Though I am inclined to feel some shame for the way I have neglected this blog, I have had some very valid reasons for neglecting it. First, I finished my PhD (cue raucous applause)! The last year leading up to my dissertation defense (in July 2022) felt like diving headlong into an infinite abyss. I love to write, and it was a tremendous honor to receive the feedback and comments of my committee. And yet, the process itself is wildly disorienting. Now that I have gained some distance from the experience, I can celebrate what was unequivocally a very successful defense! And with that said, I am very glad it is over.
Second, my husband and I endured a traumatic loss while I was working on the last chapter of my dissertation. We had a late-term pregnancy loss—a pregnancy that we had longed for and worked towards for over four years at the time. Our son’s name was Desmond, and losing him is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. It has been about seven months since we lost him. Time attempts to stitch up the wounds, and grief tears the stitches right out. I have come to terms with the fact that my son’s brief life and untimely death have changed me. I am living in the afterlife of it all, where my sorrow has no temporal mooring. I keep meeting people who have survived this kind of loss, which reminds me that this is indeed survivable. I suppose that is the goal these days: to survive. And maybe someday I will offer my own life as a guidepost to others who tread this path. I am certain I will reflect more on this loss in blog posts to come, but today, what drives me back to this neglected little outpost, is my new job.
In August, I began my new role as Assistant Professor at a university in Texas (another contributing factor to the neglect of this blog). I teach an assortment of classes ranging from biblical surveys, to preaching, practical theology, wisdom literature, and even a class I am currently designing on death and dying. My favorite thing about teaching is actually more of an idea about teaching: I like to think of my classroom as a magical container.
When I gather my students together in a classroom, I imagine that our classroom is a unique space in this world. What makes it feel magical, I suppose, is the way our classroom functions like a portal--guiding us into conversations that evade us beyond the classroom. It is a place of intention, purpose, critical reflection, meaningful engagement, and a desire to learn. The container also becomes something of a laboratory. Students have an opportunity to try out ideas, explore questions, and venture into new intellectual territory all within the magical container of my classroom. The container is relatively safe—as long as I uphold the value of my students, and help them to feel seen and socially secure. (And that’s not just a flowery assumption about teaching; see my article “The Witnessing Community: Cultivating Face-Attentive Learning Environments for In-Class Sermon Feedback” in the journal Homiletic). I also encourage my students to ground their interactions with each other in humility, openness, curiosity, and interdependence. In short, the classroom provides a structured environment in which my students are invited to try a different way of learning and being with others.
And it is different. Very different. The mediums by which we learn are formative. Most of my students grew up in homes where information was primarily gained through independent explorations on the internet (i.e., deprived of the kind of communal processes that characterize a classroom), or through the inane cackling of talking heads on tv or Youtube. Many of my students were raised in outrage factories, persistently prodded with the hot pokers of a performative society. They know all too well the pressure to quickly adopt and perform ideas, far better than they know the deep, slow processes of learning and nuancing over time in relationships. Most of my students are severely underequipped to step into a classroom and engage with others in meaningful dialogue. And yet, I would venture to say that nearly all of my students find our current approaches to information and public discourse sorely lacking. Some of them even sense that the mediums by which they have been formed are nothing more than the contorted machinations of a polarized, economically voracious society.
Last week, my students and I read the Sermon on the Mount. Verse after verse, we encountered a vision of another world: one that is deeply, shockingly, troublingly contrary to our present society. We meditated on Jesus’s otherworldly descriptions of a community that loves enemies, turns the other cheek, and gives more than what is asked. We read about a decidedly relational approach to life that values interdependence, generosity, and humility. We read about taking responsibility for our thoughts and inclinations so that we do not harm ourselves or others. The longer we dwelled in Jesus’s sermon, the heavier the atmosphere of my magical container became. The room was laboring with an unavoidable realization: that we have been formed in our society in ways that are fundamentally unchristian. Our modi operandi are geared towards self-inflation, self-defense, individual interest, and the absence of relational accountability.
You should have seen their faces when I paused to mark my solemnity, and told them, “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. The perpetual outrage, the constant villainizing of others, the unyielding tribalism, the incommensurately stubborn and shallow postures we maintain—it’s all destroying us. This isn’t how we were made to be.” And here is how I know they can feel that something is amiss—because I asked them, “Do you sense that, too?” And without hesitation, nearly all of them nodded. I followed up, “What do you think would happen if you went home for Thanksgiving, and tried to practice Jesus’s teachings from the Sermon on the Mount at the dinner table?” One student shook his head with some resign, “I can’t imagine it.” “Why not?” I asked. “Because I’m not sure what we would talk about, if not outrage over the latest political gossip, or how much we detest our political enemies. I mean don't get me wrong--my family has fun together. I love my family. But we have our set patterns of being with each other, and I don't think I could just show up and change that.” Another student added, “I think my family would think I was being stuck-up, if suddenly I came home with all of these high moral standards. It just wouldn't feel right.”
My classroom is a magical container because it is a space where such things can be acknowledged. It is a safe space where my students can wrestle with the inherent risks of meaningful dialogue. They can try on the teachings of Christ, for example, and recognize the challenge of wearing them home. I don’t know if my classes help my students become better humans in this world; I can only hope. But I do know that learning requires practice. My classrooms are a space where we can do just that. I wish we had more spaces in our society that welcomed such practice--more magical containers, so to speak. I wish we had more places where people practiced generous, patient, honest, and challenging discourse. I confess that professors have the tendency to camp out in our ideals, resisting the practical urgencies of life outside of our classrooms. And yet, my faith compels me to believe that Jesus's sermon is not merely idealistic. I believe it is a way we can follow, if we so choose. I have to believe that the pursuit of a better way is not restricted to the portal of my classroom, but could actually be put into practice. Can you imagine what our communities would look like if we critically assessed the mediums by which we are formed, and intentionally pursued relational, christlike ways of engaging, instead? I have a classroom full of sobered young adults who have begun to imagine it; only time will tell what they will do with it.
댓글