Humans have titles for everything from work positions like, “barista” or “universal associate,” to lifestyle titles like, “beatnik” or “jock.” Sometimes these titles are thrust onto us by our peers. For example, poor Jonny in my 4th grade class always smelled like cats. He was given the title of “the poor kid” because he just loved to wear his favorite set of clothes and loved his cats. Eventually, I discovered that he wasn’t poor at all, but enjoyed the attention and popularity that being “the poor kid” gave him. Jonny continued to live the title of “the poor kid” until high school when he morphed the title to “Monastic” and “minimalist.”
Other times a title is something that we can proclaim to everyone. Like my friend Scott, who told everyone that he would one day be a comic book writer. After his announcement people decided that he was the authority on all things superhero and fantastical.
In a classroom the title that each person chooses directly affects the grade that that person receives. I have observed a few different titles that can be owned in a classroom, and depending on which one a person owns, that person can pass or fail the class. They can truly learn something or nothing at all, and they can have a good classroom experience or a horrible one. The titles that I have observed are: the 110%-er, the natural, the priority person, the attention grabber, the C man, the shrugger, the daydreamer, and the rebel.
My first observation is the title that will most likely have the highest grade. The 110%-er I always picture as a woman, maybe because my girlfriend owns this title through and through. There she is, sitting in the front of class like always, she always beats everyone to the classroom. I’m sure that she knows what it means to be fashionably late because she knows just about everything, but she never is fashionably late. Fashion is, of course, all business. For her, clothing must reflect the organization and focus of her mind. She takes notes like she takes breaths. She has her assignments finished a week ahead of everyone else and although her free time is taken up with worries about how to fit an extra hour of studying in, she finds great self satisfaction with every “A” she earns.
My second observation could easily rival the 110%-er, if only he’d try. The natural is a person who understands the curriculum in the class like he understands walking. It just comes to him. I usually see this title on a cocky guy, who often smirks at the frivolous note taking of the 110%er. It’s often said that, “He has so much potential, if only he would apply himself.” Depending on the effort put forth by the natural, he could easily have the crown of top student, but is usually too lazy to earn it. The natural likes to live in the moment, equipped for each challenge only with what he naturally has. The natural is usually quite witty and easy going, and although he’ll probably end up with a “B” his overall classroom experience will be beneficial to him.
This next observation is one that doesn’t exist in every classroom, but I’ve been finding more and more at community college: the priority person. I have seen the priority person as both male and female, but this title is always clearly distinguished. This person will usually be late to class, sit in the back of the room and leave early. I call this person the priority person because they usually have higher priorities outside of the class. A family that they have to take care of, a full time job, or maybe even a love for video games takes first priority. The priority person may see class as a nuisance but they understand that the class will help them, in the long run, to take care of their main priority. Homework is usually turned in late or on time but incomplete. When the teacher calls on them to add to the classroom discussion they usually repeat something that’s already been said. If they know the answer to something they will strive to tell it because they know that the next question they probably don’t know. “B’s” and “C’s” are usually what the priority person ends up with and because they are taking the class for the benefit of their priority they feel great accomplishment and purpose in passing a class.
This observation is one that has mostly been done in a mirror. The attention grabber or class clown as it was known as in high school, is a title of a person either brimming with confidence or else suffering from such a lack of confidence that they would accept being laughed at as a sort of reassurance. The attention grabber, is usually a guy who just wants to be noticed, whether by a certain girl, every girl or for the attention of the father like or mother like teacher. He always has a comment ready for the amusement of the class and often comments on things like he is on “Mystery Science Theater.” The attention grabber is usually full of wit, but lacking motivation or purpose to do anything productive with it. The attention grabber is happy with a “B” and sees each class as a social event, thus it is almost always fun.
