Barney & St. Augustine

From time to time students will mention that their big brother/ grandmother/ one or both of their parents doesn't go to church. This usually crops up when we discuss the 4th Commandment, Honor Thy Father and Mother. My standard response is that, as children, they don't have any authority over their parents, but that they should certainly pray for whomever they wish to be closer to God.
 
This year was a little different, and I didn't have to mention anyone's relatives. I started by discussing the 15-year period in my life that I didn't take God seriously, and used that as an intro to that famous sinner St. Augustine (who has a city named after him in Florida, but it's pronounced differently). I explained how his mother, St. Monica (who has a beachtown named after her in Spanish) prayed for about 15 years (!) that her dissolute son would have a change of heart and return to the Christian faith of his childhood. Eventually Augustine did just that, and in time became a great saint. Maybe someone prayed 15 years for me, too; not that I'm a saint, but if anyone has relatives they wish were closer to God, do as St. Monica did and pray for them.

"Now, everybody, sing along!
I love you, you love me,
We're a happy family
With a great big hug
And a kiss from me to you,
Won't you say you love me too"

You should see all the laughing faces as the kids join in singing the theme song from Barney the Dinosaur...one reason they're laughing is that it makes no sense to be singing Barney in Wednesday Night Sunday School. Another reason is that they're too old to watch now, but it's fun to remember when they were little kids...now that they are 11 or 12 and too mature for Barney.

"Hey, how many of you used to watch Barney when you were little?" Nearly every hand goes up.
"Who still watches?" No one, except a couple who sheepishly admit they still do sometimes.
"Why don't you watch anymore?
Well....it's for little kids. 
If you watched it now, how would you like it?
We'd be bored. 
Why would you be bored? You used to think it was interesting.
Because we're smarter now...we're older.
Right. You're older, you know more now, you want something more interesting. Stuff from when you were 4 years old doesn't engage your brain anymore. This is the problem a lot of people have with taking God seriously as they get older. Y'all are going to be done with Wednesday Night Sunday School in two more years, after you are Confirmed. That's the last time many people learn about God. Imagine when you're a grownup that all you know about God is what you learned when you were 13. Can you guess how boring God will seem? More boring than you think Barney is right now. This is why you have to keep learning about God all your life: God is way more interesting than Barney, but an adult that has a kid's knowledge of God is going to think Barney and God are both for kids. Some people you may know have this problem; like St. Monica, you should pray for them. And as you get older, make sure you keep learning about God and his Church so that it's never boring to you.

That way nobody in your family will someday be praying for you to come back to church."

Recaps

Each class usually starts with a recap of the previous class, not to exceed 5 minutes. The recap is done from a sheet of notepaper which has maybe 5 words or phrases I wrote down after the previous class. I punch holes in the notepaper and it goes in my class binder in front of this week's lesson plan. If time permits, the recap may have some new ideas as well. New ideas will always tie the recap to something else: a Bible story, something Catholic, something they already learned, or something that they'll be learning in the future, i.e, anticipating a future lesson.

For example, last week we finshed up with a bit about Elisha & Elijah using Elijah's cloak to cross over Jordan on dry ground (2Kings 2). Part of this week's recap added a reenactment of Elijah putting his cloak over Elisha in the field to show Elisha would succeed Elijah (1Kings 19); using the chicken bone relic to remember that Elisha's bones brought a dead man back to life (2Kings 13:20); and finally recalling that Elijah, who was taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot, later appeared talking with Jesus at the Transfiguration (Matt17).

God's grace, God's power, can go through physical things. This theme prepares the class for understanding Sacraments.

Later on, when we learn about Elisha and Naaman as a prelude to baptism (2Kings 5), they'll already have some idea of who Elisha is.

30-Step Program

Having 30 evening classes (about 50 minutes of teaching time) to cover the content of a 180-class textbook has been a productive challenge. The kids are burned out from a regular school day; they are here because they have to be; it's not like, y'know, real school; and if you warm the desk a minimum number of times, you pass.

Among the ways I've chosen to stuff eight great tomatoes in the itty bitty can is to use Bible stories, often acted out with the kids' help, to engage their imagination and attention. I'm sure everyone who teaches Christianity to kids does this. I learned oodles of Bible stories as a child myself. The thing is, I didn't learn how to connect them to one another thematically, and to see how they interrelate to create a Biblical Catholic worldview...which they do. In our class, with time being worth about $7/gallon, we can't learn a story without extracting lessons from it on the spot, but usually lack time to treat more than one or two points.

For example, in the Healing of the Paralytic there are these ideas the kids can grasp:

Intercession, both physical & spiritual;

The relationship between faith and works;

The relationship between spiritual and physical illness;

The power to forgive sin;

Jesus' way of asking questions instead of just handing out information;

Pride vs. humility.

