Words from WW Blog

I received the looks layered with grins and slight head shakes. The looks came from several of the teachers at Timberview Middle School who were wondering if they were seeing things. I was back to start the new school year teaching the same class that I taught last year, seventh-grade language arts.

When the principal called me the week before school started in mid-August of 2020 and asked me to fill in for this class he was thinking, and indicating, that it would be for the first month of the academic year. The first month was then extended to the first quarter…and then the first semester…and then the whole school year. It was an amazing experience that I thoroughly enjoyed, but it was for…the one year!

This past week I received a communication from our new principal’s administrative assistant asking if I would fill in for the same position…for the first week! I started yesterday. The assistant principal thanked me for my willingness to help for the first week, and then she added, “Or maybe two!”

In sharing that news with a few of the teachers who were asking me what I would be doing I kept getting reactions like this: “Isn’t that how it started last year, Bill?”

Yes, but…but, well…this year is different!

And it is! Students will be in the classroom five days a week. There’s no hybrid learning model that will be occurring. Masks aren’t mandatory…at least, to begin with, so we won’t need to go outside and take mask breaks. Teachers won’t have to deal with the frustration of kids being online at home and have to keep asking them to turn their laptop cameras on. Side Point: There seemed to be so many broken laptop cameras that happened last year. It could have been a new entrepreneurial business venture for someone.

What seems to resemble the last school year is the shortage of teachers. There were more teachers who left the profession than new teachers coming into it. Schools are no different than the restaurant industry, commercial businesses, that term we keep hearing…”the supply chain”. I heard on the news this week that our city’s food bank supplier, Care and Share, was having to consider eliminating some of the food bank deliveries they make because of a shortage of drivers. In essence, those who depend on receiving food from one of the food banks may go hungry because there’s not someone to take the food to them.

Our educational institutions are encountering the same labor shortage. An email from our district went out this week urging coaches of our school’s athletic teams to get certified to drive one of the school district’s smaller buses because there aren’t enough bus drivers. Our school has custodian, para-professional, office assistants, and teaching positions that still need to be covered…and Monday is the first day for students.

So…here I am! Sharing my non-institutional-based teaching education, spiced with homespun humor, with inquisitive, hyper twelve-year-olds. They don’t realize my lack of qualification. They just assume my greying hair makes me qualified.

Maybe it will be for just the first week! Maybe it will speed into the second! All I know is that one of the 8th grade social studies teachers does not want it to be long-term. She’s expecting me to cover three weeks in September for her!

One of the most intriguing figures in the Bible is a disciple of Jesus named Thomas. He would be classified nowadays as a late adopter. He comes to believe in the reliability of certain events and words after the majority have come on board. For example, when Jesus has appeared to the rest of His disciples after being resurrected Thomas is not there. When told of the miraculous new life of Christ, he responds that unless he sees the nail marks in Jesus hands and puts his finger within them, he won’t believe. As a result of his hesitancy to be convinced he was given the nickname “Doubting Thomas” to be labeled with for the rest of time.

It’s not like he’s the only disciple to not accept something at face value. In Matthew 28 Jesus appears to his disciples on top of a mountain. It says the disciples worshipped Him, but some doubted. Thomas had some company in those moments of uncertainty.

“The Thomas Complex” affects most of us in one way or another. I’m an early adopter when it comes to certain things like buying new seafood products, trying a new restaurant, or being convinced about the depth of a new idea. But I’m also late to the rally for such things as hairstyle, seeing the rationale for a political viewpoint, and whether riding a new roller coaster is a wise decision. We’re all a mixture of Doubting Thomases and Entrepreneurial Esthers.

And now we see it with the COVID-19 vaccinations, early adopters, late adopters, and a bunch of others in the middle leaning one way or the other. Calling one group a herd of pigs that is sprinting toward the edge of a cliff because they were told to isn’t productive; and calling the other group stupid and idiotic, even Eric Clapton, is just as foolish. People on both sides of the issue have strong beliefs and, whether the opposition wants to admit it or not, some sound reasoning.

“The Thomas Complex” doesn’t refer to those folk who refuse to believe because “no one’s going to tell me what to do!” That’s simply a combination of stubbornness and personal arrogance. On the other hand, no one should rush to do something just because someone told you to do it. That’s like being taken in by the smiling, seductive woman, sitting behind the steering wheel of a new luxury vehicle, as if the enormous debt she has just signed off doesn’t matter.

Wisdom is in shorter supply these days than toilet paper was about 18 months ago. No matter what your opinion is about being vaccinated, wisdom does not cower to pressure. It ponders, considers, and is more proactive than reactive.

