Taste

Someone recently told me about a sermon where the preacher said that anyone who drinks only does it to get drunk because the stuff tastes so bad that there is no other reason to drink it. I suppose that the idea was to get people to lay off alcohol because tastes bad.

Well, I got to thinkin'. It seems to me that many believers today are rebelling against denominational stances against alcohol because they have found that the prohibition against it does not jive with conviction in the veracity of scripture. But, this has left many in an uncomfortable position of having to justify their own abstinence. This, to me, is sad.

Abstinence for a believer does not have to do with how something tastes, or how healthy it is, or its color, or even how other people feel about it. For a believer the standard is Jesus. Whether you drink or not, whether you abstain or not it is for the glory of the Lord. Taste, What other people do or the current phase of the moon does not matter.

I hope for myself that I will be able to quit saving face with man to be obedient to God.

Within You

Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within you. I believe that but I don't always get it. You know what I mean?

Well, on Thursday we got 3 Netflix movies in the mail. They were Patriot Games with Harrison Ford which is a great fun movie to watch, Oh Brother Where Art Thou which is also a fun movie and Pulp Fiction, which was a surprise since no one remembered putting it in our cue. Now I have always heard Pulp Fiction was a very rough, but very good movie. To be honest I really didn't even know what it was about, so with an understanding of its rating we made arrangements with Sawyer to do something else while Sherry and I watched it.

It was very rough. The language was intense and extreme. The violence was over the top. Drug and alcohol was everywhere, but for some reason I kept watching. I can't ever recommend the movie to anyone because of that, but there was one thing in particular that made me very glad I watched it.

In the movie Vincent and Jules are two hit men who argue constantly, but they are apparently quite good at there job. In one of the first scenes these two are wearing matching black suits on their way to an apartment to work a job. When it seems like they are done, the scene cuts to them entering the establishment of their boss wearing gym shorts and t-shirts. Later in the movie the job in the apartment is revisited and completed. The job wasn't really over in the first scene. What really happened is that a guy leaped out of a room with a monstrously large hand gun and started firing at the two hit men from point blank range. The bullets never hit them. Behind them on the wall were bullet holes that made it appear that at least one or two bullets must have passed through their intended victims without damaging them at all.

Here is the part that I found intriguing. Vincent and Jules began arguing again, except this time it was about why they were spared. Vincent said it was just random luck, but Jules said that it was a miracle. Both experienced the exact same thing, but both interpreted the event differently. One, Vincent, maybe because his luck ran out was killed doing his next job. The other, Jules, performed an incredible act of mercy because he believed God had intervened in his life. I am not saying that Pulp Fiction was preaching some kind of sermon, but I do think that it illustrates a point well.

In this one vignette about disgusting gangsters, one experiences the Kingdom of God and is transformed. The other, who stands at exactly the same point, who is just as disgusting, who survives the very same shooting does not experience the Kingdom of God, and he is not transformed.

So here is what it comes to; no matter how much I beg, borrow, or steal, no matter how much I manipulate, cajole, or intimidate, I will never be able to make anyone experience the Kingdom of God. By the same token I will never be able to love, hope or believe someone into the Kingdom of God either. As uncomfortable as it truly is, the Kingdom of God really is inside of us, out of reach of anyone except ourselves and the Lord, or it isn't.

Overheard

Today I overheard the following conversation; "Have you ever seen any of the Mad Max movies?"
"No, I haven't, and when I get to heaven I will be able to tell Jesus that I have never seen them."
"Well, Jesus will say you missed a good movie."

Normal Conversation Lessons Needed!

Two days ago I told a student that the "repercussions of his actions could be extensive and costly." A young man on the same row looked at me, dropped his jaw and squinted his eyes at me, and then shot his hand straight up to ask me a question. I called on him and he said, "Mr. Gibson, I don't mean any disrespect, but... have you ever considered taking normal conversation lessons?"