My next observation is one that I believe is most frustrating to teachers because no matter how much effort is put into teaching them, they still end up with a “C”. The “C” man (pardon the play on words), or otherwise known as the procrastinator, considers the idea of “good, hard work” a character flaw. The “C” man often lives under the motto that “Nothing can’t be done in five minutes”. While the natural can pump out an “A” paper in five minutes, the “C” man would consider anything higher than a “B” an insult. He would think that he could have spent less time doing the paper and more time doing something more fun. Fun is often the motivator for the “C” man, and so class becomes something that is a fun-interrupter. He will often sit in the middle or on the outskirts of the class and seek to avoid attention because getting attention will mean more participation out of him, meaning more work which is less fun. If he passes with a “C” he is happy, but overall he is bored of the classroom.
I personally don’t understand the observation I call the shrugger because why would a person take a class if they don’t really want to be there? The shrugger can be defined under the trite description, “Too cool for school” (2cool 4school). This person tends to think that he or she is better than the class. They don’t really care about the content, perhaps thinking that he or she will never use the information in day to day life. Participation is minimal and so is the effort put into the homework. The shrugger is always finding ways to amuse his or her self. Examples of this are often texting in class, excessive doodling, and all sorts of blank stares. When this person is called upon in class they almost never know what the question even is. The shrugger will usually slide by with a “C” or else get a “D” and beg for extra credit at the end of the term so he or she doesn’t have to retake the class.
The day dreamer is a classic observation and isn’t an everyday identity, but one that nearly every student will dawn for a short period here and there. The day dreamer is detrimental to the student’s grade because once one assumes the title of day dreamer all the discussion, class participation and knowledge is missed for the time while this title is claimed. The good thing about this title is that it is easy to shake off even in the middle of class. This person usually sits by the window or as far from the teaching as possible and is never fully present in class. The day dreamer will usually jump or be startled when called upon as if the utterance of his or her name physically pulls them from where ever they are and slams them back into their seat. Because this title is usually not owned by the same student every day, the letter grade given to this person varies, the more this title is used the worse the grade.
My last observation is a title that can be the most damaging to the student’s grade. The rebel is a student that generally gives an aura that says, “I don’t care.” This person will contradict the professor as often as they can and will usually be talking during class. Homework is nearly never done in an act of defiance. They never completely face the teacher. They often sit slumped in their chair and usually arrive late. While the rebel will usually secretly enjoy the class because they can express their rebelliousness, they also normally don’t pass, which causes their enjoyment to be cut short.
I have just listed and defined some key titles that I have observed in classes. Like the over used saying goes, “Knowing is half the battle.” Once we understand these titles we can choose which title we can comfortably fit in and one that will still give us our desired grade. It is important to know that our titles can be changed! Just like my friend Jonny, who changed what he was known for, we too can change how people view us and what they expect from us. We need to be who we want to be and not who our peers tell us to be. If we choose a poor title we could flunk a class or have a horrible classroom experience. We must choose wisely.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Hide and Seek
This is an essay I wrote for my writing class!
As a child, I was fascinated by the game, “Hide and Seek”. Whether hiding or seeking, I was brilliant. Now that I’m older I wonder if parts of who I am are hidden, and if other parts of me must become the seeker.
Luke Skywalker, when he found his calling to be a Jedi, could look back and see that his calling was with him from the very beginning when he was shooting swamp rats with unusual accuracy. When Frodo Baggins found that he was the ring bearer of the One Ring, he could look back and see that he was destined for adventure from the very beginning when he day dreamed of having his own adventures like uncle Bilbo had. Harry Potter, when he found out that he was a wizard, could look back and see that he was something special when strange and magical things would happen when he got emotional. So, it isn’t uncommon for characters to go looking them selfs. Often when looking, one will search in unlikely places. Once found, one will see that one’s true self was there from the very beginning.
In 2006, I went on a journey to find myself. Growing up in the conservative Baptist Church, I wanted to know if I could continue living as a “Christian” or if all this time I was attending, practicing, and aligning my life with the Christian faith because my family, church and friends said that I must. In order to discover whether or not a relationship with the creator of the universe was possible in my life, two of my friends and I devised a plan to go to Australia on a missions trip with a group called Youth With A Mission (YWAM). For me, if I didn’t experience something real, something not of me, something divine on this trip, I believed that I would never be able to experience this supernatural relationship.
