To raise one's head?

Yesterday morning as I walked to the high school to speak with one of our teachers, I was “greeted” by one of our high students as we walked toward each other. The greeting I received from him was the now common raise-of-the-head-in-your-direction.

This acknowledgment of the presence of another has been with us for some time now. I remember its use when I was in high school – it may have originated well before my time – but even then it was a form of greeting I simply couldn’t bring myself to use; nor can I now.

I can understand not wanting to stop and have a conversation with another person, either because of attendant duties or, in this case, tiredness. Yet to raise your head toward another person seems to me a very arrogant expression (by saying this I certainly don’t mean to imply that I am without arrogance, nor do I intend anything against this particular student).

To raise one’s head toward another person is to look down upon them. In some way it says, “I’m more important than you,” even if this is not the intention of the one who raises his or her head.

It seems to me that a much better form of greeting is to lower your head toward another person, a nod of the head. It is a form of deference to another and seems more Christian, and more civil.

What are your thoughts? Does this bother anyone else or do I simply think too much?

I wonder as I wander

Today I found myself pondering the same thing throughout the course of the day.

After resuming my teaching duties at the high school Monday, I have been wondering if the very characteristics I possess that have the makings for a very good teacher might not be the same makings for a very poor teacher.

Now, before anybody jumps to unwarranted conclusions, I am not suggesting that the school year will go poorly or that I will be a poor teacher; quite the opposite. Indeed, despite the fact that I gave a quiz on day one and assigned some ten pages of reading and a one to two page reflection paper due (both due by the beginning of class tomorrow), three students have already signed into my class! Everybody always said work was supposed to scare students away…

At any rate, I am very excited about the school year and classes on Monday went very well, if I do say so myself (and I do).

However, after falling behind already on day one, I was left with this observation: I am both overly ambitious in planning tasks and easily sidetracked/distracted/tangented (if I can be permitted to create a word).

Being overly ambitious in the classroom can be a blessing because it gives a certain direction and impetus to planning and teaching, yet at the same time it gives the risky proposition that more can be accomplished in the classroom than is feasibly possible for the students to grasp.

Being easily sidetracked can be a blessing in the classroom because it allows me to answer the students’ questions and teach them where they are (Monday we talked about ugly statues of Jesus, what beauty really is, the beast 666, and cherubim and seraphim; and we were supposed to be talking about the person of Jesus Christ [it all fits in somehow]). Yet at the same time it gives the possibility of never sticking to the curriculum (it’s a good thing the state doesn’t dictate what I have to teach in religion class!)

It is good, I think, for me to be aware of these two tendencies and to seek ways to keep them in a healthy balance each day that I teach.

Idle thoughts of a wandering mind

My Aunt sent me these idle thoughts of a wandering mind:

I had amnesia once -- or twice.

Protons have mass? I didn't even know they were Catholic.

All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.

If the world were a logical place, men would be the ones who ride horses sidesaddle.

What is a "free" gift? Aren't all gifts free?

They told me I was gullible and I believed them.

Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home, and when he grows up, he'll never be able to merge his car onto the freeway.

Experience is the thing you have left when everything else is gone.

One nice thing about egotists ... they don't talk about other people.

I used to be indecisive. Now, I'm not sure.

The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.

How can there be self-help groups?

If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales?

Telephone etiquette

When calling a parish office or the rectory for Mass times, please do not say "I thought I was going to get a recording" when Father answers the telephone.

Not only is this fairly insulting - it insinuates that Father doesn't care enough to answer his phone or that you don't like him enough to speak with him - but it is also completely unnecessary and clumsy.

If you called for Mass times, simply ask for Mass times. The fact that you expected is completely irrelevant and Father doesn't really care. When he calls your house and you answer the phone, Father doesn't tell you he expected a recording, does he? Just a thought.

Thank you.

P.S. - Father is grateful that you called at a reasonable hour.

Another must read

In the words of Father Robert Barron, don't walk, run, to your nearest bookstore for this one.

Last summer when I left for retreat I brought with me Sr. Ilia Delio's excellent Franciscan Prayer. While on retreat this year I discovered her book, The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective.

I was able to read the first couple of chapters last week and I've culled some of the best quotes for you:

As God bends down to love us where we are, we must be open to welcome God in our lives, to embrace this God of humble love and to allow God to live in us in every way. Every breath of life must be the breath of God. This is divinization. The humility of God’s love in some way demands a human response because it is hidden and unobtrusive and quietly sustains life without force or manipulation (11).

How can God be close to you (or you to God) when God seems so far away or not at all? Even better, how can God be close to you when you are totally confused? This is my answer to you: God is a mystery of humble love. It is a mystery that you cannot reason or try to figure out. You must simply live in the mystery (15).

Silence is a language God can speak without being constantly interrupted because God is a mystery of incomprehensible love, and love speaks for itself (17).

Who really knows what happened to Francis [of Assisi] in that church [of San Damiano] or when he was alone at prayer? All we can say is that God bent low to kiss Francis when he least expected it. An unexpected kiss can change one’s life forever (19).

Love is a mystery. When you love someone you know him in a deeper way; yet, the more you know someone the less you truly know him. The more the face of the lover is revealed, the more it is concealed. And so it is with God (20).

If we truly recognized God in poor and humble fragile human flesh, we probably could not bear the weight of the mystery. We would find it overwhelming precisely because of its simplicity. However, this is the mystery of God that Francis perceived (25).

This is a God who loves us so much as to be reckless in love; a God who throws it all away out of love and never tires of loving (25).

Francis understood that God is not remote or distant, a God who has nothing in common with creation. Rather, God is unstoppable goodness – a God who simply can’t wait to give everything away and to love us where we are. God comes to us – that is God’s humility – and we are called to love him in return (30).

…the Father of overflowing love is unstoppable goodness, overflowing into the other, the Son. The turning of the Father toward the Son is the Father’s humility. Humility is not a quality of God, it is the essence of God as love. The Son is the object of the Father’s love and yet loves the Father so completely as to breathe forth love in the Spirit. The Son is the heart of the Trinity and the center between the Father and Spirit, receiving love from the Father and loving with Father in a single breath of love, which is the Spirit (42).

If the lover were to distance himself from the beloved, the beloved would perish from lack of love. So, too, if we emerge out of the loving relationship between the Father and Son, then it is indeed love that has brought us (and continues to bring us) into being. Without the source of love that sustains us, God’s love, we would die (44).
Within that loving embrace of God, our lives are brought into being and sustained in being. As we have been loved into birth, so, too, we are called to mirror God’s love for others so as to birth God anew in creation. For that is how God, the tremendous love of life, delights in his creation (46).

See what I mean?