by

Ash Wednesday

In the dark of the morning I saw a single deer under the streetlight, slowly moving along the curb across the street. It was the time of morning we often see deer crossing from our yard into the yard across the street, passing between the houses and into the woods behind. But it was rare to see a single deer walking along the curb oblivious to potential morning traffic.

We often see them in our backyard, approaching the bird bath near our house from the woods behind or cleaning up the pods fallen from the trees. Usually in clusters of three or four or several more. They share the gentrified land with us, enjoy the leavings of autumn trees, pass leisurely between the houses that form the thruway from one cluster of woods to the other. Seeing them pause on our property is a holy moment, even several minutes of joy.

Usually a cluster of four or five cross our street together late afternoon or early morning. The first checks the traffic just like children are taught to do. Then launches into the street followed by several who are heedless of traffic, but intent on following the leader. They are across in a quick few seconds, making their way between the houses and into the woods behind us in the evening or between the houses across the street in the morning. They are spurred by the traffic, sprinting from one side to the other. They are tranquil, but alert. I have never seen one hit on our street.

It is rare to see a single doe, walking along the street, up onto the sidewalk, slowly disappearing into the shadows of the side yard across the street. She was a doleful sight.

It was probably the same doe we saw yesterday at dusk when we returned from our seven-day vacation. She was only one doe at the edge of the woods, foraging whatever had been left by previous gatherings. She looked peaceful, but we wondered at her solitude.

This morning I marveled again as the unaccompanied doe gave me a look while I stood on my front stoop, waiting to pick up my newspaper in the driveway. She stared for a moment then got up on the sidewalk and turned slowly into the darkness between the houses. Again that feeling– touching the wildness.

I picked up the newspaper and went inside. It was Ash Wednesday. My devotional said,

“I will restore you to health and I will heal your wounds, says YHWH” (Jeremiah 30:17). Felt reality is invariably wept reality, and wept reality is soon compassion and kindness. Decisive and harsh judgments slip away in the tracks of tears.

Alone in my study I shared a lovely reality with the solitary doe before dawn. A misty snow had begun to fall.

 

 

by

My Premature Scoop on the St. Louis Cardinals

Tucker’s 2025 Spring Training Scouting Report

Nolan Arenado

Nolan Arenado    . . .   Looks strong. Hit a solid homer and a double on Thursday and drove in four runs.  Glad we kept him,  even unintentionally.

Wilson Contreras . . . Looks good at first base. Hit a solid home run to center field on Friday. Throws the bat with defiance. Not courteous if you’re not playing at home.

Willson Contreras

 

 

 

Nolan  Gorman . . .  Saw him strike out four times and put the ball in play once. Too aggressive at the plate

Nolan Gorman

Which is why we need . . .

Brendan Donovan at second base. Had a single and DID NOT strike out.

Can play anywhere, but a dependable bat at second base

Brendan Donovan

Which is why we need either

Michael Siani or

Michael Siani

Victor Scott II                                                                                                                      
Victor Scott II

to step up and play center field– both great glove-masters.                           

One of them has to bring his batting skills up to Major League level.

 

 

That leaves NOOT (Lars Nootbar) and Alec Burleson to fill out the outfield. They will supply some power and consistency.

Jordan Walker looks pathetic. Lost his mojo. Jordan Walker

The anchor of the infield and steady offense: Masyn Winn. He can only get better.

Masyn Winn

Iván HerreraMeanwhile Ivan Herrera is probably going to be designated hitter. I saw him short hop a throw  to second base.  Back-up catcher at best.

Pages will be catcher on most days.

Pedro Pagés

The Cardinals are sporting some good young pitching.

 

Michael McGreevyMichael McGreevy

has great breaking stuff.     

Good chance to start.

 

Will Matthew Liberatore  join starters?  Pitched well over two innings.

Matthew Liberatore

Filling out the pitching rotation: Sonny Gray, Erick Feede, Miles Mikolas, Andre Pallante. Steven Matz? ( We’ll need two new starters: one to replace Matz, who will be injured before the All-Star Game.)

Still early spring, but saw some candidates for middle relief:   

Kyle Leahy: Only saw one inning, but good control.

