The Lief's North Carolina Family Vacation

An Insider

This past week my family and I took a trip down to Asheville, North Carolina where I gave a few presentations at the Youth Unlimited Convention. The presentations went fine, and western North Carolina is beautiful - a place I could easily see myself living for awhile. On the way back we stayed at a hotel in southern Illinois where I had an interesting conversation with a complete stranger.

For those who don't know, or don't care, I haven't cut my hair in over a year and a half. Its long and everybody has an opinion about it. My mother keeps asking my wife, secretly of course, when I'm going to cut it. Most people make some smart comment about being a professor - as if I'm trying to live up to some stereotype. My wife tells me I have a man crush on David Grohl (The lead singer of the Foo Fighters) - which actually may be quasi true. Whatever the reason for my barber boycott (I'm not even sure I know...) my appearance make over has led to some interesting experiences. I find there is a certain type of person for whom my long shaggy hair and unkempt beard puts them at ease. They find me approachable - like I'm one of "them" - whoever "them" is.

So I was standing outside the hotel the other morning - smoking a clove and reflecting upon the trip ahead of us - when a women in her 50's came outside and lit up a cigarette. As soon as she saw me she walked over and just started talking. She talked about how smokers are like social outcasts these days - kicked to the curb. She told me about her son - who she was going to visit - and the Sports bar and grill he has just opened in Kentucky. When I told her we were coming back from North Carolina she reminisced about a rebellious excursion to North Carolina with her friends when she was about 18 years old... for which she was grounded. "But it was totally worth it," she told me.

Maybe I'm making too much of it - but it seems to me you can tell who has lived a tough life. The way people talk can tell a tale of hardship and struggle. This woman didn't say so... but for some reason I think she's seen some things. I didn't say very much - I just listened and gave a few courtesy laughs - but she must have enjoyed our conversation because when I saw her in the elevator with her husband he asked "Is this the fellow you were talkin' to outside?"

Would I have had that conversation if I were sipping a latte, clean shaven with a preppy hair cut? Maybe - but I doubt it. Numerous people joke that I look like Jesus. Maybe that's why people want to talk to me.

Unbearable Lightness of Being

I love the theology of Karl Barth.  There... I said it.  I realize that for some in the circles to which I belong Barth is a 4- letter word.  So I always have to be careful with whom I share my secret "man crush".  Every time I engage his ideas I come away joyfully exhaling.  Yesterday I was doing some research when I came across this piece from the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowen Williams.    "Not Being Serious: Thomas Merton and Karl Barth"   Oh, I should also say I have been delving into the writings of Thomas Merton lately.  I have this attraction to Roman Catholicism that I can't quite shake - remnants of my time at Newman Catholic High School I'm sure.  

The piece examines the influence of Barth in Merton's thought.  Here is a line that stood out...

Merton... had apprehended something central and focal in Barth's vision: 'We are not pleasing to God: yet God wills to be pleased'.  That's to say that we are not condemned to keep God happy, we are not bound to the fiery wheel of entertaining God, placating God or preserving God's good moods.  Because God's pleasure is God's being and God's will directed towards us in creation and redemption, and therefore all we can do is say 'yes' to it.  And to know this is to be finally free from the idols of the self.  

In class the other day I used Barth's theology to set up the Christian engagement of culture.  We read bits from "The Humanity of God" - in which Barth emphasizes that God loves humanity and in Jesus Christ God has eternally decided to be FOR humanity...  I always say God chooses to need us.  My point is that God wants us to be human... not some disembodied soul.  Our humanity is not something to be overcome.  In Jesus Christ God is at work restoring us to our humanity - giving it back.  Taken further, I believe God takes pleasure in our human-ness - in the things we do - the things we create.  He loves theater, he loves baseball, he loves a good beer, and romantic evenings.  For Barth, it meant that God loved the music of Mozart.  

Here's another quote from Williams:

'I think I will have to become a Christian', says Merton, meaning, if I read him correctly, 'I think I will have to understand that a proper theology of the death of Christ tells me I'm not serious: God is serious; my condition is serious; sin is serious; the cross is serious.  But somehow, out of all this comes the miracle, the 'unbearable lightness of being' as you might say: the recognition that my reality rests "like a feather on the breath of God"'.  It is because God speaks, because God loves and it is for no other reason. 