All these ideas, once learned, will apply to to other lessons. However, the chapter of any given week may only need one of the above points, which works against spending, say, 15 minutes to develop a fuller sense of the story. The teacher's manual has both Bible and Catechism references for each chapter which are valuable, but mostly for a 180-day academic year. I'm thinking that there may be a way to teach the required content better over 30 classes by mining selected stories one at a time, and applying those lessons to the subject matter in the book.

At this point it's just an idea.

My Fabulous Wife

I was at Mass today, beside My Fabulous Wife, and after communion was reflecting on my many blessings, especially My Fabulous Wife, and how much more I love her now than I did 20 or so years ago when we wed.

Don't you just find cars endlessly interesting? Of course you do. (I am not digressing!) And what could be more fascinating than learning that the process of seating a new engine's compression rings may shed some light on marriage, which is even more interesting than cars? (any single men out there, I promise you this is true)

Let's examine this bit concerning the all-important break-in period for a new engine:

"The first few hundred miles of a new engine's life have a major impact on how strong that engine will be, and how long it will last. The main purpose of break-in is to seal the compression rings to the cylinder walls. We are talking about the physical mating of the engine's piston rings to their corresponding cylinder walls. That is, we want to wear the new components against one another until a compatible seal between the two is achieved. This process will ensure longevity."

See how easily this paragraph can be edited:

"The first few years of a new marriage have a major impact on how strong that marriage will be, and how long it will last. The main purpose of break-in is to seal the husband to the wife. We are talking about the physical & spiritual mating of the man and the woman. That is, we want to wear the new spouses against one another until a compatible seal between the two is achieved. This process will ensure longevity."

Notice the process of wearing against one another is not a bad or disagreeable thing- it's good and necessary. It's the process by which the two parts, at first being mutually unfamiliar, become 'compatible' and 'sealed.' They each rub the rough spots off of the other for a good and long-lasting fit. If break-in is done properly, there will be virtually no more wear on these parts for the life of the engine. Also note that this compatibility is not interchangeable with other piston rings and cylinder walls. It's unique to each pair of components.

And that's been a key to our happy marriage, I think: our rough spots (most were mine) were rubbed off pretty quickly. Rather, we let our rough spots get rubbed off pretty quickly. And the husband & wife having been compatibly sealed, our marriage burbles contentedly like a smallblock V8, with virtually no wear and tear.

Sticks & Stones

Yesterday we covered the week's material with about 5 minutes to spare. I never let class out more than 15 seconds early, and have little punchy lessons ready to fill in. One of the things we discuss later in the year are Sacraments, so they should understand that God can channel his grace through physical things which are not just symbols.

Tonight's quickie is based on part of 2 Kings 2:

[Elijah and Elisha] stood by the Jordan. Elijah took his mantle and folded it together and struck the waters, and they were divided here and there, so that the two of them crossed over on dry ground.

And Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven.

And [Elisha] saw Elijah no more. He also took up the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and returned and stood by the bank of the Jordan.... He took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and struck the waters and divided here and there; and Elisha crossed over.

I take off my jacket, roll it up, whack the floor, and first play Elijah crossing over with Elisha, then turn around and cross back over alone as Elisha.

The kids ponder these questions:

Elijah had God's favor....why didn't Elijah just pray for the river to part? Wouldn't God have listened?

Why did he hit the water with his cloak?

Elisha used the cloak to hit the water, too....was he being superstitious? Did he think the cloak was magical?

The class wasn't too sure about the right answers, which was fine; they were piqued, though, and the brains were spinning. Time to shift gears. I pull out my Moses stick, I make the kids tell me the story of the water from the rock. I hit the 'rock' (a desktop) and ask: why didn't Moses just pray for water?

Well, God told him to hit the rock.

Right. But why didn't God just make the water come out of the rock without having Moses hit it? No firm answer.....

OK, suppose Moses had just prayed quietly and God made the water flow, what would people have thought?

That it wasn't a miracle.....that's why he hit the rock! To show people, so they would know it didn't just happen!

Yes! Genius at work! Now suppose Moses decided the stick business was silly and only a symbol, and instead he just touched the rock with his hand, would that've worked?

No!

Right....but why not? Time's running out, I give a quick answer: because God's grace worked through the stick. To see if they get it, I ask, if you have a baptism, and do all the prayers, but skip the water, are sins washed away?

No!

Good answer, because the water is more than a symbol, and we've run 7 seconds past dismissal, so see you next week! Read chapter 9!


Salient points:

Something organized is held in reserve to fill in available time.