Kyle Leahy

Tekoah Roby: Saw two innings; good velocity

Tekoah Roby

Finally, I have been a Thomas  Saggese doubter, but he drove in the winning run on Saturday, bottom of the ninth. Let’s call him a force to be reckoned with. Rather than a “Doubted Thomas”

Thomas Saggese

 

 

by

The Enigma of Tears

This “way of tears,” and the deep vulnerability that it expresses, is opposed to our normal ways of seeking control through willpower, commandment, force, retribution, and violence. Instead, we begin in a state of empathy with and for things and people and events, which just might be the opposite of judgmentalism. It’s hard to be on the attack when you are weeping.  Richard Rohr, The Tears of Things.  [https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1#inbox/FMfcgzQZTVqLvmFmqMWXXGJnlRTsrSGf]

I look forward to reading Richard Rohr’s new book Ther Tears of Things, because I frequently don’t understand why I am crying. It is sometimes sadness, sometimes grief, sometimes joy, often unidentifiable. I do understand that tears bring relief and should not be dreaded.

Tears are sometimes a release from anger. I cannot stop being angry about the chaos, the ruthlessness and the loss of people’s jobs since the last election. It is anger about what I cannot control. Then suddenly I wept one day, and the tears felt cleansing. The next day I was angry again. Finally I had insulate myself from the news, except for one hour per day. I recommend PBS for this purpose, because they dive into the “why” of the news, and it almost makes sense.

I found two birthday cards a week ago on “Blue Mountain” (https://www.bluemountain.com/). I was helping Victoria select one for a family birthday. As I was previewing the first one, I began to weep, as if it had some significance for me, but it was a cheerful, even humorous, card. When I showed her the second card, I felt nothing. When Victoria selected the first card, I said, “This one is making me cry,” but I could not say why. It did not make me feel sad or happy, but I was moved just the same. I sometimes have these moments, when I cry for no apparent reason.

They say old men are more prone to tears, because their inner resistance has weakened, but maybe we just have more memories to elicit tears. Singing in church, I am sometimes moved to tears, but cannot tell why.  When I sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness” I most always remember that it was my mother’s favorite hymn. She has been gone twelve years now. Am I still mourning or does her memory give me joy? We also  sang it at my wedding to Kathy in 1974. That was fifty years ago. Am I singing the joy of that day or her death in 2016?  Tears are complex as we age.

Just about every movie about teaching makes me cry; I am a career teacher. To Sir, With Love (1967) was one of the reasons I went into teaching, because the teacher was a savior figure who struggled with kids from London’s lower classes. In the end they loved him and composed a song that sang his praises. That worn-out classroom plot gets me every time. I can’t say I ever redeemed a hopeless class in my twenty years of high school teaching. Still I cry for Mr. Holland’s Opus (1989), Lean on Me (1989), Dead Poet’s Society (1989), Dangerous Minds (1995),  and Freedom Writers (2007), all telling the same teacher-as- savior plot that has begun to lose its credibility[ https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/movies-for-grownups/info-2021/inspirational-films-teachers.html].  

When I began to teach teachers I warned my novice teachers that they should aspire to lead (education =  “lead out”), rather than make friends, as the movies may portray teaching. Students are not inherently bad, but if they can undermine classroom stability, they will. You can make friends after you lead.  With all my worldly knowledge of the classroom, if you roll out a movie of a teacher winning his classroom against all odds, I will cry like a baby.  Later I will tell you that the movie makers know nothing about real teaching.

After I first met my present wife I was weeping all the time. I wrote poetry and had long phone calls.  I hate phone conversation. Somedays I would be crying before breakfast.

Previously I had a successful marriage with my late wife of 42 years, but I was overwhelmed at this second chance at marriage. Perhaps I had never expected this opportunity, yet I already knew the perils of married life. I had lived the discord as well as the dream. I knew about how parents interfere. I had lived through illnesses and drag-down fights.  I was not an infatuated teenager. I knew it was from joy, but did I imagine marriage would be bliss the second time around? Apparently. Still weeping at 70.

I no longer dread tears in myself or in others.  I have never seen a person who was harmed by tears. Tears may express fears and loss, they may come inappropriately, they may  cause others distress, but they are usually good therapy, good transitions or helpful discoveries.  You can learn from tears, but don’t always expect a lesson.  They have a life of their own, and they don’t want to explain themselves. They are what they are, despite what your psycho-therapist says.