I received the Pfizer shots back in February and March, not as a result of someone telling me to, but rather because I believed I should. I was teaching school, around a lot of people and students every day, and felt it was a reasonable decision due to my situation. Others in my school chose not to, and still some others came late to the decision. What I appreciated in that scenario was the fact that no one was pressuring people to make the decision that they had already decided should be made.

There will be those who read this and immediately go to the “Yes, but…” button. We live in America. The day when everyone agrees on an issue may not be in the near future. After all, we’re a nation that began because we disagreed with what others were telling us to do.

It has now landed in the category of traditions. That means the grandkids expect it! To not have it happen would result in whining, deep sighs, and words like “We’re disappointed in you and Grammy!” Chastised by your grandchildren!

The tradition, that has now reached four summers in a row, is a trip to a small amusement park west of Colorado Springs called North Pole. It’s Santa’s Village at 8,500 feet, at the base of Pike’s Peak, a park designed with kids and grandkids in mind. Since their school year begins the first week of August (August 3rd this year!), we plan our grandkid adventure an an end-of-summer-vacation outing, loading the three munchkins up in our CRV and making sure we’ve got Tylenol close at hand.

North Pole does not have roller coasters like Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio or King’s Island on the outskirts of Cincinnati. It has one junior-sized coaster that is more about causing a grandparent to schedule a chiropractor adjustment shortly afterwards, bouncing top and down, jerking you back and forth, as your six-year-old granddaughter sits beside you with her hands in the air.

This year North Pole had lines waiting to pay admission at 10:15. We had never experienced that before, but saw it as a good thing, since the pandemic had curtailed operations for so long and they had difficulty gathering a labor force back.

Grammy and I are a decade or two past our amusement park prime. Our squeals of delight are now more about finding an empty bench to sit down on as the 10 and 13-year-olds run to the next attraction that we have no interest in being passengers on. We do the train that goes at a snail’s pace, the Sky Ride because it’s a nice view, and at least half of the benches around the park.

But then I make a mistake caused by empathy for the six-year-old. The Tilt-A-Whirl that her brother and sister have ridden on requires an adult passenger for her to be with. When her siblings ride it for the third straight time, my resistance can’t take it any more. I ask her if she’d still like to ride it. She sprints to get in line! I mosey at a slower pace to get behind her. There’s no hurry, because no one else is in line.

Halfway through the ride I have to close my eyes and try to focus on something else, like survival and remembering what day it is. I open my eyes long enough to look at my ride partner. She’s laughing, smiling, and displaying the gap in her upper teeth where she recently lost two. My teeth are feeling like they’re about to be pulled away from my body as well!

When the ride stops and the bell sounds to indicate seat belts can be unlocked, everyone heads to the exit at the brisk pace. I am the last to leave, wobbling like a dashboard bobblehead and…looking for an empty bench! It takes me a good hour to get my equilibrium back from the twilight zone.

We spend four hours at North Pole and the grandkids ride everything that they want to ride…several times! It’s a good day. It really is. They see hug the North Pole (an ice post in the middle of the park) and say hey to Santa as we head toward the exit.

Next year, G.A.P #5, grandkid number four will join his cousins. He will be a month or two shy of his third birthday, ready to ride the boats that go around in a circle, and then the fire trucks that go around in a circle, and then the motorcycles that go around in a circle. Do you sense a theme here? Carol and I will do “Rock, Paper, Scissors” to see who stays with him, because he won’t be ready for the Tilt-A-Whirl yet…we hope!

I watched a three-and-a-half-foot-tall boy lug his bag up to the baseball diamond. Two bats sticking out of the end of the bag looked like two radio antennas trying to pick up a signal. He had a bright orange baseball jersey on with his team name written in that increasingly unfamiliar language called cursive. Sports jerseys might be the only way that cursive does not become an extinct species. Orioles laced its way across the front. Hopefully, his team was faring better than their namesake Baltimore franchise.

His bag was inflated with all his necessary equipment…glove, batting gloves (Must be a switch-hitter!), wristbands to keep the massive amount of perspiration from seeping into his glove, baseball spikes, an extra pair of color-coordinated socks, a bottle of Powerade, a towel, and a container of Hubba Bubba bubble gum. His baseball cap was carrying his baseball sunglasses on top ready to be placed in front of his eyes to catch any baseball hit in his direction.

