Well, I made it. After twenty years away from the classroom, I have reached the end of the first quarter. The initial phase of my return to teaching is complete. Now I sit at home, at my desk: all grades are submitted; afternoon sunlight streams in through a paneled window; brittle leaves rustle gently in the grass; birds sing their fading songs of fall. And I – I am feeling what exactly?
Exhausted. Pleased. Hesitantly optimistic. Unafraid of the start of Q2 on Monday, but grateful that I have the weekend to prepare.
Well, to be more precise, I think my feelings run along the lines of an unexpected conversation I had at a Purcell football game a few weeks back.
“Do you like teaching at Purcell?” a former football player and alum of the Class of ‘95 asked me.
I was like a deer in the headlights. Taken aback by the question. Do I like it? Do I like it?
This job causes me to work as hard as I have ever worked; to expend myself in time, in thought, in emotion, in labor. My work is often thankless. I routinely encounter, on some days, a sense of hostility; on others, despondency or looks of boredom. I have lost sleep while working through sensitive discipline issues with parents of my students. I am paid vastly less than my earning potential. And I imagine (when my thoughts wander) that many of my peers find my move into education foolhearted – especially so late in life.
In short, there are a number of reasons why I ought not like this job.
And yet . . .
And yet there is something in me; something else; something deeper that I could not quickly put into words to the alum who asked me the question.
I paused. “Hmm,” I said. “That’s a hard question. . .”
I looked up, past the stadium lights, toward the purpling sky. I searched my heart; I turned toward heaven for an appropriate answer.
Then I found the image I was looking for.
“Well, imagine,” I said, “that you walk into the delivery room of a hospital at the third hour of a 6-hour delivery. And you ask the mother, ‘Do you like being a mother?’ What do you suppose she would say?”
The alum smiled. He understood.
“She would say,” I continued, “It’s hard. It’s painful. But I am bringing life into the world. And I am willing and happy to do what it takes to do that.”
That’s pretty much how I feel about teaching.
Because it’s a definitely a path to bring life into the world. Moreover, to teach Scripture to Sophomores, as I do, is to be a midwife to the birthing of spiritual awareness in my students. It’s unsung work, but there is wonder in it. There is a springing to life in it.
Take this week, the last class of the quarter. I want to recap for the kids where we are in our journey, so I take them on a Scriptural excursion. Little do I suspect that we might actually reach the place that I was only hoping, so to speak, to point out on a map.
“Who remembers who Elijah is?” I ask the class, kicking off the day’s spiritual adventure.
Hesitation. Blank faces.
“You remember – the one who got taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire?”
“Oh yeah,” several say.
I continue: “Remember how he flees from the brutal Queen Jezebel, when she vows to kill him. He flees to a mountain, comes to a cave, hears the voice of God – not in a mighty wind, not in an earthquake, not in fire . . . but where?”
“In a gentle breeze?” It’s a hesitant voice, doubtful, uncertain. It rises from the back of the room.
“Yes! In the sound of a gentle breeze! And do you remember the question God asks Elijah when he comes to that cave? That question we thought was strange, because surely God knows the answer to it?”
Another tentative response, from the same corner of the room: “Why are you here, Elijah?”
“Exactly! ‘Why are you here, Elijah,’ God asked. And do you remember: we wondered why would God ask a question if He already knows the answer.
I am asking them, again, this puzzle of a question. Why ask a question if you already know the answer?
A pause . . . no one stirs. So I reply:
“Because by answering it, Elijah would come to better understand his own path. He would come to own it. He would come to re-commit to it. God is renewing Elijah’s mind and spirit just as surely as the angel, before Elijah’s 40-day journey, strengthened his body with food.”
Looks of understanding spread across a sea of 15-year-old faces.
“And that’s what I want to do you for you today: refresh your minds and spirits. So I ask you:
“Why are you here? Why are you taking this class?”
Because I have to take it, says one. I need it to graduate it, says another. I acknowledge these as valid reasons and then add, “Anyone else?”
“To grow,” offers a third.
“To grow,” I echo. “I like that. To grow! To that idea, I’d like to add a few more. Let’s consider a few other reasons you might be here and see if they have any appeal to you.”
And now, the table having been set, I dive into what I want to say to these children in this, the final class of the first quarter.
If I were in your seats, and God asked me – ‘Why are you are here, Neal? Why are you studying the Word of God?’ – I’d want to know two things: what does St. Paul say about the matter and what does Jesus say?