I cry, therefore I am.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by

Jupiter and Beyond

RoomWe landed on the shores of Lighthouse Cove, Jupiter FL on Tuesday evening and began a week on the east coast of Florida at a “Unique and Charming–Waterfront Studio Cottage”seen at right. Tight, but comfortable quarters with a Murphy bed* and a bathroom as tight as the head on a one-cabin cruiser.

Here’s the view of Lighthouse Cove at twilight:

The weather has been a steady 60’s and 70’s. Florida is just as billed.

Could get used to this.
Wednesday we saw the Launch of SpaceX IM (Intuitive Machine -???)
Planned launch time was 7:07 p.m. After a countdown of two and a half hours, it launched rather suddenly and shot off the platform much faster than I remember the Saturn and Mercury shots.  We sat in bleachers with about three hundred of our closest friends. Locals have advised, correctly, I think, that an equally spectacular view is available on Cocoa Beach nearby, and for a lot less money.  Still, pretty awesome.
Less spectacular, but more fun, in my opinion, the Cardinals playing the Marlins Thursday at home in Roger Dean Stadium and yesterday the Astros away in Cacti Stadium. Don’t ask about the name “Cacti.” No sense whatsoever, especially when the Astros and Nationals play in the “Grapefruit League.” The shots of Alec Burleson (left) and Masyn Winn (right) were taken from seats in the first row behind home plate. Probably once-in-a-lifetime seating for us.
The Cardinals won on Friday, 8-4. Arenado drove in four runs.  What if they had traded him? Blah offense. Yesterday anemic hitting as they lost 3-2. Some good young pitching, however, Tekoah Roby and Kyle Leahy. There will be some competition for places in the Cardinals’ bullpen. Hitters are in pre-season form–sad.
Today we’ll see Washington Nationals back at Roger Dean Stadium. Not a cloud in the sky.

Nothing planned the last two days, which is fine with me. This place invites leisure: reading, writing and hiking.  I would like to remember getting some relaxation this trip. We also have reservations at a restaurant–Ke’ee— enthusiastically recommended by Glen and Joan Corlett, who are veterans of Spring Training.   We would highly recommend “The Cottage,” where we are staying. accommodations for two, but an adjacent room for one more.. Anna Current, a very gracious Vrbo host.  Here’s to one more Cardinals’ win!
*A Murphy bed is hinged at one end to store vertically against the wall, or inside a closet or cabinet. Since they often can be used as both a bed or a closet, Murphy beds are multifunctional furniture.
The Murphy bed is named after William Lawrence Murphy (1876–1957), president of the Murphy Bed and Door Company.[1][2]

Murphy applied for his first patents around 1900. According to legend, he was wooing an opera singer, but living in a one-room apartment in San Francisco, and the moral code of the time frowned upon a woman entering a man’s bedroom. Murphy’s invention converted his bedroom into a parlor, enabling him to entertain. [Wikipedia]

 

by

Bezos Sabotages a Free Press

Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon and the Washington Post, announced a new editorial policy for the Post today. As reported in the online outlet of the BBC, “[The] opinion section would cover other topics [personal liberties and free markets],’ but ‘viewpoints opposing those pillars,’ Bezos said ‘will be left to be published by others’”.

Some parts of this  press release are ironic, some of them offensive, and some are simply affronts to the Freedom of the Press. Freedom-loving Americans should object to these anti-journalism policies and take action.

  1. It is extremely ironic that a newspaper should stand up for “personal liberties” and then declare he will control the editorial content of his newspaper. Do the readers of the Post have no “personal liberties” or is that only for the newspaper owner? What about the editorial staff?
  2. Should the owner of a newspaper control the content of a newspaper? Isn’t that what we used to call “yellow journalism”? Why should one person’s political opinions control what people read?
  3. Bezos’ policy violates the spirit of “Freedom of Press” according to the First Amendment. “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Well, Congress has not made the law, but Bezos has taken the same measures as those forbidden to Congress.

Is it no coincidence that Bezos has made a public shift in political allegiance by donating $1 million to the President’s inauguration fund and then declared he would cover the Inauguration live on Amazon Prime? The President praised Bezos’ curb on editorial policies.