In Christian circles, this idea of discovering a relationship with Jesus that has nothing to do with friends or family, is called “owning your faith”. I think that anyone who confesses any kind of faith in anything should take time to own it. In my opinion the greatest fault in any organized religion, is a lack of personal ownership.
In an attempt at personal ownership and also in a young, rebellious action I got a series of religious tattoos. Hoping that if I owned a relationship with Jesus outwardly on my skin I would own the relationship inwardly as well. At the time I had five tattoos. They were all inspired by a series of dreams were I survived a horrible catastrophe, like a car crash or a mugging, with no harm but a few scratches and scars that formed words and images that are now the tattoos that I have. The first was on my back and in Greek was written the phrase “weapon of God”. The second was on my left wrist and in hebrew was written “man of valor”. The third was on my right wrist and in Hebrew was written “salvation” with a small Gothic cross underneath it. The fourth was on my left ear and was a cross, and the fifth was behind my right ear and in Hebrew was written “still small voice”. The last one comes from a story about a prophet of God that searched for God in all these different places, but only found Him when he quieted his own mind and waited on God to find the prophet. And God did. God spoke to him in a still small voice.
The money spent on the tattoos didn’t help to pay for the trip to Australia, but in four months, my two friends and I raised the sixty-five hundred dollars for the three of us to spend four months in Australia. “Miraculous,” some people called it. At the time I called it good fortune and generous church goers.
If people who do things because of a claim to religion did that thing because of a personal devotion to the religion rather than for personal gain, then we would have eliminated the majority of causes for global conflict. Thoughts like this and others flashed through my mind as I sat on the cramped airplane headed to Australia. Our flight left LA in the evening on the sixteenth of April. After a seventeen hour, direct, red eye flight to Sydney, we landed in the evening on the sixteenth of April! Sort of like going back in time.
From the moment we landed I was eager to commence with finding myself. The next few months seemed to me like an over-used movie transition. I was praying and seeking God every morning, still not convinced that I had found Him. I was helping to lead a youth team on Saturdays that kept juvenile delinquents out of trouble by playing different sports with them every week; from squash to cricket and rugby to ultimate frisbee. Still, no God. I was going to a mall every Thursday to tell anyone who would listen about how great having a relationship with Jesus was. Although I wasn’t talking from personal experience. I was also working in a skate shop that the youth organization owned to help provide funding for the ministries that they offered, such as the Saturday youth program. And I was singing and worshiping with the rest of the people that I was living with on the ministry’s base.
About three months in, everything happened. If I were to continue with the movie analogy, this is when the music would have faded and instead of flashing scenes of different things happening to me, the camera would have focused on a scene of me sitting in a room.
The room is big. It is frequently used to throw concerts, which makes it odd that there is blue carpet on the floor. There are a few white pillars with peeling paint supporting the roof, and two large windows overlooking a second story view of downtown Newcastle. I am sitting on the floor, cross legged, with twenty-two other people, who, like me, are listening to a speaker tell us what we already know. She, the speaker, is saying how Jesus’ death and resurrection is what makes it possible for us to speak to God. She is saying that God is incapable of being in the presence of sin. Holy means, set apart. Complete holiness means that if God and sin were to be in the same space the sin would burn up to nothing until only what is pure remains. That is why it is impossible to speak to God, because every word is sprung from a tongue that would wither to nothingness in His presence. That is also why I cannot hear God speak, because to hear His holy words would melt my ears to oblivion. But Jesus, being God’s son, being holy, became a man, took my sin upon Himself and put it to death with Himself. In that act, Jesus gives me His rightness. He gives me His own spirit, so that I may communicate with Him, and Jesus can be the mediator between me and God, between sin and holiness.