He had the whole package and his parents had helped Dick’s Sporting Goods increase company profits with their inflated “nothing is too good for my child” prices. The boy had all the appearances of being ready for the All-Star Game. I didn’t hang around to see if he had the ability yet to catch anything but a cold.

Speaking of cold, it was early April! April in Colorado reminds me of that girl back in school who was rumored to be interested in you…and then she told you to get lost…and then said she was sorry…and then ignored you…and then hugged you…and then slugged you. That’s April in Colorado, a day of sunshine and warmth, followed by a wet and cold day, followed by a day in the ’70s, followed by a blizzard. You get the picture! Having fourth-graders decked out for a baseball game in weather that requires their parents to be huddled up in blankets, hand warmers, and a steaming cup of coffee is an idea generated by the local Polar Bear Club.

It’s slightly different than when I was a small fry growing up and playing baseball. Our season started in June and ran until the first week in August. No blankets were ever needed, except to perhaps sit on. Hand fans were more the norm.

I walked the five blocks from our house to the baseball field, located behind the high school, and next to the high school’s diamond. I didn’t need a bag. What I was wearing is what I played in.

I didn’t need a bottle of Powerade. There was a drinking fountain that sprayed out lukewarm water right next to the field.

I didn’t have baseball spikes. In fact, none of the kids on my team had spikes. I wore my white Chuck Tanner high-top Converses. My parents had splurged for a pair of black stretch baseball socks with white rings around the top section of the socks.

I was on the expansion team called the Rams. Expansion because too many kids had signed up and the league committee decided to make an additional team. My dad, who had never coached any team and had never played in his growing up years in the 1930s, volunteered to be the coach when no one else offered to. It was the only time he ever offered to coach a team and he thoroughly enjoyed his time with our rag-tag group of castoffs. The antics of another team’s coach angered him so much that he never coached again. But that’s another story.

Our hats had ironed-on R’s attached to them. As the season wore on the R wore out and began to slump like it had fallen asleep in church. My uniform was baggy, uncomfortable wool that could have fit a gorilla. My glove looked like a wicker cesta worn by jai alai players. I could catch anything within our zip code…if I could actually lift my glove! My brother, five years older, used the same glove. Thankfully, his games were never on the same days as mine so we could share. My parents saw no reason to get all extravagant and buy a second glove! That would be an unnecessary expense.

The photo that I still have of my baseball profile from that year makes me smile and feel a surge of warmth. I look fierce and determined, bending down like I’m about to scoop up a grounder hit to the shortstop. Baseball was fun.

There are things from our childhood that we have no desire to ever relive, but there are the other moments, the other experiences, that stay rich within our minds, memories of uncomplicated times, and simple-looking uniforms.

It’s that time of year when I see cars going the speed limit, stopping at stop signs, using their turn signals, and obeying all traffic laws. On the back of most of those vehicles in bold, proclaim-it letters two words are inscribed: Student Driver.

Pre-Driver’s License young folk carefully navigate the streets and conditions as their weathered instructor sits in the front passenger seat. Back in the old days there used to be at least two other heads visible in the backseat awaiting their turns. That was when many of the school systems had a teacher on staff who taught Driver’s Education as a course…for a grade even! Can you imagine someone missing out on being the Class Valedictorian because she got a B in Driver’s Ed. She new Quantum Physics like the back of her hand, but she couldn’t steer a Crown Victoria for anything!

I marvel at the well-disciplined students who keep the tires between the white lines and keep their composure. The money their parents are shelling out is going to be worth it, as it develops a new driver who will know how to keep our roads safe.

But something happens a few weeks after the driving lessons have ended, the license is in the wallet, and the car is under the graduated student’s control. The pedal now goes to the metal, stop signs have become a suggestion, and speed limits irrelevant.

There is a difference between being an educated driver and being a disciple. An educated driver knows all the information, what the road signs mean and what it means to obey them, and what safe driving entails. A disciple, however, incorporates all of that knowledge and understanding into a basic belief system that is guided by that information and training.

In other words, there are a multitude of educated drivers who drive like they’re demon-possessed. Last week, a BMW driver in front of me on a crowded highway did more weaving than my grandmother used to do. I cringe when I see Mario Andretti (Showing my age with that name from the past!) approaching me from behind, obviously late for dinner.

I can’t resist using the same analogy for someone who knows about Jesus and someone who is a disciple of Jesus. We all know of a few people who have been thoroughly informed about the life, mission, and purpose of Christ– can probably even recite obscure passages from the books of Habbakuk and Obadiah– and yet they don’t follow Jesus. They’re used to being the one in the lead, not following in the footsteps.