In justification of this maneuver, Bezos said,“There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views,” Bezos wrote. “Today, the internet does that job.”  Therefore print journalism should be curbed, but online journalism should receive the privilege of Freedom of of the Press. Obviously there is a political strategy in canceling print newspapers, but leaving online outlets to speak their minds

The public political shift of Bezos following the election of Donald Trump can only signal courting economic favor with the new administration as much as a sudden change of political ideology. If Bezos wants to line his pocketbook, maybe consumers should attack him in the pocketbook by boycotting Amazon. Break our addiction to ordering products from our armchair. Local business needs our support anyway.

I offer my own promise to stop buying from Amazon until he restores Freedom of the Press to the Washington Post. When the editors signal that they have been un-canceled, I will uncancel my boycott.

I invite who respect the “Freedom of the Press” to join me and recruit others to the boycott.

 

by

Jonah, the Anti-hero

In the next few weeks I am going to write about the biblical character of Jonah. I am working on a book about Jonah as a relevant, contemporary character, who reflects some of my issues as one who considered himself a mature believer.. 

If this subject interests you I recommend you read the story of  Jonah in the Hebrew Bible or refer to my summary in the following post.  I would welcome your comments since this is work in progress. — Bill

The Book of Jonah is found near the center of the Hebrew Bible and is a quick and valuable narrative for you, the reader. In the meantime, here is my synopsis.

  1. Jonah abandons his call from God  to preach in Nineveh and attempts escape by sea. A terrifying storm comes up and the sailors bail water and pray to their gods. They discover Jonah asleep in the hold and find out he is running from his God. Jonah volunteers to be thrown overboard. Though they are reluctant, they finally do throw Jonah into the sea. Immediately the storm calms and Jonah is consumed by a “whale” [ actually, a “sea monster’].
  2. Jonah prays for deliverance and promises to fulfill his obligation to preach to Nineveh. After three days in the sea monster, he is released on the coast of Assyria.
  3. Jonah tells the residents: “Forty day more and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” When the king and the citizens of the city hear Jonah’s message they immediately fast and pray to see if they can escape their fate. Indeed, God does forgive and spare Nineveh.
  4. Seeing no justice against the city, Jonah retreats, disillusioned by God’s failure to act. God offers a parable about God’s mercy, but Jonah is repulsed by the message, saying he would rather die than witness such mercy.
  5. God lectures Jonah, who remains resistant, preferring to die. In the end, God’s mercy overrides Jonah’s bitter judgment.

Jonah is an anti-hero, who fails to find his purpose in life. He is like a modern protagonist—adrift, alienated, and absurd.

Jonah’s xenophobia persists day. True believers do not always accept the triumph of mercy: that was the point of Jonah’s story. We do not comprehend the mercy of God on our enemies. We accept mercy only for ourselves and our kind. Jonah is timely satire to reflect on the hard-heartedness of righteous people.

Jonah’s orthodoxy is the theological equivalent of tribalism. It was my goal for four decades.  I never inhabited a whale (“sea monster”) or preached to a wicked city, but I always assumed my religious tribes, whatever they believed, were the arbiters of God’s truth. In my journey between spiritual homes, mine was always the orthodox one, the believers in “right teaching.” That was important to me. I was no prophet, but I aspired to be one. Like Jonah, orthodoxy was my downfall.

 

by

It Has Come to This

 Today, just a month into the second presidency of Donald Trump, the United States delegation to the United Nations voted against a resolution condemning Russia for its aggression in Ukraine and calling for it to end its occupation. That is, the U.S. voted against a resolution that reiterated that one nation must not invade another, one of the founding principles of the United Nations itself, an organization whose headquarters are actually in the United States. The U.S. voted with Russia, Israel, North Korea, Belarus, and fourteen other countries friendly to Russia against the measure, which passed overwhelmingly. China and India abstained.

Heather Cox Richardson, “Letters from an American”https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1#inbox/FMfcgzQZTVkZGCvHtrxLLkdnhXrWMsfn

When I was a teen-ager the Cold War was in full swing. Politics was highly partisan, as the conservatives and liberals argued about the size of government as they  have today. One thing most Americans agreed upon was the deadly threat of the U.S.S.R., which was spreading its reach .

The Cold War united the most fractious partisans of our nation. Nikita Khrushchev was considered the consummate purveyor of propaganda. Nothing he said on the  international stage was taken seriously. He was considered a consummate liar.

That consensus prevailed until 2016, when Donald Trump entered the White House. For reasons not obvious to political observers, he treated Vladimir Putin as a friend and trusted ally–even an admired leader.