The speaker goes on to say that God is often called our Father. What kind of father wouldn’t want to speak or to hear from their children? A good question. She tells us all to find a spot in the room to be alone. She says pray to God, through Jesus. That’s why when I pray I say, “in Jesus name, amen” I think to my self. Then she says to wait for God to speak to you. So I do. I go to a spot by myself and kneel down and pray. I say something like, “God, when I was little, I asked Jesus into my life. That’s supposed to make me Your son. So if you really are my Father then you should want to talk to me because I want to hear you! I’m going to lay here,” at this point I laid prostrate on the blue carpet, “until you speak to me.” The carpet smelled like tennis shoes. Not new tennis shoes but well used ones, but not like feet. It wasn’t unpleasant. My eyes were closed, and though I knew that people around the room were talking to each other and praying, I couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t hear anything but my own breathing which was surprisingly deep and full, though a bit uneven. I could feel the carpet under me, it was hard and uncomfortable, like an indoor putting green. I waited for some time, but also maybe no time. Time was irrelevant. Then the sharp, salty sting that I know so well came to the corner of my eyes. “God, why won’t you speak to me? I just want to know what you, my Father, thinks of me!” The carpet vanished, I smelt and felt nothing but the warm tears flowing down my face, “If you won’t speak to me, how am I supposed to know that I am even Your son?” I wasn’t laying on the floor; the floor was gone. I wasn’t floating either. I was again waiting in silence, being as still as possible so I wouldn’t miss a single whispered syllable that was something other than my sobs.
I wouldn’t describe them as words, or even as thoughts. They weren’t images, nor were they a general impression. They were all of those, and none of them. They were something like a way of communication that is beyond me, and yet, I was familiar with them. I was being asked a question, “What have I written on your body?” I was shocked. Was this a dream? Should I respond or do I wait for more. Is this rhetorical? Suddenly I remembered the speaker from before talking about how I shouldn’t put God in a box and expect Him to speak to me on my terms, or in my preferred way. So I responded, “Nothing...?”
“Why do you have the tattoos that you have?”
“Youthful rebelliousness?”
“I want so badly to tell you what I think of you. I inspired the desire to get the tattoos that you have so you can always look and see what I think about you. What do they say?”
I looked at my right wrist, then at my left. “They say, salvation and man of valor.”
“You have received Me, and so you are My son, and not just that, but also a mighty man of valor. What else?”
I remembered my back, “weapon of God.”
“I intend to work through you to spread hope, love and peace; all of which I have given you.” The carpet materialized underneath me. The smell of tennis shoes seemed a little more pleasant. I knew what God thought of me, and had truly experienced Him! I began to see, almost at once, God’s activity in my life since before I had a life. The way my parents raised me in the church, protecting me from life damaging sin and teaching me how to live a moral life. Sixty-five hundred dollars in four months! My small home church wasn’t that rich, but my father, He “owns the cattle on a million hills.” (Psalms fifty)
The flight home reminded me of an adventure that had just begun. Like Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins, and Harry Potter, I knew what and who I was. I didn’t know exactly how that would play out, but I could put a name to all the things that happened around me. I could see now, that this is what I always was: A son of God, a man of valor, a servant and weapon in God’s kingdom.
As a child, I was fascinated by the game, “Hide and Seek”. Whether hiding or seeking, I was brilliant. Now that I’m older I wonder if parts of who I am are hidden, and if other parts of me must become the seeker.
Luke Skywalker, when he found his calling to be a Jedi, could look back and see that his calling was with him from the very beginning when he was shooting swamp rats with unusual accuracy. When Frodo Baggins found that he was the ring bearer of the One Ring, he could look back and see that he was destined for adventure from the very beginning when he day dreamed of having his own adventures like uncle Bilbo had. Harry Potter, when he found out that he was a wizard, could look back and see that he was something special when strange and magical things would happen when he got emotional. So, it isn’t uncommon for characters to go looking them selfs. Often when looking, one will search in unlikely places. Once found, one will see that one’s true self was there from the very beginning.