Well, Paul has a wonderful text, short and sweet, full of insight. He writes, in Hebrews 4:12:
“The word of God is living and active; sharper than any double-edged sword; capable of piercing the separation between soul and spirit; between joints and marrow; capable of discerning the inner thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
This is a dense text. Let’s unpack it. What is he saying?
He is saying God’s word is alive. It’s not static. It is energais – which is to say: it is full of dynamic spiritual energy; it possesses the energy sufficient to carry out the task assigned to it by God. It is sharp, penetrating, cutting, incisive, more so than the sharpest object known in Paul’s day – the two-edged sword of a brutally efficient Roman soldier.
The Word can also carve between spaces in the human soul that we ourselves cannot perceive. Between the psyche and the pneuma – in other words, between the mental aspect of a person and her spiritual aspect. It can also pierce between joint and marrow, that interior space where only a surgeon’s scalpel was known to venture. And lastly, the Word can discern, can cast light upon the space between the inner thoughts and intentions of the human heart.
This is something marvelous. As Paul sees it, the Word has the power to probe the internal caverns of the human person, her psyche and spirit. Paul says elsewhere (in 2 Tim 3:16) that the Word is “God-breathed.” Theopneustos. If true, this is a breath that springs like all breath: from within; from God’s inner life. It is a breath, then, that is marked, in some way, by the mind and heart of God. Extraordinary. You hold in your hands something that emanates from the inner life of God.
So says Paul. What does Jesus say?
Let’s consider two passages. The first occurs on the last night of Jesus’ life on earth. He is in a private room, in the upper floor of a house in Jerusalem. He is eating the Passover meal with his disciples. He has just initiated them into the new meaning of the Passover, this mystery whereby Jesus himself becomes the lamb, marking the souls of his disciples, setting them apart for a journey into the true Promised Land of life in God. The new Passover is the mystery where Jesus’ own blood will flow – not upon the doorposts of the Israelites as in the Old Passover – but within the hearts of his disciples, enabling them to breathe and move and have their being in the communion of the Holy Trinity. These great mysteries are revealed and announced and inaugurated around a simple wooden table. A lamb is there; bread and wine are there. The center of Christian worship is there.
And now, in this setting, Jesus turns to the Father. In the midst of a long prayer, he adds:
“ἁγίασον αὐτοὺς ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ· ὁ λόγος ὁ σὸς ἀλήθειά ἐστιν.
Make them holy in the truth. Your word is truth.” (Jn. 17: 17)
Hagioson them. Holy-fy them. Make them holy in your Word, which is truth.
Jesus is saying, in other words, that God’s Word is an instrument that can be used to make his disciples holy. Merging this thought with Paul’s, we might say that the Word is living and pulsing with spiritual energy; it is a scalpel that can be used to heal the human soul. To make the soul what it was created to be: to make it holy; to restore it as the image of the divine nature.
It is a lofty, seemingly impossible concept, until we look at another word of Jesus.
One day Jude asks him: Lord, why is it that you reveal yourself to us, the disciples, but not to the world? Jesus replies, in effect: I can only reveal myself to a heart that takes up my Word in love and faith. It is through my Word that I reveal myself: to those who hear and hold it in the heart.
Specifically, He replies to Jude: “If someone loves me, he will keep my Word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our dwelling place in him.” (Jn. 14:23)
In other words, the act of willingly, lovingly, faithfully taking within the human heart the living, dynamic, penetrating Word of God is to take within the soul the very presence of God Himself. God as Father and Son. And if the Father and Son come to dwell in the human heart, the Spirit will also be present. Thus, the human being comes to fulfill her great mission and call; to realize the prophetic vision of Tobit (Tob.13:10) which we saw in class: which is to become, on earth, a tabernacle of the Holy Trinity.
“Do you not know,” says Paul “that you are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16)
“That is why you are here,” I say to the kids. “To learn to become a tabernacle, on earth, of the Holy Trinity. And thus to participate in divine life.”
And their response? Do they say, “Amen! Alleluia!” Do they say: “Alright then! Let’s get to work. Let’s get Q2 started!”
Not exactly. But let me tell you: I know, from 10 weeks of experience, what it looks like when a 15-year-old face glazes over, due to boredom and incomprehension. And I know, too, what the eyes, what the forehead, what the lips look like when a child hears something they find intelligible, palatable, pleasing, acceptable, inviting.
On this day, I saw the latter. The seed dropped several fathoms deep in the soil of these human hearts. There it awaits more water and sun in the coming quarter. I can’t wait.