Many supposed that Putin had some knowledge of Trump that compromised him, but it has become increasingly clear that the President truly admires strongmen all over the world, even the leaders of our most dangerous adversaries: Kim Jong-un, Viktor Mihály Orbán, Xi Jinping.  All this has been known since President’s Trump’s first term.

Now the affinity for Vladmir Putin has taken a most dangerous turn with a tacit alliance with President Putin against Ukraine. It has reached the point that the United States has entered diplomatic talks with Soviet Russia for the cessation of the Russia -Urkaine war without even bringing Ukraine to the negotiating table. The abandonment of  a democratic ally appeared inevitable.

In an unprecedented vote in the United Nations this week the U.S. voted against a resolution condemning the Soviet Union for its invasion of the Ukraine and calling for “an end to its occupation.”

The U.S. voted with Russia, Israel, North Korea, Belarus, and fourteen other countries friendly to Russia against the measure, which passed overwhelmingly. China and India abstained. (Cox-Richardson)

I was stunned by this public alliance with a tiny minority of the U.N. membership, tacitly condemning Ukraine and explicitly affirming the Soviet Union’s aggression. It finally divided the United States from the rest of the free world, if we exclude Israel, which has unaccountably allied itself with Putin. The United States officially went on  record for defending its traditional adversary against its recent friend.

I was stupified and ashamed by this public abandonment of a democratic victim of aggression against an autocratic aggressor. From my childhood I have never considered the U.S. an ally of the Soviet Union through Republican and Democratic administrations over seven decades. Since World War II the United States has viewed this imperial nation with suspicion up to a nuclear threat.

Yes, I am ashamed of my country for this tacit alliance with Russia against a free and victimized nation. I disagree with many reversals of domestic policy with the new Trump administration, but those policies can be reversed if a new consensus elects another party to power.

What cannot be reversed is the vote that the United States took in the United Nations this week against a free nation, supporting a dictatorial one. We have rejected our traditional allies and turned our affections toward an aggressive, absolute government with the rest of the free societies of the world looking on. We have allied ourselves with a liar and a dangerous adversary.

I have never said this in my 76 years of American citizenship. I am ashamed of my homeland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by

What’s That You Say?

We were talking about bad listening yesterday, and I immediately thought of people who were not like me.  Judgmental opinions are apparently a symptom of bad listening.

First, let me say this critique on non-listeners excludes any true disorders, which were determined by genetics or trauma.

This is about willful communications failure, which could be corrected with a little effort. Some are more willful than others,  so I begin with the least offensive and progress to the deliberate failure to listen. Of course the categories overlap considerably, so feel free to identify with more than one.

Incompetent: These are the clueless, but are not aware that listening is even a thing. If they realized for one minute how incompetent they were, they might attend to it.

If  you have ever fallen into the black hole  of  categorical customer service on the phone (“for existing orders, press one”), you have experienced this. Obviously you can’t train these mechanisms  to do better, unless they are AI generators. But there are also people like this who are redeemable. For example, Mansplainers: These could be male or female, but they already have an answer before you explain the problem. It’s like your input is not necessary, so just pay attention to me. Disconnected: Hard to explain why some people just launch into irrelevance after you have stopped speaking, but I can only assume they have no experience with listening, so they don’t.

The compulsive seem to have a neurotic need to talk. This excludes  the talkative people who will stop when you signal you are ready to talk, but those whom you may have to interrupt to get a word in edge-wise. They simply have one gear—talking.They don’t spend a lot of time listening, because they are thinking of their next topic—while you are talking.

They need to be distinguished from those who are terrified by silence, who must fill in any hesitations with the first thing that comes to mind. They also are preparing their next response, but for one reason: to save you from a lull in the conversation.

Problem solver: These are well-intentioned, but they are always quickly coming to your rescue. If you say you have a problem at work they instantly have the answer. If you have trouble with a relationship they want to correct it immediately. They feel they are good listeners, but they are not listening, they are planning a counter-attack. Related to these are the Cut-to-the-chase listeners, who are a little more annoying, because they never give you a chance to finish. They want get your problem solved, so they can go on to their problem. A related disorder are the dualists,  who solve your problem by dividing the world into two categories: nutrition conscious and junk food eaters, the athletic and the klutzy, the good and bad listeners. I wouldn’t know anything about that.