For Barth it's all grace.  Our very existence proclaims the goodness of God's grace.  Not just in a redemptive sense... but in a creation sense.  God brings forth creation as an act of love and grace.  In one way sin is trying to make of ourselves more then what we are.  Thus, God's word to us in Jesus Christ is that in him we just need to "be". 

One final quote:

...the whole of our life, our universe, our individual pilgrimage swept up into that movement of outgoing and returning love, a love bestowed, a love which is also our homecoming, a love so profoundly anchored ontologically in the reality of God, eternally, non-negotiably, that the only thing we can do about any attempt ourselves to think that we have a part in this is to laugh.

Theological reflection rooted in laughter is reflection that sees the big picture.  All of the stuff we fill our lives with that we think is sooo important.  All of it is an attempt to make something of ourselves.  And yet the gospel is the call to rest... to open our eyes to the gift of grace all around.

Afraid to Fail...

So this week I got the news.  Way back in October I completed an application for a summer scholars program.  I'm not saying I expected to get in... frankly I didn't know what to expect.  But I thought I might have a shot.  Then I got the email with this attachment:  "Rejection letter".  I didn't even have to read it - but I did anyway.  Very polite - assuring me there were many good candidates but very few slots...  in other words... we don't want you.

I'd be lying if I said it didn't sting at first.  I have this feeling - what I call my tingly Spidy sense - when I get such news.  But it came and went, I told my wife (who was disappointed), and then I got on with it.  Back to the salt mine... to try again.

This past semester I had some very interesting discussions with students on the topic of failure.  Out of 16 freshmen in my Core 100 class 14 of them admitted they were afraid to fail.  They were afraid they couldn't live up to the expectations their parents and loved ones had of them.  Some admitted the only reason they were at Dordt was to fulfill these expectations.  Others said "better to not try and fail... then to give it some effort and come up empty".  At least if you don't try, so the thinking goes, the failure doesn't really stick.   

I come from a blue collar family - and the older I get the more I appreciate it.  I'm not trying to say one gets used to failing... but when you have to fight for everything... when you get knocked down you know you have to get back up.  I remember in college struggling to find my niche- doing homework, going to class, working at the local Super Valu bagging groceries - the whole while wondering if I fit in academia.  From time to time I would have to channel my inner Lief (if you've heard stories about my grandpa you know what I mean) and say #$%@ it!  Put my head down and go for it.  Sometime it worked out... sometimes it didn't.  Yet hear I am...

I believe we need to give young people the freedom to fail.  We need to give them space to explore - to try different things - and totally bomb.  Maybe we need to start celebrating certain failures... giving them credit for having the guts to go for it instead of just playing it safe.  Look, I realize there are limits.  We need to have dreams for our kids and our students.  But we also need to encourage them to do what they want to do... free from the burden of our expectations.  

So here's to getting knocked on our cans... getting back up, shaking off the dust - and getting back in the game.

Down with Theology

Lately I've been taking my fair share of sucker punches.  Not me personally (ok... some are personal) but most are directed at what I do for a living - teaching theology.  

In this corner... we have a growing group of people who have made it abundantly clear that theologians are just stuck up snobs who use big fancy words no one can understand.  (And theology professors are those who make students read books by snobs who use big words no one can understand.) These students take their theology classes - get through them - and get on with the more important things in life.

In that corner... we have a growing number of students who believe there should be more snobbish language and categories... not less.  After all - we can't dumb things down.  We can't have people thinking that The Message is an appropriate version of the Bible... we need to be reading it in the original languages... parsing every verb.  We need to be using more scholastic language... not less.  More categories... more towers...  Interestingly, these students also take their theology classes - get through them - and get on with more important things.

