Category: good for the soul

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blown away by the beauty

I left my class tonight feeling better than I have in a long time…all it takes is one student  to get it. To get me. To dare, for a moment, to reveal a little bit about herself and start a dialog with me…herself…the world.

It makes everything worth it. Until the next time. Because, there’s always a next time. There’s always a new student. There’s always a need.

You see, I don’t teach traditional students, and certainly not in a traditional setting, so it takes everything in me to figure out what I need to do to break down their walls…break past their barriers…help them see that they have a voice. They have important things to say.

Part of it is helping them see that they are beautiful. That where words have been used to hurt, they can now be used to inspire, or heal, or change, or anything they want them to be.

As I was leaving, a student came back to tell me that she was going to enjoy this class because, as she said, “Words are my thing.”

I understand that. They are my thing, too.

But there are many different ways to communicate. With music. Painting. Dance. And this amazing music video in ASL. There’s a fantastic message for all of us in this beautiful interpretation of Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful.”

 

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this little light of mine

I’ve had this on-going conversation with a friend for several years — it goes like this:

“I hate my job.”

     “No. You don’t.”

“My students make me crazy.”

     “You love them.”

“They are a mess.”

     “God put you there to bring order to their chaos.”

I usually come in from the ledge at that point — but I do so grudgingly. I never thought that pursuing a career in education was akin to ministry, but there you have it.

To be honest, I never wanted to be a teacher. Ever. I wanted to be a writer and imagined myself living as some bohemian artist in the East Village. Whatever. Like you didn’t want to be a fireman or an astronaut, right?

What I never expected was that my dream would be so closely tied to my career.

It has become painfully evident to me that God has called me to this place, and to my shame I have come kicking and screaming. I know my fault; it is the same one I’ve struggled with my whole life. I want to serve God, I do…according to my will, not His. Note to self: God is all-powerful and all-knowing and patient. Really really patient. The moral of the story? I never stood a chance.

So I resisted. In my resistance I missed a little detail. I am a writer. In all those years I’ve pursued my dream, writing on scraps of paper and filling notebooks, I’ve also been carrying over those skills into the classroom.

God married my avocation to my vocation. I am slow to see these things.

The realization, though, doesn’t make it any easier to bear. The modern classroom looks nothing like the textbook scenarios I encountered in my methodology courses. I am sure those model classes exist. I am equally sure that I will never witness them.

Recently, The Chronicle of Higher Education published a commentary piece by an adjunct professor who vented about those very things I face in the classroom. The article has gone viral, no doubt because of the writer’s naked honesty and frustration. It is mine.

But my friend’s comments ring loudly in my ears. God has placed me here to bring order to their chaos.

The adjunct’s vent complains but doesn’t offer solutions — just a vague call for reform. A reform, by the way, in a system that is bigger, but weaker than the sum of its parts. A system where the best change is done one person at a time.

Of course, it requires my abandonment to God’s will, which is easier said than done, for me, anyway. And then I happen across St. Paul’s letter to Timothy, and have to come to terms with this reality:

But you, be self-possessed in all circumstances; put up with hardship; perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill your ministry.

Really?! Fulfill your ministry? These are not words I want to hear. It is hard. But I come in off the ledge and go back to the classroom. God’s plan placed me there — let me work it to His glory.

I find comfort in St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers and journalists, but also teachers. He said, “There is nothing which edifies others so much as charity and kindness, by which, as by the oil in our lamp, the flame of good example is kept alive.”

His use of the lamp and flame delights me because I am always drawn to the imagery of light in scripture. I just now made the connection with the lamp of learning so often used as a symbol for education.

The call to the light, and a desire for charity and kindness have always been a part of me. And I’ve always brought it into the classroom, even when I wasn’t aware of it.

I told you I was slow.

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Our Lady of Charity finds a home in Atlanta

I used to think that all the driving around I did was because I was always hauling children — mine, and other peoples’ kids — all over the place for the multitude of activities in which they participated (and by default, I ended up as team mom, concession director, stage mom, booster minion, ticket master, chaperone, chief cook, and bottle washer).

No.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I just like to drive. And I like adventures.

Which brings me to today’s mission: I drove into the city of Atlanta to visit a tiny statue squirreled away in a side altar. You know there has to be a story here because even I have my limits.

Well, not really, but there is a story. It started last month when I was in Miami for my birthday and took a little trip to the Ermita de la Caridad, the national shrine of Our Lady of Charity, patroness of Cuba. A dear friend accompanied me, and asked more questions than I could answer, which led to some more things, and suddenly I found myself exchanging emails with some very interesting people.

In one of the exchanges was a request to find anywhere in the world where there is a statue of Our Lady of Charity. Well, I knew there was one in the Archdiocese of Atlanta because of the annual celebration, but I didn’t know where. A friend of mine, a newly ordained deacon who happens to be Cuban, told me she was on one of the altars at the Cathedral.

Impossible, I think. I grew up going to that church. The altars are gold mosaics with bas relief images. No virgencita there, my friend.

So I went to the Cathedral of Christ the King to find out for myself. I walked into the beautiful cathedral and was suddenly transported back to my childhood when I was a student there. I stood in the back, taking it all in and letting that wonderful feeling of being home wash over me.

I realized that Mass was going to begin soon and I didn’t want to be a distraction (and I wanted to stay, too) but I also wanted to find the statue. Was she really at an altar? Was she in the hall behind the sacristy? I panicked a little, thinking I was going to have to get permission to wander around.

Suddenly, she revealed herself to me. It was so strange. I happened to be standing in just the right place, at just the right angle to look between the columns towards the altar on the right, and there she was, beckoning me. If it’s possible to make eye contact with a statue, I accomplished it. That’s quite a feat, too, cuz boy am I near-sighted.

Do you see her? On the right?

Better? No? Here you go, then…

Isn’t she just like our moms, patiently waiting in a corner watching for when we get home?

This particular statue has a fascinating history. The Archdiocese of Atlanta has celebrated September 8th, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary — also celebrated as the feast of Our Lady of Charity  by Cubans– since the 60’s when Cubans began arriving in Atlanta in large numbers. It was a beautiful way for these exiled Cubans, alone — very alone in this new country, to connect with each other, and connect with the community and the Church under the welcoming and comforting mantle of their beloved virgencita.

Many years ago, a woman, a young wife and mother, came to Atlanta with her small children to visit her husband who was incarcerated at the federal prison here. She had traveled with the statue, and upon learning that the Archdiocese was using only a painting of the Blessed Virgin, offered the good people from the office of Hispanic services the use of her statue for the annual event. Grateful, some representatives from Catholic Social Services went to her home to pick up the statue. After the celebration, they returned to her home with the statue and discovered that there was no sign of the woman. Further investigation revealed that there was no person by her husband’s name incarcerated in the area.

Her appearance…and subsequent disappearance have remained a mystery for decades, but thanks to that miraculous appearance, Our Lady of Charity has found a permanent home in the cathedral.

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