Competitive: You know these people, who always have a story, relevant to yours, but a little better. They are worried about coming in second, like many competitive people, so they don’t listen very well. They are getting ready to top your story. Here we start crossing the boundary between the helpless and the willful. Addressing this condition often results in resentment.

Professional: These people would say that “not listening” is a professional skill. They have to do it. They usually have “talking points” either to dodge your probing question or because they simply don’t have time for you .Doctors may not have time for you, but they have canned answers to your neck stiffness. Politicians rarely answer a question either directly or at all. It is a waste of time to interview them, because they will not give serious thought to anything you want to know.  Lawyers and Public relations experts also have “talking points,”  because they are paid to make someone like a serial killer or a toxic waste dumper look better.  Celebrity athletes are like this, but they can be excused by the inane questions they get asked, like, “How do you feel about the most important game of your career?” Professional non-listeners may be better in their private lives, but it is always possible that a parent may use the same skills to deal with their teen-age son’s problems.

Could-care-less: These offenders don’t even try to listen, because it does not matter to them. There are the daydreamers who are dependably imagining their life as a race-car driver while you are relating the plot of a TV show or a book you enjoyed. Some are obviously planning what they will do when they free themselves from your needless conversation. These could be blatant, falling into the “Yeah, yeah” category. Probably impossible to rehabilitate, but when they talk about a problem they had at work, you could say “Yeah, yeah.”

You say you have another category of people with willful bad listening? Go ahead, but I’m sure I already thought of that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by

Miracles in Retrospect

In my life signs have been events that, only on reflection, could be seen as signs. Most of them concerned the arc of my career. How did I become a teacher? In retrospect I see a few signs or crossroads.

 

As I approached graduation from Hamilton College, I was desperate for a sign for my future. I had no plans and waited to see what would happen, like an astrologer observing the alignment of the stars.

I believed my future involved writing. I had received Departmental Honors in English Literature, but I was otherwise a mediocre student, finishing with an overall B-. There is something called the “Sophomore Slump.” It permanently changed my qualifications for graduate school even though I recovered academically as an upperclassman. When I applied to three writing programs in my senior year, I was rejected by all three.

Before this crushing failure, in the middle of my senior year, the college offered a Winter Study course for seniors to teach sophomores who had tested out of Freshman Composition but felt (or their professors felt) they needed to upgrade their writing skills.  Four seniors volunteered to teach. There were about twenty interested sophomores in our group. With the help of Professor Dwight Lindley, we developed a common curriculum and worked with 4-6 students each.  The senior instructors met periodically with each other and with Professor Lindley, sharing our discoveries and perplexities. I liked developing our own curriculum and talking about teaching with my fellow seniors. It was a safe and stimulating environment. I briefly wondered if I might be good at teaching.

Later in the winter Professor Lindley called me into his office. He said he had a letter requesting a recommendation for a student for a new M.A.T. (Master of Arts in Teaching) program at Harvard. He said, “I thought you showed good aptitude and enthusiasm for teaching in the Winter Study. I wondered if you would like to be recommended.”

I never had Professor Lindley previously in a class (he taught Early English Literature), and I was surprised at his choosing me from among other seniors. I thought: Harvard, why not? I was still planning to apply to some reputable creative writing or journalism programs, and I didn’t take the Harvard recommendation very seriously. The application was not demanding. I knew a literature professor who had been to Harvard and was willing to write me a second letter. He said he had never been impressed with the M.A.T.’s at Harvard anyway.  Not exactly a ringing endorsement of me or the program.

Then, I flubbed the applications to the three writing programs

Then, the miracle: I got into Harvard.

When you consider I spent the rest of my life teaching in a high school and subsequently at a university, it seemed like a sign, if a sign could be a single acceptance into a graduate program. From my point of view at the time it seemed like divine intervention.

  • My career expectations were turned upside down. Until the moment of the acceptance letter, I was determined to write as a career. For my first three years in college, I had considered teaching a second-rate profession. “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”
  • I had no preparation to teach, except one History of Education and the Winter Study. The History of Education was deadly boring. The Winter Study was a mere three weeks. I later observed classes in the local high school, but none of that impressed me.
  • Harvard was a long shot. No one more surprised than I, with my anemic average and the recommendation of a professor who knew me for only three weeks and one other who gave me tepid approval. Utter reversal of my life, yet it turned out to be the call to a profession.

