisy is full of questions about heaven and Clare living with God. She has told me that when she goes to heaven, she will ask God if Clare can be her dog in heaven. She could do worse. 

"Well, that won't be for a very long time, honey."

"Will you know who I am, Mommy?"

"Yes, honey. I am sure God will always help me know who you are."

"What will God say?"

"When, Maisy?"

"When He comes and picks you up.  He will pick you up and take you to heaven someday.  What will He say?"

I am not one who is often speechless. This did it.

"Well," I forced out, "I think he will say..."

My mind, all of a sudden, went perfectly still. A master's degree in theology doesn't mean squat in the face of a preschooler's theological questions - ask any pastor.

And then, all of a sudden, I knew.

"I think God will say, 'Hi.  I'm glad to see you.'"

God, in my life - my wifeing, parenting, teaching, daughtering, loving, being - help me always deserve to hear those words from You.

Colleagues

Colleague is a bit of a shopworn word these days.  It originated in Middle French and meant, literally, “partner in office.”  Its Latin roots trace to “with” and “to choose.”  People with whom we choose to work.  It’s the choosing that matters most, I think.  We can work in the same place and never work WITH one another.  We can, in fact, work against one another, a fact to which many in the business world will attest. 

Teachers have generally been the epitome of colleagues.  We even serve as mentors to apprentices through student teaching.  Any college student who wants to become a teacher must work with teachers in the classroom in order to best learn how to be teachers themselves.  Most veteran teachers who have had student teachers will tell you that a positive student teaching experience benefits both members of the teaching team; our student teacher leaves with a toolbox of ideas for the beginning of his/her new career, and we of the old guard are left with an infusion of new ideas and energy.  We share with one another from the start of our career, and the tradition continues throughout our years. 

Still not sure we work WITH one another?  Simply Google “lesson plans,” and you will be met with countless websites where teachers have offered up ideas that worked for them.  Think about the extra step that takes:  teachers not only prepare plans for their own students, they then take the time to offer up those ideas to help others.  In most cases, this is done for no pay or recognition.  Why on earth would anyone waste their time, then, posting lesson plans online?

It’s in a teacher’s nature, I believe, to teach.  I have written before about teaching being a calling, and this need to explain to and help other people runs through the very core of this calling.  Most of us would say that we have been teaching other people for as long as we can remember; even if it is sometimes cleverly disguised as bossiness.  J 

Sadly, we have reached a new time in teaching.  I say “sadly” because I fear it will challenge this giving part of our collective nature.  If it is, indeed, natural for teachers to teach, explain, share, then surely competitive evaluations are a potential stumbling block.  Most people drawn to teaching are share-ers by nature, and if they aren't, they quickly learn that sharing is the norm in a healthy school environment.  If the only goal that really matters is helping the kids succeed, it stands to reason that we should share the best ways to do this.

Political leaders should have the same philosophy.  If the only goal that really matters is helping people in the community, shouldn't they all be working together to achieve this?  I can’t imagine any politician having the nerve to say “no” out loud to this question.  Instead of working with one another, however, they seem determined to tear the rest of us apart.  Busting up unions; publishing work evaluations; giving cash prizes to highly effective teachers.  Each of these can serve to drive us away from our colleagues.  After all, why should I share with you when it looks better if I came up with the idea all by myself?  Even our motivations can become tainted.  “I came up with this great plan because of how it looks for me, not necessarily how it best serves the kids.”

Will we let the new challenges in teaching be a stumbling block?  Or will we lift one another up and over this stone?

Calling All Teachers

My dear friend Nichole has just returned from maternity leave.  She is having a hard time with the adjustment, to put it mildly.  If you have ever had to leave an infant at home all day, so that you could return, sleep-deprived, to work, you will know that it is hell.  As a former maternity refugee, I have been trying to offer as much empathy and encouragement  as I can.  Granted, it is no easy task to over-ride hormones and an overwhelming instinct that tells you that leaving your child is wrong, but I give it the old college try.

At lunch today, I reminded her that she is called to be a teacher.  She is certainly called to be a mother - she has been Mama Bear to her students since she came to our school.  She is, in every way, a remarkable mother.  The problem is, she is also a remarkable teacher.  It's like she was born to it.  And I believe that she was.

Most teachers have always known they would be teachers one day; many of us are from families of teachers.  It's as if it were in our DNA, as if we were destined to teach.  Or, as I believe, we were made and shaped and led each day to come to the calling of teaching.

