Tag Archives: Ranty McRanterson

He Might Be a Cheeseball, but That Doesn’t Make You Right

11 Thursday Dec 2014

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I got into it today with The Name I Gave My Nightmares about some dude named Matthew Kelly.

I’ll be honest, I love being Catholic and am unendingly thankful for the beauty and majesty of the Church.  But, I’m not super into Catholic-y-stuff.  I don’t read a lot of Catholic books or blogs.  I don’t know who the movers and shakers in Catholic intellectual or cultural circles are.  When Pope Francis was being elected I was asked if there was a particular Cardinal I was hoping would ascend to the seat of Peter, and I had to admit that I couldn’t even name a Cardinal.  (Oh wait, I can name one, but no one wants Cardinal Whurl to become Pope.)  Maybe this makes me a little spiritually underdeveloped, but I don’t think it means I don’t practice my faith.  It just means I also enjoy keeping up with this season of Arrow and baking cookies in my free time.

Now, today, The Name I Gave My Nightmares was expressing to me and two of our fellow teachers why she dislikes this dude.  I have never read a single word by this man.  Until she mentioned him today I had never heard of him.  But, I found myself in the position of sort of defending him.  Or not really defending him so much as pointing out the flaws in The Name I Gave My Nightmares’ argument.

What it came down to is this: Matthew Kelly seems to be a sort of introduction to Catholicism and she finds it insulting that other people keep giving her his books because she has a master’s degree in theology and therefore his ideas are too simplistic for her.

That took a whole lot of dissecting what she was actually saying (man, I’m never getting that half hour of my life back) and asking a series of pointed and bitchy questions.  The truth may set you free, but it will never make you popular.  No one likes to talk to the person who just relentlessly picks at your thought process until your motivations are laid bare.  And yet, some days, I just can’t help myself.  I feel a special need to dig into her because it all comes down to snobbery.

I used to be a snob.  I’m trying to get over it.

A great gift of AA is the realization that other people don’t need to be me.

Sitting in an AA meeting is experiencing a parallel universe; disparate ideas and appearances that have no apparent reason to intersect converge in both logic and love.  The story is always the same (I drank, I couldn’t stop, I hit rock-bottom, in my surrender God saved me) but the details are unique.  In those details, and in the way they are expressed, and in the countless ways each person is transformed, you get to see just how much God loves each and every single person exactly as who they are and who He created them to be.  When I started to see that I started to let go of my anger at other people for needing avenues to the truth that I didn’t need.

I began to make the distinction between “not what I like/need” and “wrong.”

In a quick perusal of his webpage I can say that Matthew Kelly looks pretty cheesy.  He is most likely not my cup of tea.  And I did not try to tell The Name I Gave My Nightmares that she needed to like him, or agree with him, or even finish the books of his that she had been gifted.  In fact, the solution that all three of her audience members posed to her was to re-gift the books she wasn’t going to read to someone who might need them.

The reason she didn’t want to agree to that is because she couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that someone would need such a book or such an author.  It made me sad to watch her struggle with not wanting to admit that she was having such a thought.  It made me sad to be reminded of just how easily I dismissed other people’s spiritual and intellectual needs, simply because my needs were different.

My soul is moved by the struggle of John Donne, the apocalyptic vision of Flannery O’Connor, the soothing reiteration of Julian of Norwich.  My mind finds identity in strife,  while at the same time my soul craves comfort and safety.  I love the way God speaks to me, the paths that he gives me to show me his will.  I don’t need to get all fired up for Jesus.  I will never want to sing praise and worship songs.  I will most likely go the rest of my life without reading a single word written by Matthew Kelly.

And God doesn’t (at this point, to my knowledge) need me to.  But just because God doesn’t need Matthew Kelly to speak to me, that doesn’t mean He doesn’t need Matthew Kelly to speak to someone.  Whomever that person is, their soul is just as precious as mine or anyone else’s.  If Matthew Kelly is your guy, then by all means, have at it.

But, maybe, consider a set of steak knives or a nice bathrobe when it’s time for gift-giving.

(3 Years, 2 Months, and 20 Days Sober)

Dear Parents, You Know Who You Are

29 Wednesday Oct 2014

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I think if there is one piece of advice I could give to parents it would be this: leave your child’s teacher alone.

Of course, if you think your child is in danger, do something.

I’m not talking about predatory or unstable people who happen to be employed by a school. This is advice for middle class suburban parents who send their middle class kids to middle class schools with competent and compassionate staff.