I was dazzled by the prospect of attending the twelve-month teacher education program at Harvard though I was perplexed about this reversal of fortune.  By all rights I should have been looking for a summer job in July 1970, not taking classes in the School of Education and Harvard Yard. I laid aside my expectations and moved into a shotgun apartment in East Cambridge with a friend from my undergraduate years. The arrangement lasted until I found my niche, my local spiritual home. Was this a sign, a miracle, or a coincidence?

Three years later I received my first invitation to teach professionally. I was given an interview at a Christian college. On the spot they invited me to teach there. I asked for some time alone to pray about it. I wandered over by the river which ran by the school. I prayed for guidance. Nothing. I prayed some more and began to feel like I would suffer from detachment of my church home if I took this job two hundred miles away. That church had become the edge of spiritual growth for me.  It was only a feeling, but I had to decide. I declined the offer with no other teaching prospects in view.

The faculty search committee was baffled. How could God tell me not to come to a Christian school? What were my reasons? None, just a feeling. My parents were also baffled. It was my only job offer. It was a Christian school. It was about twenty miles from my parents’ home. How could it not be right?

My grandmother backed me up. “There are plenty of Christians teaching in Christian schools. The public schools need them.” That made sense to me, although it did not impress my parents.

As Robert Frost would say, “That has made all the difference.” My teaching career began in a public school and continued at a public university till retirement. In retrospect it all made sense, but certainly not at the time I had to choose. The signs were vague at best.

As I reflect on my teaching career, these milestones seem like signs to me. There was no flash of revelation at the time. I didn’t see the future consequences, but then neither did Jonah. He saw the repentance of the Ninevites as a travesty of justice. Jesus turned it into a dramatic intervention that upset the whole supremacy of the Chosen people and the elevation of the Gentiles. The first inkling of diversity in the Kingdom. The sign was in the significance. In proclaiming the “sign of Jonah” Jesus had made a notorious city into an example of inclusion.

by

Our Evacuation Plan

My earliest notion of signs were forecasts. In my early adolescence, my Dad and I read extensively about prophecy of the End Times. Mining the books of Daniel, Ezekial and Revelation for indications of the current end times and the judgment of the world was exciting and cutting edge, as if we knew things that the world and liberal Christians did not know.

Jesus seemed to challenge us to discover the signs of the Second Coming when he told the Pharisees, “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” While the Pharisees had failed to interpret the signs of the times, Dad and I were more attentive and ready for Christ’s return. And Jesus advised his disciples about the End Times on the Mount of Olives, where the Messiah was supposed to appear. “Beware that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name saying ‘I am the Messiah!’ and they will lead many astray” (Matthew 24:4-5; 7-8). For Dad and me, signs revealed our immediate future.

Of course, our forebears had witnessed all these things: earthquakes, famines, national strife, even false Messiahs. It had seemed like foreshadowing to them, just as it had seemed to Christians for centuries. There was a sense of futility between our expectations and the lack of fulfillment.

We believed that we were in the” Christian Zionist” dispensation and awaiting the rapture: our ascending into heaven, preceding the Second Coming of Christ. Our insight into the end of history kept us in control in a world with the Cold War, nuclear capabilities, and “wars and rumors of war” (Matthew 24:6). Getting a hold of the future made us less anxious about the present.

My Dad pointed out that the return of the Jews to their homeland in 1948 was a sign not experienced by previous generations (Jeremiah 31:87-14). So, the Return of Christ was imminent. The invaders from the north were the godless Russians. The United States would stand with Israel at the final battle.  These signs of Zionism and impending battles were the politics we paid attention to.

For some Christians today it is the same. We have both farsightedness and nearsightedness. In the future we speculate about the coming of Christ. In the present we see man’s struggle with imperfections,  but they would be irrelevant to the coming age. Present problems would be soon resolved by Christ’s return.

My family operated on the “evacuation plan” of faith, as Brian McLaren calls it.  Our evacuation to heaven eliminated all questions until the other side of death.  My father looked to the Return of Christ as our deliverance. He died in disappointment that Jesus had not returned in his lifetime but acknowledged that “the Lord may tarry.” The  Kingdom of Heaven kept hovering just out of reach.