I started my drive to the mall this morning (for some ''me" time) thinking about how good it is to be married and to be in relationship with someone. When I am alone and I let my thoughts wander they go down all sorts of paths and usually end up somewhere on the negative side of the road. Just always having someone around aka my husband keeps me from those dark roads of wandering thoughts where I question people's motives and the goodness to be found in the world etc.
I guess the most relevant application to this thought that every human being needs other humans is the guy who thought on his own and planned a killing spree at a movie theater. Whenever I read about events like that one, I think to myself that that person needed some good friends. Caring friends. Solid relationships that called him out of himself and into the good parts of this world (that yes do exist). Isolation is a cruel experience and I think is one of the most damaging products of American culture today.
And somehow my thoughts led me down to reflect about my students. Even with the many headed beasts of problems facing schools today, they at least provide some sort of community for students- which if done right, works wonders; done poorly exacerbates the issues it should combat.
And I reflected on my drive to get my first haircut in 8 months, that I love working with my students in community. I am so inspired by them and by their hearts and the major and minor human dramas that are played out everyday in my classroom. I am full. My friend who is a vet and finds fullness working with cows and vet students gave me a defintion of fullness as having a missional purpose. Something I agree and I don't agree with. Yes, part of why I love teaching and love working is the opportunity to love these kids ( I'm going to start calling them under-utilized instead of under-privileged or lower Ses). But I am going to run run away from the idea of "missions", because there is no way that I am on mission with them. I am not a missionary to them. No way. I am just someone who is with them. And yes, I seek to be in relationship with them. Granted it is a teacher- student relationship but still an influential, caring relationship not the less. Me being me and interacting with them being them and living our lives together for part of our individual journeys. There's no strategy (though I employ many teaching strategies to push and pull them into learning all that they can), but a desire to just be with them.
And I think that most aptly describes what Jesus did when He came down to earth. He wasn't "missional" in today's churchy sense of the word. He came to be with us. He didn't have lists of strategies, he just had a desire o hang out with Pharisees and sinners a like. To bring them into relationship with each other and with God so that everyone could live life together in community. Human dramas included. Iron sharpening iron with a deep sense of being filled and enjoying what goodness this earth has to offer. Feeling connected, feeling fulfilled and loved. Being human as were created to be.
And that's what I get out of teaching and being in the hard to live places. And there are consequences of working on the edge. I cry a lot easier, become more easily angered at injustices in the world and people who I judge to live comfy lives at the cost of what I judge to be humanity. My hearts breaks a lot at the uncertainties of my students' futures that statistically do not bode well. But I am in relationship and privy to a whole lot of wonderfulness and goodness that humbles me and drives me on deep levels. I've given my life over to the lord for his glory and trust the paths he lays out before me. Hard and lovely as they may be. Yes, it is ridiculously hard, but at the same time so joyful. There is so much pain and suffering out there and the burden of it can be overwhelming- but at the same time it is light. Because of every step of the way, the gospel proclaims itself. Christ died so that we may have life and life to the full. And that life is needed, so needed for so many, but only if we get out there and hang out with those different from us, the weak, the sick, the strong, and the healthy. Community is vital to our souls and our spiritual lives. Everyone needs a place to pour out their lives and that place should not be an insular bubble of homogenous thought (like most churches today). Too many chances to be a pharisee. and not enough life.