Seriously, leave your kid’s teacher alone. Don’t email her late on a Sunday night because you aren’t willing to make a decision about what your child should wear on free dress day. Don’t call her in the early morning darkness because you want your child to go on the afternoon field trip but not take the morning math test. Don’t run into your child’s classroom 30 minutes before school ends demanding that your child must leave NOW for her sister’s lacross game. Don’t tell her every afternoon at dismissal the endless reasoning you have for why your child doesn’t have homework completed. Don’t spend months badgering her because you KNOW your child is a math genius despite poor performance on work and un-memorized addition facts. Don’t threaten to call the cops because your child threw away her own lunch. (Maybe don’t send mashed potatoes for lunch.) Don’t discuss with your child your personal views on completelty inconsequential habits your child’s teacher may or not have.

I accept that I will never make a great deal of money in my chosen profession. My sister, who generously pays my cell phone bill and various other expenses, also accepts this fact. I accept that I will work long hours, including weekends. I accept that I will often feel overwhelmed by just how much each student needs and the fact that I am but one person. I accept the fact that my feet will hurt ALL THE DAMN TIME.  I accept that I will often think of myself as a failure.

What I’m having more difficulty accepting is the idea that I should be a martyr.  Wait, that’s the wrong word.  A martyr willingly accepts death rather than betray the truth of God.  Nope, martyr isn’t it.  Sometimes I act like a martyr for my job.  (And unintentionally make my job the god of my life.)  I don’t do anything but work and then I complain that work is taking up my entire life.  That’s my choice, and it’s stupid, and I’m trying to do that less.

No, the phenomenon I’m encountering is much more the assumption on the part of parents that I don’t deserve a life outside of my work.  And that within my work I don’t warrant the respect of working without constant non-emergencey interruptions.  I firmly believe the solution to so many situations is perfectly simple: “Back off.”

There are a plethora of reasons why you, as a parent, should back off of your child’s teacher.  But I’ll start out with the number one most important reason that all parents give as the unassailable arguments from which there is no escape: your child.  Bombarding your child’s teacher with after-hours, non-essential garbage is bad for your child.  Because here is what happens.  You pester and degrade your child’s teacher repeatedly, at times when your child’s teacher should be thinking about anything else but your child.  Then, when the school day begins, your child’s teacher looks at your child and can’t help but think, “wow, your parents are making me batty, I wish they would cool it.”  See how that works?  Your child’s teacher isn’t thinking about your child, about his or her needs, strengths, attributes, and innate dignity as a person.  No, your child’s teacher is thinking about you, the parent.  Then instruction becomes less “is this correct information presented in the most accessible way for my students” and more “yikes, is so-and-so’s mom going to throw a hissy over what so-and-so is going to tell her I said and start sending endless emails again?”  The focus gets all skewed.  And that isn’t the kind of classroom you want for your child, is it?

But just for fun, I’ll point out the greater human argument for “back off!”  Your child’s teacher is not your hired help.  I know this is a shock.  But it’s true.  No matter if it’s a public or a private school, the “I pay your salary” attitude is completely ridiculous.  I have a responsibility as a teacher to educated each child to the best of my ability, but I am in no way EMPLOYED by the parents.  And email barrages, text floods, daily spontaneous “do you have a moment” meetings implies an attitude that you as a parent are entitled to take up my time until you feel satisfied, similarly to a supervisor who asks a subordinate to continually repeat a task in hopes of perfection.  (Of course, if you have such an attitude you will never be satisfied.)  I am not “on the clock” for you 24 hours a day.  And you know why?  Because I am a separate person with innate dignity due to the gift from God of my individual soul.  That means that you have to remember that I am as worthy of privacy, respect, and a non-work life as you are.  So every time you pull your “but you’re my child’s teacher, so I demand you attention no matter how inappropriate the timing or content of my request” bullshit, what you are actually doing is denying my human dignity as endowed by our Creator.

So think about it the next time you’re ready to fire off an email, text, meeting request, phone call, etc. to your child’s teacher.  Ask yourself if your concern necessarily needs the teacher’s input, or maybe could you take care of it yourself with a little common sense?  Ask yourself if your concern is an emergency, or could maybe wait until a time when you know your child’s teacher would be available to help you.

Ask yourself if you are approaching your child’s teacher as a person or a robot.  If it’s not the former, then…

BACK OFF.

(3 Years, 1 Month, and 10 Days Sober)

Are You Saying You Don’t Like Your Free Will?

31 Saturday Aug 2013

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Yesterday a semi-new co-worker gave me a ride home.  I say semi-new because he had worked at our brother school and this year has transfered to our school.  We talked mostly about what co-workers talk about: work.  But since our school is such a philosophical outlier in terms of education practice and style, work conversations tend to be very broad.