Teaching is a calling.  It's that way with every job that requires you to pour your heart and soul into it for little or no pay.  Other jobs take as much - if not more - time every day as teaching does, and many even take the physical and psychological energy.  Most of those jobs, however, offer incredible financial gain as a compensation.  Not teaching.  Nor preaching, nor painting, nor writing.  None of the arts pay well (unless you are famous or corrupt), but we simply can't help ourselves.  Teachers are artists, in spite of politicians trying to convince everyone that teaching is simply a science.  It isn't simply any one thing. Teachers finesse our lessons in the middle of class - we can't simply abandon the experiment and begin again. We have to peer into the faces, the minds, the hearts of each child and try to understand what they need from us.  We look at a block of flawed marble and try to free the sculpture inside.   As an artist works an accidental smudge into the painting, so we teachers work to create a masterpiece in each child, no matter what smudges, chips, and even disasters come our way.

That's the heaven and the hell of it, I suppose.  I am a teacher because, ultimately, I don't have any choice.  I have to be here.  Year after year, even when I am tired, grouchy, or sad.   My students need me - even on the days when I don't believe it and neither do they.  And, I need them.  I need my kids.  They keep me honest by the way they look at me any time I don't keep my word.  They keep me young with their music, their shoes, their love of video games. When I let them, they make me laugh. They give me hope.  When I see someone stop in the hall and help a stranger pick up their dropped pencils.  When they thank me for handing them a test.  When the expression of their face brightens because they finally understand prepositions.  Maybe teaching is a calling because we get the opportunity to see God in the face of each child we teach; and we, in turn, offer them love and support as the hands of hearts of God each day.

Clicks of the Week #3

Look!  I brought a spider to school!  (holds up baggie with a small, dead spider in it)

Hey, smell my finger!  It smells like citrus - yeah mine smells like blueberry

My mom, no my aunt, I think, no it was my aunt, she fell and broke her kneecap like three years ago.  It was gross.

Those are scales on your earrings.  I'm an expert on scaleology.  I also like trains.

When's the harvest moon?  It's orange.

I thought there was a skeleton under my bed last night, but it was just a backpack.

Clicks of the Week #2

I got a new goldfish, and I didn't feed it for four days.  It died because I didn't feed it, and I didn't notice for two days.

Do you want to shake my hand?  Do you know who I am? (said by a student in that class)

Look!  I bought a talking moustache!

My Favorite Mistake

Because some days you aren't sure if you should laugh or cry, I collect funny stories and answers from class.

Here are some of my favorite wrong answers from class over the years...

2000-2001

“Many Jews died by lethal interjection.”  (Holocaust research paper)

“Theatres in England closed from 1592 – 1594 due to the Great Depression.”

“Ms. Isaacs’ birthday is the same day, same month, same year as William Shakespeare’s.”

“Goering made a big compact on the times during WWII.”  (Holocaust research paper)

2001-2002

 “Unfortunately, my grandfather slipped into a comma.”

“Job Duties:  sweeping, moping, snack bar…” (on job application)

2003-2004

“I am really good at archery.  Especially with a bow and arrow.”  (as Artemis)

“Water is polluting our area and we need help.” 

2003-2004

“I am positive Hitler was one of our presidents, I just don’t remember which one.”

“Mark Twain helped [Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Nicolas Mandela, George W. Bush, Gen. Freddy Roosevelt, Johnson, George Washington, John Adams, President Franklin, George Clifton, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon] publish his memoirs.”

Name another book besides Tom Sawyer that MT wrote:  “Dr. Seuss.”

2004-2005

“Are Catholics mostly the people who celebrate Hanukkah?”

“The bullet hit the chest plate and Rica shaded at him.”  (instead of ricocheted in a story).

“Are Quakers the people who think you shouldn’t kill bugs?  And didn’t they discover some land?…..or was that the Vikings?”

Here is actual dialogue from one of my classes today.  The context is that some of my students were wanted to talk about some school issues, and they asked me if I was picked on in school.

Me:  I really hated junior high.  So, here I am.  In 7th grade every day for the rest of my life.  I had a choice on how to respond.  Be a serial killer, or be a middle school teacher.

Vince (one of my kids):  Which one had a better dental plan?

It took me a little while to recover from laughing at that one.  :)

2006 – 2007

What was Mark Twain’s real name?

Roger Clemens

When given the assignment of writing about a time they were lost and frightened (in relation to Tom Sawyer being lost in the cave), one student wrote about all of the places he was “lost” in the novel and didn’t understand it.

“We need more adoption where they can give up their babies miscellaneously.”

2007-2008

In a capitalization exercise, students were to underline any words that should be capitalized in the sentence.

3)     the siegels are moving to long island on Friday.

I had THREE students tell me that they did not underline “siegels” because it is a common noun:  the name of type of bird.

2009-2010

What was Mark Twain’s real name?

Dude Mgee

Mark Johnson

Samuel Adams

Steve

What former president did Twain help publish his memoirs?

Nixon

Grover Cleveland

John F. Kennedy

J.R. Kennedy

Name another book MT wrote:

Inicents of Broad  (Innocents Abroad)