september 2009 newsletter...
make yourself comfortable...
Last week, as my European History class began the study of mercantilism and colonies in the 17th century, I screened Roland Joffe's 1986 movie, The Mission, with Robert Deniro and Jeremy Irons. I wondered how my students would respond to this story of a Jesuit mission in Paraguay torn between the colonial designs of Spain and Portugal. The movie brilliantly tackles the dilemma of how Christians should respond to violent exploitation. It offers no easy answers.
As I read through their written reflections on the movie the next day, my heart seized up when I got to one: A Korean student for whom English is a second language, he expresses himself bluntly, wasting no words. He said, "I have a theory about history. Humans make choices to be comfortable. We choose what we want and we do not care what happens to others as a result. Humans are very selfish and proud." I froze, because here, entirely free of Christian-ese, he explained what it means to be fallen creatures and he has seen it in his examination of history. I taught him last year, and he is in two of my classes this year. History has become for him, as it is for me, an intensely personal quest to understand humanity.
Now can I teach him the story of man's Redemption? It's infinitely more difficult to see. Some days, it feels like there is so much less evidence of Redemption than of the Fall. I see brokenness all around me, along with profound loneliness and isolation. I see people - students and colleagues - reaching to be understood, to be known, to be loved, to be valued. Where in the study of History can I find the story of Christ and his redeeming love? I am more compelled than ever to look for it and to share it in the way I live my life.
My European History class is moving into the study of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. We have already begun our discussions of truth. We talk about reason and empirical evidence, and Newton and Locke, Voltaire and Rousseau. They have questions. In a week or two, they will write an essay on the nature of truth and their own authorities for truth. I hope and pray that in their research, at least a few of them will encounter the idea that Jesus claimed to personify Truth. The promise, the hope, of Redemption through Him, then, is True and can be known. Not only that, Truth Himself comes calling our names. He is the Good Shepherd.
I long for some of my disillusioned, intelligent students who see the brokenness of the world to know the hope of restoration. I long for them to see that this is more than the fitful dream of a few deluded fanatics. All the deep personal wounds we have suffered individually and all the vast wounds to the dignity of humanity that we see in history will one day be made right. Death has been conquered. In history. Literally defeated through Christ's resurrection. As Paul put it in I Corinthians, "If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."
Paul goes on to explain that our bodies in this life are analogous to seeds. Just as the seed embodies only a kernel of the plant to come, our earthly lives may bear much more glorious fruit in heaven. Most miraculous, "Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven." I can't wait. I profoundly long for some of my students and colleagues who I have come to know and love, to see this hope. Please pray I will be able to live it out so that they will share this hope with me and with you.
One of September's highlights was the student Talent Show, put on by the Junior class. Since my advisory group are Juniors, we spent an entire Saturday transforming the School's auditorium into a circus tent, in keeping with the theme. I feel the bonds of connection with this community growing tangibly stronger and deeper through this kind of activity. October will bring a week-long trip to Chennai with fifteen students, to a Model United Nations conference there. The degree of activity is insane here, but I find I often lack one-on-one time with students and friends to have "real" conversations about brokenness and about redemption. Please pray that space will open up to explore these ideas more fully. I pray the same for you and your neighbor.
Your fellow pilgrim,
Amy