Eventually we got to talking about the ability to live with your own failure, and how that can be what separates people who need to be told exactly what to do and people who don’t.  I’ve always kind of wondered about people who need continuous, clear, and detailed commands; is it that they cannot think for themselves or is it that they like being bossed around?  

I’m much more adapted or inclined (who knows at this point) to Commandment Boundaries (or if you’re less religious and more Enlightenment-y, Negative Liberties); here are the parameters of what you can’t do, but other than that, go nuts.  (Alright, actually, it’s not a really good comparison to Negative Liberties, because that is about what the government can’t do to the individual because the individual should be as free as possible.  Wait, I’m getting side-tracked by my own tangent.)  It was a total game-changer for me when Fr. Jedi explained that the 10 Commandments are not there to dictate my every action, but rather to allow me the freedom to do as much good as possible because I would have a clear line between what was good and what was not.  It was pretty much the way I had always been, the way I was raised, and the way I liked, but he put it in such better terms than I could.  (I love it when you hear someone say something that you’ve been trying to say for forever!)

So even though I am a ridiculously organize and structured person (I like things just so and have a system in place for almost everything) that is not because I need/want someone to tell me how to do those things.  I like to tell myself!  It’s because I like order, it makes me calm.  Order can easily become rigidity and then I turn into a crazy person, so I have to be very careful with myself.  But essential my desire to have everything just the way I want them is much more to do with pride than with fear.  My way is best, your way is stupid.  I’m not worried that if I relinquish control for a few moments that everything will fall apart.  Not at all.  Other people are capable and competent, I’m sure that life would go on just swimmingly without my picking up the pieces.  But the things I’m good at I’m really good at, so why shouldn’t I do them?  Maybe more importantly, I’m relentlessly pulled at by the siren song of laziness; I will gladly lull myself into a state of sloggy, sloppy do-nothingness if I don’t have some idea of the patterns I’ve set for my day.  I rarely achieve all I set out to do, but the goals are there, so I know if I’m making a decision to do something else, nothing at all, or just didn’t get to everything.  I know myself well enough to know I need some internal accountability.

But the idea of being told what to do, and when, and how, just makes me want to throw up.  And then punch people. And then throw up some more on the people I’ve just punched.  It grates upon the very essence of my being that someone else would make my choices for me.  Even if my choices turn out be flaming disasters that leave me broken and demoralized, I would rather be that than relinquish even a fraction of my free will.  I would much rather fail by choice then succeed by enthrallment.  (Of course, within the moral framework of the Catholic teaching.)

Now, having said all this, I think I need to try to be a bit more understanding when my roommate doesn’t want to put her shoes in her bedroom or when my students don’t want to sit up straight in their chairs.  But anyway …

The trade off is that there isn’t a ton of what people like to call “security,” either internally or externally.  I make a ton of mistakes.  I say the wrong thing and hurt someone.  I form opinions without all of the pertinent information.  I try a classroom management technique that only leads to more chaos.  And I question myself all the time.  I constantly wonder what I could have done differently or if I made the right choice.  I have to do everything in my power to see things as clearly and truthful as I can so as not to repeat mistakes, or develop habits that will eventually be detrimental.  Being a free person is hard, scary, life-long work.  You have to fight and fail and pick yourself back up.

This is part of the reason that I love my school.  I’m given a great deal of autonomy in my classroom and my headmaster doesn’t step in unless either I ask for help or something is not working in an undeniable way.  I get to try different things, take out assignments that I don’t like, replace books with ones I think are better, take the girls out for a walk when they just need to be outside.  When things don’t work I have to take responsibility for that and find a way to fix it.  The easy of following a script isn’t there.  Some days I’m ridiculously proud of myself for coming up with something that gets through to the girls and helps them understand a concept they were struggling with.   Some days I come home in tears, overwhelmed by a sense of failure and regret.

But I wonder if the people who are not willing to take on the responsibility of their free will actually understand what they are giving up.  I do.  I lived for years without mine.  I didn’t make choices, I performed tasks in order to receive alcohol.  I have become fiercely protective of my free will because I never want to go back to my life without it.  Only the redemptive sacrifice of Christ is a greater gift than our free will.  Freedom is the essence of the human person; we are supposed to be free in order to be with God.  The less free you are the less of a fully flourishing person you are.  It might sound shocking, but alcoholism makes you less human.  An alcoholic, while drinking, isn’t a person but rather an automaton.  

I’m not sure someone can grasp the awe-inspiring nature of free will until they have lived without it.  As frightening as mistakes can be, nothing is as frightening as loosing your humanity.

(1 Year, 11 Months, and 11 Days Sober)