Rhythm

This past week my geography class has been studying culture. We defined culture as those rites, activities, traditions that are shared by a group of people. I know that the definition could use some work, but it worked for our purposes.

Yesterday, I had an extremely talented 7th grade student of mine do a presentation on his drum set about how different culture specific rhythms have diffused to create many of the rhythms we love in our modern music. It got pretty technical, but the students loved watching Lucas talk about something that he loved, and they were able for a period of time to share in that love for music generally and drumming particularly.

And now I can't sleep. My cold has made breathing and sleeping a chore so I am now typing until my medicine takes effect, but I am concerned about this culture thing. Lucas showed us how a simple rhythm could evolve and grow, become "shiny," until at some point it is almost impossible to pick out the original beat unless you were trained to hear it. He was really patient with us and showed us this carefully, and at the end many of us were able to see it.

But, as is my habit, I began expanding the implications of this to other areas of my life. I already knew that diffusion happens in any arena of life that is a carrier of culture like events and diet and law, but I don't always take it seriously. Academically, I know that diffusion happens in more areas than just music. I know that. In fact, I taught my students that culture as expressed in food choices is diffused as diverse groups come in contact with each other and establish restaurants and markets. Celebrations that migrate with their flesh and blood hosts grow as their hosts take up residence in new cultures. Ideas become mature as new thinkers contemplate and add to work that has been begun by others, but there is one area of my life that I don't want to admit is affected by diffusion...faith.

I want to believe that my faith is pure, straight from the gospel, perfect and true. I don't want to believe that there is any part of my faith that has been subject to any one's ideas except Christ's, but we all know that is not really true, is it?

A few minutes ago I was reading a good friend's facebook post about health care and the church. He asked why is it that Christians not only don't do anything to make sure that the poor receive better health care, but we also make sure that the government doesn't do anything about it either. 5 years ago I would have chided my friend for posting inflammatory hyperbole about the church. I would have argued personal responsibility, keep government small, and government management equals inefficiency. I would have said that I am tired of government reaching into my pocket to take care of those who will not work for themselves, and I would have said that it is not the governments job to protect people from the consequences of their actions, and I would have shown you why God wants us to think like that.

Now, I am different. I remember the story of the loaves and the fishes. When Jesus saw the crowd he had compassion on them, and he asked his disciples to do something about it. When they could only produce a couple loaves of bread and a few fish he did not say, "Okay, I guess we are off the hook." He didn't say, "Send them home to get some food." He did not say, "They will become dependent on me." Jesus did not let the size of the problem, nor the lack of resources to fix the problem prevent him from acting. The people were hungry, so he fed them.

Actually, many people did follow Jesus hoping for handouts. Beggars did want to be healed when they heard that he was close by and Jesus healed many of them. Hunger did not go away just because he fed a few of them and illness and disease did not end because he healed a few of them. In fact, I don't think that the story of the loaves and fishes has anything to do with the hungry people. No, instead I think it has everything to do with the disciples. Jesus wanted them to learn to act, to help, to see needs. To me Jesus was playing a very simple rhythm, a basic beat that he wants us to repeat and grow, and now I want to listen to it carefully. I want to listen to Jesus as he is patient with me. I want pay careful attention to him, so that in the midst of all of this conjecture and politicizing I will be able to pick out his rhythm from all of the "shiny" stuff.

Sight

My uncle was a large man. His forearms were thick and hard from laying line after line of brick. I always thought that he was wild with his long hair falling down over his eyes, and his moustache hanging down over his mouth, and mostly with his eyes that danced. Framing all of this was the fact that I knew he was a marine who had fought in Vietnam, but we never spoke of this.

I was young when my aunt married him. They were both carefree and rebellious. When they would visit I used to pause before I entered a room where they were. Sometimes, if I was lucky, I would hear about some of John's exploits that were not meant for younger audiences. One time I heard about a fight that he had at a bar. John was bragging about how he threw punch after punch at what sounded like an army. I was fascinated. Now I realize that this was the cause for his long absence from my Grandfather's house. I don't know if he was in jail or the hospital, but I heard that he won the fight. It must have been something.

