How do we live out our faith?
Many years ago, while I was training as a teacher, attending a lecture on how to teach, one of my fellow students interrupted the older lady lecturer who was instructing us. ‘How do we deal with students’ questions?’ She was clearly shocked! ‘You are there to instruct with what they need to know. They are like empty vessels. You fill them with knowledge. You don’t let them ask questions!’ I suspect now that it had been a long time since she, (a single lady – as for many years married women were not allowed to teach!) had actually been teaching. As a teacher, I soon learned that encouragement achieved far more than just information, let alone threats and punishment.
Probably the best RE lesson I ever conducted was first thing on a Friday morning. The class were at the bottom of the selection procedure, almost all very reluctant to be there, as it was the first year when they couldn’t leave school at fifteen – and some of them had jobs lined up.
As they came, in someone asked if we could talk about dying. That very morning the funerals of two of our students, killed in a road crash, were happening. The students in my class hadn’t been able to arrange to get there, so were even more reluctant to be in school. So, we just talked – them and me.
I looked up and saw the unbelievable. The most difficult student in all the lessons he attended, went out of his way to be disruptive, but there were two big tears rolling down his cheeks. I went over to him and suggested that he went and walked around the playing field, which he did. His fellow students were as astonished as I was. He came back and sat quietly, and never again was he ever any trouble in my lessons. Through kindness and encouragement, it was as though I had unlocked a door.
I learned a lesson that day, which I never forgot, not only in my many years of teaching, but in the almost as many years as a minister.
Much more recently I encountered a writing by a Franciscan nun, Sister Nancy Schreck, ‘Human life is not about appeasing a vengeful God, but about responding in love’. Amen indeed!
Cross – shaped spaces
Christians.
We are people infused
with the Christ light
that streams through
the cross-shaped space
between time and eternity.
We are members of Christ’s body
here on earth,
reaching out in love.
Up to God,
Out to friend and stranger,
down to care for our planet.
Living cross-shaped spaces
of light, hope and love,
apertures for God in our dark world.