So where does this leave us?  What ever happened with the search for truth?  Asking questions... even if it means tackling a big word or two.  Reading the questions and experiences of others because, after all, this is WHY we bother to read in the first place.  What happened to engaging ideas and definitions... questioning the categories and finding new ways to express timeless truths?  There has to be a place between the two corners mentioned above, where ideas and experiences are taken seriously.  A place where any discussion of the engagement of culture means you  read Niebuhr's Christ and Culture - if only to explain why you disagree with it.  A place where theological discourse does not exist for its own sake... but occurs because it means something and it has something important to say to the Christian community in a specific time and place.   

I realize theology can be abused and misused... just as I recognize there is a time and place to stand up for specific ideas and beliefs about God.  But I'm all for the place in between.  The question is... how do we get there?

Learning to Waste Time

So this morning I helped to lead a faculty workshop here at Dordt on the topic of technology and teaching. All I can say is "wow". Interesting discussion... unexpected reactions... but it was a good honest interaction. There is one comment that has really stuck with me... One of the professors lamented the fact that we have lost the ability to "waste time". What he meant was... we are losing the process. The time to sit in confusion... to "scratch our heads" as he put it. The time to start a paper... only to crumple it up (or push delete) and start over. The time to wrestle with formulas or read something 4 times just to get it... What I think he is lamenting is the space for reflection... for process. To not be in such a hurry to get the point - or the answer - or the solution.

Sorry to say but this is what we are making the educational process... an answering producing machine. Tell me what I have to know and get on with it... utilitarianism seems to be winning the day.

I had lunch with another prof who took the idea further. Not only are we losing the ability to "waste time" in reflection or process... but we are losing the ability to "waste time" just messing around. A little mischief... or time spent doing nothing in particular with the people we love... Perceptive...

But how do we rewire our thinking? Especially when the very structures we create tend to emphasize productivity, efficiency, as my wife said the "Northwest Iowa (and other areas...) Work Ethic". How does the academy become less about job training and more about becoming counter cultural in the formation of young people? That, as they say, is the "million dollar question".

Techno Demonic

This Wednesday I've been roped into leading the faculty workshop at Dordt College.  I say roped because if there is any group I get anxious to speak in front of... it's my colleagues.  I've been at Dordt now 2 1/2 years... and I'm going to stand up and there and tell them how it is?  Thankfully I'm tag teaming with Mr. Dordt himself - Prof. Schaap.  I'll let him do most of the "heavy lifting".

Our topic is the use of technology in the classroom.  Please know I'm no Luddite.  After all... I'm typing on a computer to post on a blog... I believe there is an important place for technology.  In some ways it has made our lives better.  But I also believe it has created more problems - often having unintended consequences.

Prof. Schaap and I are going to ask questions about the use of technology in the classroom...  Does PowerPoint really make lectures more exciting?  Do students really take better notes... learn better... with a laptop in the class?  Well... no and no - that's what I say.  Edward Tufte, who has written extensively on PowerPoint, argues that PowerPoint is badly abused to the point it becomes tyrannical.  Instead of promoting the asking of probing questions... or the freedom for lectures and discussions to move freely in and out of topics - the bullet points take us captive - mindlessly moving us from one slide to the next.  As I read somewhere... making boring and meaningless information dance doesn't make it any less boring or meaningless.

With regard to laptops in the classroom... give me a break.  Most students are checking email or doing Facebook.  Professors are the worst... just come and sit in on a faculty assembly sometime.  Do you really think that many Prof's are furiously taking notes on the breakdown of the budget or whether we should use red or brown rocks in the parking lot?

Living in my ideal world - I believe the classroom (as well as the church sanctuary for that matter) should be a space where people unplug.  Where we gather together to encounter each other... to ask questions of each other.  To grapple with ideas and arguments.  A place where Prof's aren't just the button pushers of magical slides... but a place where Prof's ask questions, allow themselves to be challenged, get off topic, engage arguments.  We are not just dispensers of information... we stick wrenches in the gears... we poke and prod... sometimes getting poked in the eye.

This is what our discussion will be on Wednesday morning.  How do we teach in a way that affirms the positive contributions of technology - but also in a way that challenges the myth of technicism and the idols we create?  

We'll see what happens... check out this youtube link to see a video we're going to watch and discuss together...