There was another time when he was taking my family to his new house in the country. He was excited and laughing. He said, "See this dirt road, our house is at the very end of it. Sounds crazy but it's true."

I propped my self up from the back seat and looked out the front window. A rust red stripe stretched down the hill in front of us then rose again at the next hill. Then it appeared a little to the left as it crested the next slightly taller hill, and then it did the same thing one more time. There were no more hills that I could see, but I remember thinking how large the world was.

True to his word, the house was at the end of the road. A white gravel drive twisted through two fields of corn, by a large red barn, and ended under a large pecan tree that shaded a small white house. We had dinner there. The women, my aunt, mother and grandmother ate in the small kitchen, while my uncle, father, grandfather, and another uncle sat on the porch. While they were eating, I snuck into my uncles bedroom and looked at his dresser. I never tired of it. He had all of his buttons and medals from Vietnam sitting on a small tarnished plate. On the top corner of the mirror was a beret, but I don't remember the color, and just under that, tucked into the mirror was a faded color photo of my uncle and two men. All of them were in uniform in front of a tropical jungle, and all of them were smiling. It was the only photo that I ever saw of him in Vietnam.

When I returned to the porch, My uncle was recounting a conversation he had with a blind man that he met in a bar. My uncle's hair wasn't in his eyes. I remember that he worked hard to keep it away from them, and that he was sitting in a wicker chair holding his tea, and his eyes weren't dancing. For once they were focused, but I didn't know why.

"I asked him," he said, "what's it like being blind? And he said, 'I don't know, what is it like being able to see?' I thought he was being a smart ass so I told him so. He just laughed. I asked him again, and he said, 'really, I don't know.'" My other uncle said that he had heard that blind people see black, all the time and nothing else, but John assured us that this was not what this blind man saw. We all asked, "So what did he see?"

"Nothing, nothing at all," he said.

My dad asked, "How can you see nothing. You have to see something." John said, "No, he said that he never could see, so he sees nothing." There was a long pause and then John said, "How many things do we not see because we never did see them?" John turned his head and looked at his white gravel drive.

I wish I could say that things went well for John and my aunt after that, but they didn't. His hair grew longer and his eyes danced more and more until he was no longer able to stay whereever he happened to be. I don't know where he is now, but I used to think he must be trying to see something that he might not be able to see. Now, as I get older, I think he may be trying something much harder. I think he is trying to unsee things he has seen.

Beginning teachers have a lot to learn, but no lesson is more important than how to hold it, and by holding it I mean holding it. This is so important because the alternative is quite messy. Of course it is obvious how messy one outcome can be, but the other possible outcome is also quite messy. Think about it; an entire class of prurient and belligerent youngsters in the chaotic dawn of their adolescence whose whims and fancies are unmarshaled by their absent teacher who has chosen relief over duty. Yes, this is the messier of the two options.

The room in which I was forced to learn this lesson as a first year teacher was at the western end of the north hallway of building 801. Building 801 was formerly occupied by 8th graders, but had at this time been turned over to a haphazard collection of educational programs from gifted and talented to special ed. The program that employed me was the fledgling alternative program. It was supposed to educate students who were well behaved (meaning quiet) but undirected (meaning failing) in their scholastic efforts. Although the program's purpose was approved by the school board and literature was sent to all the junior high schools in the district detailing the mild mannered nature of our target student, the principals of each of those schools used this new program as an opportunity to help their own well behaved (previously defined) undirected students (also previously defined) by keeping them and sending us their poorly behaved (meaning criminal) and undirected (still meaning failing) students in spite of our many protests.