Not that anyone of us is perfect! Far from it, but being a disciple of Jesus is having that basic belief system that guides you. It’s being grounded in Him and anchored to Him. It’s having the mind of Christ and such a submissive nature that the Holy Spirit leads us.

Let’s get real here! Many of us took the driver’s education course our churches offered that was called Sunday School or Church School, or even Awana Club on Wednesday nights. We learned what the right things to do are and what actions would get us in trouble.

And then we got our license…our freedom…and became our own driving force! It’s how other people were driving their lives and we didn’t want to miss out on the fun. “WWJD” got changed to “What Would Jesus Drive?”, and the answer had been “whatever I tell Him to!”

Our culture seems to be infatuated with the idea of rushing to judgment. Or, perhaps better stated, misunderstanding the reason behind an action or ritual to the point of throwing verbal venom at the person or persons.

When I don’t understand the background of a person, it’s conveniently easy to misinterpret his actions. I heard a simple example of this a couple of years ago during a Sunday morning message given by a missionary who was working with young people in a European country. He had brought a group of teenagers from that country to the States for a tour. One of their stops was at a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game. The teens were unfamiliar with baseball and American customs. When the national anthem was played and people around them stood, they stayed seated, not out of disrespect but confusion. Several people around them interpreted their sitting as being unpatriotic but, in truth, it was cultural confusion.

That episode is a small example of how people endeared to a belief can too quickly be ready to blast someone who is rubbing them the wrong way. The larger issue that seems to be occurring more often is a disregard toward a person’s convictions because they have been judged to be a faint sign of a cultural movement or ideology such as critical race theory, “woke culture”, anti-vaccination, ultra-conservative, progressive liberal, or racism. There is an increasing speed to label because of one word, one moment, one video from ten years ago. It’s like a major league baseball player thinking it’s a fastball coming and it ends up being a change-up. Patience is a virtue, especially when we’re pondering someone’s core beliefs.

Churches have joined in the fray. A pastor’s Sunday message is now just as likely to cause consternation and examination as it stimulates deep thought and reflection. History has told us stories such as the clergyman John Huss, who were executed because of the troubles their expressed beliefs created. Huss, burned at the stake in 1415, had emphasized that Christ is the Head of the church, not the pope and that the scriptures are the supreme source of truth for the follower of Jesus to adhere to. As he was being led to his execution, his condemners dressed him in his full priestly garments, marched him to the cathedral, and stripped them off one by one until he was naked. History is punctuated with examples of preachers being cast out, ostracized, and scorched because of their convictions.

The difference between the Reformation Movement and today is true convictions often never get a hearing because of the reactiveness of our culture. In fact, it seems to me that many are afraid to say row rite anything of substance because they believe they will be misinterpreted. It’s cultural paranoia from a multitude of angles.

Sadly, churches have been invested with the truth of God and the gospel of Christ but are being challenged about their agendas and ultimate purpose. A fog machine has pumped its haze in front of the Cross to pollute the clarity of its meaning. Good-intentioned purveyors of the Gospel have been verbally brutalized. They’ve been “John Huss-ed” by fire-breathing critics who have decided they don’t need to hear anything further before giving their verdict.

Before Huss was burned at the stake he was given one more chance to change what he had been preaching and writing. He refused, and as he prayed, “Lord Jesus, it is for thee that I patiently endure this cruel death. I pray thee to have mercy on my enemies.” As the flames engulfed him, he was heard to be reciting the Psalms. Today perhaps our prayer is, “Lord, I pray for the strength to stay true to my beliefs and convictions longer than the brevity of people’s willingness to hear!”

I’ve lost track of how many years I’ve come to church camp and filled the role of middle school camp pastor. I know it’s been a good, long while since I was using the TV show “Let’s Make A Deal!” as an example and the students looked completely clueless as to what I was talking about.

The thing is…middle schoolers haven’t changed…really. They haven’t evolved into some new form of early adolescents that still needs to be defined and named. They’re still the same as the kids I grew up with back at Williamstown (WV) Junior High and South Zanesville (OH) Junior High. Oh, there’s subtle differences, like with technology and communication alternatives, but at their core, the kids are still the same kids.

Some of them display the need to be recognized and draw attention to themselves, and others like to hide in their shells. Many of them are as hyper as squirrels on steroids. Some of them have reached maturity long before their peers and others may still be reaching for it when they’re in their twenties. There are the same insecurities, fears, doubts, and frustrations as there has always been.