Props are helpful.

When the children have trouble with a line of questions, try another line that they can answer and draw conclusions from, which they can then apply to the first line. We didn't have time to come back to Elijah's cloak, but we can tidy that up in the near future.

They'll have to apply this knowledge later on to something else.

Both stories, briefly presented, can be added to & referred to for the rest of the year, e.g., Elisha & the Jordan will connect to the cleansing of Naaman (which in turn will connect to Baptism), Elijah going to heaven connects to the Transfiguration, hitting the water with the cloak connects to the parting of the Red Sea, striking the rock, etc.

Scabby People & that Grimfaced Nun

 

One night decades ago I was watching TV; that nun, Mother Teresa, was on the Tonight Show. I knew she'd won a Nobel prize, took care of scabby people all day, and looked grim as cancer. What could she possibly talk about that would be, if not entertaining, at least not unpleasant? Curious as to how this was going to work, I didn't zap immediately to another channel.

So she comes out, sits down: outfit from Big Lots, Quasimodo posture, Vietcong sandals. She is asked the usual stuff about her what, career, I suppose, and..... she is absolutely incredible. After a couple of minutes I think she may be the most serene, happy person I have ever seen. She smiles, her eyes twinkle, she's animated. And she says stuff, I can't believe she means it:

Jesus spoke to her on a train, said to go to Calcutta and take care of the poorest of the poor- and so she did!

And how does she keep on caring for these poor, dying unfortunates day after day, year after year? Well, she sees Jesus in each one of them, there you go! Why, Jesus himself said plain as day, "I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me." And, "as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." Yep, he said it alright, in Matthew 25. I can read.

She was saying this stuff just as plainly as I'd say, "I can't believe it's Tuesday." Lady, it can't be that simple, can you really think like this? Can anybody? Can you really see Jesus in the least of them? Your whole life is cleaning sores or whatever, how can you be so bright and happy? Why aren't you miserable? I sure would be.

And then Mother Teresa's visit was over, the happy little arthritic confounding mystery.

For a couple of years I percolated on these few minutes, browsed a Mother Teresa coffee-table book or two. The bluntness of her life was compelling: God says do x, she does x. No intellectualizing, vacillating, plea-bargaining, just action. And she was happy. I had a family, and other reasons (not all of the finest quality) for not doing The Mother Teresa Thing, but felt drawn to her simple motif of faith/action; or as James'd put it in his Epistle, faith/works. And Jesus' instructions in Matthew had bugged me way, way longer than M.T. (since 1981). I wasn't doing any of that stuff, and didn't plan to, either. But she took one of the most annoying things Jesus ever said and made a life out of it.

I envy people like St. Paul: Jesus knocks him off his horse, personally scolds him, blinds him....who wouldn't swap a heart of stone for one of flesh after that? I wasn't on the receiving end of such drama, nor had Jesus spoken to me on a train; but I'd been prodded enough over 15 years to take a baby step or two.

After a Mass, I told my pastor Fr. Day how impressed I was by Mother Teresa's way of living out Matt 25, and said, "The thing is, she steps out her front door every day, and sick people are right at her feet. I step out, all day long there's not a wretch in sight." Fr. Day smiled & said, "If you want to visit the sick I can help with that."

So I began to visit the sick, all thanks to Mother Teresa.

The Tonight Show gets some credit too.

It's Casual

There are things in life that we see, or hear, and remember for no particular reason. The memories lie dormant, only to pop up years, or even decades later, and provide critical positive (or negative) life lessons.

I saw the movie, "The Landlord," (1970) when I was 13 or so. Beau Bridges plays Elgar Winthrop Julius Enders, an undirected man born into privilege. As IMDB says:

"At the age of twenty-nine, Elgar Enders "runs away" from home. This running away consists of buying a building in a black ghetto in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. Initially his intention is to evict the black tenants and convert it into a posh flat.....soon he has other thoughts on his mind. He's grown fond of the black tenants....."

Eventually Elgar fathers a child with one of his tenants. In the penultimate scene, after the mother gives birth, a disengaged Elgar visits her in the hospital, just to be polite: shirttail hanging out, hands in pockets. He asks her if she's going to keep the baby boy. She says no, she's putting the baby up for adoption. As Elgar's leaving, she adds that she hopes the boy is adopted by a white family, "so he can grow up casual... like his father."

The last scene shows Elgar returning to his building with his baby son, full of newfound purpose and responsibility.

I didn't think about this movie again until.... I was 29, too: going out, getting & spending, owning a bunch of cars, having fun. Then out of the blue one day that contemptuous line came back to me, and it served as a much-needed reminder that my 'adult' life should be something more than what I'd let it be thus far: casual.