In 2006, I went on a journey to find myself. Growing up in the conservative Baptist Church, I wanted to know if I could continue living as a “Christian” or if all this time I was attending, practicing, and aligning my life with the Christian faith because my family, church and friends said that I must. In order to discover whether or not a relationship with the creator of the universe was possible in my life, two of my friends and I devised a plan to go to Australia on a missions trip with a group called Youth With A Mission (YWAM). For me, if I didn’t experience something real, something not of me, something divine on this trip, I believed that I would never be able to experience this supernatural relationship.
In Christian circles, this idea of discovering a relationship with Jesus that has nothing to do with friends or family, is called “owning your faith”. I think that anyone who confesses any kind of faith in anything should take time to own it. In my opinion the greatest fault in any organized religion, is a lack of personal ownership.
In an attempt at personal ownership and also in a young, rebellious action I got a series of religious tattoos. Hoping that if I owned a relationship with Jesus outwardly on my skin I would own the relationship inwardly as well. At the time I had five tattoos. They were all inspired by a series of dreams were I survived a horrible catastrophe, like a car crash or a mugging, with no harm but a few scratches and scars that formed words and images that are now the tattoos that I have. The first was on my back and in Greek was written the phrase “weapon of God”. The second was on my left wrist and in hebrew was written “man of valor”. The third was on my right wrist and in Hebrew was written “salvation” with a small Gothic cross underneath it. The fourth was on my left ear and was a cross, and the fifth was behind my right ear and in Hebrew was written “still small voice”. The last one comes from a story about a prophet of God that searched for God in all these different places, but only found Him when he quieted his own mind and waited on God to find the prophet. And God did. God spoke to him in a still small voice.
The money spent on the tattoos didn’t help to pay for the trip to Australia, but in four months, my two friends and I raised the sixty-five hundred dollars for the three of us to spend four months in Australia. “Miraculous,” some people called it. At the time I called it good fortune and generous church goers.
If people who do things because of a claim to religion did that thing because of a personal devotion to the religion rather than for personal gain, then we would have eliminated the majority of causes for global conflict. Thoughts like this and others flashed through my mind as I sat on the cramped airplane headed to Australia. Our flight left LA in the evening on the sixteenth of April. After a seventeen hour, direct, red eye flight to Sydney, we landed in the evening on the sixteenth of April! Sort of like going back in time.
From the moment we landed I was eager to commence with finding myself. The next few months seemed to me like an over-used movie transition. I was praying and seeking God every morning, still not convinced that I had found Him. I was helping to lead a youth team on Saturdays that kept juvenile delinquents out of trouble by playing different sports with them every week; from squash to cricket and rugby to ultimate frisbee. Still, no God. I was going to a mall every Thursday to tell anyone who would listen about how great having a relationship with Jesus was. Although I wasn’t talking from personal experience. I was also working in a skate shop that the youth organization owned to help provide funding for the ministries that they offered, such as the Saturday youth program. And I was singing and worshiping with the rest of the people that I was living with on the ministry’s base.
About three months in, everything happened. If I were to continue with the movie analogy, this is when the music would have faded and instead of flashing scenes of different things happening to me, the camera would have focused on a scene of me sitting in a room.
The room is big. It is frequently used to throw concerts, which makes it odd that there is blue carpet on the floor. There are a few white pillars with peeling paint supporting the roof, and two large windows overlooking a second story view of downtown Newcastle. I am sitting on the floor, cross legged, with twenty-two other people, who, like me, are listening to a speaker tell us what we already know. She, the speaker, is saying how Jesus’ death and resurrection is what makes it possible for us to speak to God. She is saying that God is incapable of being in the presence of sin. Holy means, set apart. Complete holiness means that if God and sin were to be in the same space the sin would burn up to nothing until only what is pure remains. That is why it is impossible to speak to God, because every word is sprung from a tongue that would wither to nothingness in His presence. That is also why I cannot hear God speak, because to hear His holy words would melt my ears to oblivion. But Jesus, being God’s son, being holy, became a man, took my sin upon Himself and put it to death with Himself. In that act, Jesus gives me His rightness. He gives me His own spirit, so that I may communicate with Him, and Jesus can be the mediator between me and God, between sin and holiness.