This week we’re talking about Jesus to them, his parables, stories about Him, miraculous things He did. The excitement is in having kids discover who Jesus is, but the danger is in creating this picture of Jesus that they can’t relate to, or end up seeing as just another one of The Avengers, a Superman with many episodes. I need to keep reminding myself that Jesus, long ago as it was, passed through adolescence Himself. He had once been twelve and then thirteen. It’s probably hard for some people to admit it, but Jesus went through puberty just like my campers are going through.

So how are my middle school camper a reflection of Jesus?

We’re stressing the idea this week of respecting one another and what that looks like. Respect is one characteristic that Jesus conveyed on those He encountered. Those who His culture cast to the side as void of worth, Jesus drew close to Him and treated them as valued and loved. Today many “arriving teenagers” have taken their cues from the adult world around them that there is a tiered-system that people are fitted into that conveys their importance or minimizes their essentialness. The kid at school who nobody picks as their partner for an activity has come to understand that he is and unnecessary part of his educational community.

The thing is, Jesus would have sat down with that kid and eaten lunch with him…maybe offered him some of His grapes or figs. On several occasions He told His followers that those who want to be first in God’s kingdom need to go to the back of the line and experience servanthood. That’s a hard thing for middle school kids to put into practice. They understand it, but being a reflection of Jesus in the midst of their peer group is faced with a certain level of anxiety and dread.

And yet, that’s how Jesus was, an adolescent who treated everyone with respect and worth. That’s what I’m praying for my camp kids this week. It has merit, and yet the challenges incorporated into it between clearer as our camp week goes along. The kids who are more of a handful become more difficult to love. the kids who demand attention become the ones that are prone to be ignored. The immature cause the rolling of eyes and the testing of patience in the more mature.

Having a young adolescent be a reflection of Jesus is a hard, hard, really hard thing to happen…but, Wow!, it’s a goal worthy to be strived for!

The ways of God are sometimes as clear as a mud puddle in the midst of a path. When someone tells me they can see what God is doing, I pause and ponder. The ways of the Lord are His ways, affected by the cries of His people, applauded by their praise, but often mysteriously confusing.

Some followers of Jesus probably disagree with me on those words. I have no problem with that. The solid foundation of their faith may be as firm as my late grandfather’s jawbones, set and unchanging. For me, however, I wrestle with the different directions the Almighty can travel. It’s the tensions of the faith journey.

For example, fervent pleas of prayer are offered up for different people afflicted with devastating illnesses. Some end up with people surrounding their hospital bed for their final moments of life, while others recover, experience healing, and become living witnesses to the power of prayer and the touch of God’s hand upon their lives. Why are both ends of the spectrum the results?

Why are followers of Jesus divided into a multitude of camps in regards to what are the most important elements of being a person of faith. Some emphasize the amount of water used in baptism and when baptism should occur; some emphasize the leading of the Holy Spirit and others never even mention the Spirit; and some emphasize the preaching of the Word while others “wait for a word from the Lord.”

Why are we called to live by faith and not by sight, but also called to see what God is doing around us? Why did Jesus call an assortment of common folk to be His lead disciples, but we become enamored when a celebrity of some kind becomes a Christian and is treated like he instantly has all the answers about faith? Why does it seem that some people are always living in pain– relationally, emotionally, mentally, physically– and others never seem to have any hint of unrest?

Why do some people become followers of Jesus, passionate and enthusiastic, but then fall away as quickly as the leaves dropping from the front yard maple tree in mid-October?

Why does God seem so close one moment and a distant cloud the next? Why do I seem to hear His whisper one day and experience the silence of God the next?

By this time some of you might have elevated me to the top of your prayer list and are sighing deeply in your wondering. But some of you are understanding the tensions of faith that I’m talking about.

And here’s the thing! If I, or we, had everything figured out and following Jesus was as clear as the lenses in my glass frames (that were wiped off with a cloth this morning), we would depend on God less and go our own way more. Kinda like a child who has matured from childhood and adolescence and no longer needed his parents’ supervision and help. You know what I mean? That point in life when one’s parents become more like advisors who we talk to a couple of times each week when we’re wondering what they think about a situation.

If faith didn’t have any tension in the mix we might become complacent and self-absorbed.

So I’ll continue to wonder why one person succumbs to cancer and another goes into remission? Or why one follower feels the closeness of God while another follower is wondering if He’s even there? I’ll live in the tension and the uncertainty of there really being a right answer. I’ve always enjoyed mysteries and, like an Agatha Christie novel, the answers to the mystery become clear…at the end.