I was the only male teacher in this new program. My classroom was at the far western (deserted) end of the north hall. I thought at first that this assignment was because the decision makers trusted my keen classroom skills. I soon realized, however, that it was instead because the ladies in our program had conspired against me. You see, they tackled the "hold it" skill through cooperation and confederation whereas I would have to learn how to "hold it" through sheer bull-dogged determination. They, the ladies teaching in the program, managed to have all of their rooms in two adjacent alcoves. This allowed them to assist each other in marshaling their prurient and belligerent students and find relief all at the same time.

Two weeks into the new semester, I was doing pretty well. Of course, we know what pretty well means (I didn't have to leave my class unattended because of an emergency). This was pretty amazing to me because it was during these first two weeks of the program that I first became aware of the previously mentioned fact that the students in my room were not the well behaved, unmotivated students I had bargained for. Nope, instead these were the most difficult 7th and 8th grade students that my very large district had to offer. Well, I take that back. There were those students in police custody, but we are not counting those. With this understanding, I took great care not to have any need whatsoever to leave my room.

There was a close call, however. It began with breakfast. It apparently had a personality conflict with my stomach, and during the first two hours of my school day, I was completely uncertain whose fault it was, and I was just as uncertain about who was going to win the argument. Finally, after dismissing my students, I had a planning period and I had already planned what I was going to do.

I scurried out of the small alcove where my classroom was hidden and raced to the teacher's workroom ignoring the occasional tardy and undirected student on the way. But, as luck would have it, the room that was the target of my quest, the staff restroom, was occupied. I was a bit enraged. Well, maybe I was just peeved, but I thought, "Those ladies, now they are even late to their own class." This mental berating was because all of our plans were staggered so that none of us had a planning period at the same time as another staff. This was to cut down on conspiracies against the administration. It was ineffective.

Anyway, Plan B was engaged and I hurried further down the hall to the student restroom. The student restroom was past our own office and almost, but not quite, to the special ed classrooms that were housed in the building.

Thankfully, my planning was during a time when all of our programs were in class. In school detention, gifted and talented, alternative, all of the programs on my side of the office were in class and would be for a while. "Good," I thought, "I may need awhile.

I found a stall and locked myself in. I was quite content, not just because of my need to be there, but also because for a few brief moments I would be by myself and away from unmotivated, criminal students. It was seven minutes into my siesta when I heard it. It began faintly like a sewing machine and grew into a steady machine gun staccato. It was the sound of a couple dozen hard soled shoes tapping on the hard tiled floor. Next, I heard the faint sounds of small children laughing and talking, followed by the gentle reproving tones of a caring teacher. In my haste I had not taken into account the special ed. department's break times. Now, as I heard the sounds gathering in front of the restroom entrance I remembered how every morning on my way to my classroom I would pass the classroom filled with a dozen or so Down Syndrome boys. They all had short crewcuts, rolled up jeans and thick glasses. They were always active and always happy. It was these same children now gathering outside the restroom who were about to destroy my quiet meditation time.

They came in with purpose and determination to have as much fun as possible out of their teacher's watchful eye. They laughed and they ran and they splashed and occasionally one would use the restroom. I saw it all from the narrow cracks on either side of my stall door, and occasionally I would get a glimpse from under that same door of a pair of black leather shoes scurrying from one side of the restroom to another. Then it happened.

As one set of shoes scurried past my stall door I made contact with the magnified eyes of their owner. The shoes stopped and so did the eyes. For a full second and half we contemplated the intent of the other, then, without warning the owner large baby blues yelled, "Teacher!!" as he scurried up to the space between the door and the stall to get a better look. Suddenly the sound of rapid clicking converged on my door. I was greeted by the sight of a dozen magnified eyes fighting for their own view of the teacher on the pot. It was a silent time again. I was a paramecium struggling on a glass slide. I waved. They said, "hello," in unison.

The teacher waiting on them was apparently alarmed by the sudden outbreak of silence. She yelled, "Boys you better hurry up, or I am coming in."

I prayed, "Dear God, let them hurry!"

Suddenly they all gave up their privileged vista of the teacher on the pot and clicked their way back into the hall.

I thanked God for answered prayer.