The speaker goes on to say that God is often called our Father. What kind of father wouldn’t want to speak or to hear from their children? A good question. She tells us all to find a spot in the room to be alone. She says pray to God, through Jesus. That’s why when I pray I say, “in Jesus name, amen” I think to my self. Then she says to wait for God to speak to you. So I do. I go to a spot by myself and kneel down and pray. I say something like, “God, when I was little, I asked Jesus into my life. That’s supposed to make me Your son. So if you really are my Father then you should want to talk to me because I want to hear you! I’m going to lay here,” at this point I laid prostrate on the blue carpet, “until you speak to me.” The carpet smelled like tennis shoes. Not new tennis shoes but well used ones, but not like feet. It wasn’t unpleasant. My eyes were closed, and though I knew that people around the room were talking to each other and praying, I couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t hear anything but my own breathing which was surprisingly deep and full, though a bit uneven. I could feel the carpet under me, it was hard and uncomfortable, like an indoor putting green. I waited for some time, but also maybe no time. Time was irrelevant. Then the sharp, salty sting that I know so well came to the corner of my eyes. “God, why won’t you speak to me? I just want to know what you, my Father, thinks of me!” The carpet vanished, I smelt and felt nothing but the warm tears flowing down my face, “If you won’t speak to me, how am I supposed to know that I am even Your son?” I wasn’t laying on the floor; the floor was gone. I wasn’t floating either. I was again waiting in silence, being as still as possible so I wouldn’t miss a single whispered syllable that was something other than my sobs.
I wouldn’t describe them as words, or even as thoughts. They weren’t images, nor were they a general impression. They were all of those, and none of them. They were something like a way of communication that is beyond me, and yet, I was familiar with them. I was being asked a question, “What have I written on your body?” I was shocked. Was this a dream? Should I respond or do I wait for more. Is this rhetorical? Suddenly I remembered the speaker from before talking about how I shouldn’t put God in a box and expect Him to speak to me on my terms, or in my preferred way. So I responded, “Nothing...?”
“Why do you have the tattoos that you have?”
“Youthful rebelliousness?”
“I want so badly to tell you what I think of you. I inspired the desire to get the tattoos that you have so you can always look and see what I think about you. What do they say?”
I looked at my right wrist, then at my left. “They say, salvation and man of valor.”
“You have received Me, and so you are My son, and not just that, but also a mighty man of valor. What else?”
I remembered my back, “weapon of God.”
“I intend to work through you to spread hope, love and peace; all of which I have given you.” The carpet materialized underneath me. The smell of tennis shoes seemed a little more pleasant. I knew what God thought of me, and had truly experienced Him! I began to see, almost at once, God’s activity in my life since before I had a life. The way my parents raised me in the church, protecting me from life damaging sin and teaching me how to live a moral life. Sixty-five hundred dollars in four months! My small home church wasn’t that rich, but my father, He “owns the cattle on a million hills.” (Psalms fifty)
The flight home reminded me of an adventure that had just begun. Like Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins, and Harry Potter, I knew what and who I was. I didn’t know exactly how that would play out, but I could put a name to all the things that happened around me. I could see now, that this is what I always was: A son of God, a man of valor, a servant and weapon in God’s kingdom.
Friday, October 2, 2009
A mornings thought
Selfishness is at the center of every struggle, every decision, every plan set forth by the human heart, save Christ’s.
Perfect relationship; that is, perfect unity, can only be achieved when selfishness is replaced with love. Love that will act like selfishness on the behalf of others.
In other words, love that will be selfish for the well being of others.
When we individually hold ourselves up, there is nothing to keep us from falling, but when everyone is holding everyone else up, nothing can cause us to fall, except selfishness.
Perfect relationship; that is, perfect unity, can only be achieved when selfishness is replaced with love. Love that will act like selfishness on the behalf of others.
In other words, love that will be selfish for the well being of others.
When we individually hold ourselves up, there is nothing to keep us from falling, but when everyone is holding everyone else up, nothing can cause us to fall, except selfishness.
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