Mere(ly Nominative) Christianity

I was saved at a young age, around fifth or sixth grade. I had been raised in church my whole life—Sunday school, Sunday worship, Wednesday night prayer meeting, VBS, church camp. The list of the ways in which I was exposed to church in my life goes on and on. I had that gentle tugging of the Spirit deep down, and eventually I prayed the sinner’s prayer. But in truth, I had thought it and uttered many times prior to that because I never thought it felt real. Then one day it did. So at the onset of my adolescence, I became like so many of the people around me: saved. My developing mind thought it had an understanding of what this meant, but in the intervening years, I’ve wondered if I truly understand what commitment I had made. From what had I been saved? Stealing a fellow student’s pencil at school when he wasn’t looking? Telling a white lie every now and then? I didn’t smoke. I didn’t drink. I cussed rather infrequently, if at all. And thoughts of sex had only just begun to creep into my mind. But I was saved, of that much I was sure. But I really suppose I had no idea from what. And this is a theme that has become a constant in my fiction since I’ve begun to take writing seriously. I often find myself reflecting on those early years of my faith and my infantile understanding of what I was professing.

I suppose at that early age, I had a very legalistic view of Christianity: don’t drink, don’t smoke, and don’t have sex outside of marriage. Oh, and don’t be gay. And don’t support those who are. Those were the strongest messages that I seemed to hear most often in the churches of my youth, and they continue to be the ones I hear quite often. But it was around my freshman year of high school that my already questioning mind began to consider the beliefs I professed, the stances I took, and what they meant for me, especially in a developing world that was shaping around me: exposure to new ideas, new beliefs, foundations so different from mine. And this questioning would extend into college, where I was exposed to different worldviews, different religions and the beliefs thereof, to elements of history that had been sugarcoated or just ignored in high school and church to that point in my life. I attended secular postsecondary schools, and I delved into the humanities with much enthusiasm. Always an avid reader, I truly began to become the intellectual that I am today in humanities courses in my early twenties. By the time I reached nineteen, my thinking was more developed than it had been ten years before, obviously, but as my thinking developed, matured, and evolved, it began to resemble the thoughts of my early faith less and less. More and more, I began to see myself as different from the Christians around me: I was more freethinking, more liberal, more open to other religions. I began to feel as though church wasn’t necessarily the place for me, particularly after certain situations over legalistic views came to a head and I found myself engaged in debates I had never truly expected with those who stood behind the pulpit each week. I considered myself a Christian, but I didn’t fit into a neat little mold of Christianity, the image I so often heard about and saw around me.

I was sitting in a Sunday school class when I was about twenty and I heard a statement that shocked me. The question about the extent to which Christians should be tolerant of other religions was posed, a seemingly decent question to generate discussion. An answer was issued and the general acceptance of the answer shocked me: Christians should only tolerate the religious views of others to the extent needed to win them to Christ. I’m open to religious discussions and debates because I have an interest in the ways others live. I couldn’t imagine looking at a friend of another religion and tolerating him/her only so that I could convince him/her that he/she was wrong. True discussion should have far more room for listening than for talking. If I enter into a conversation only with the purpose of changing the other person’s views—the person’s foundation and life—how much listening am I actually doing? I believe we can learn from each other, and we should be tolerant of other views for the sake of being humanitarian and respectful.

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Someone in my family once proposed that maybe I would be a great preacher. I don’t know what led her to make that proclamation, what she had seen in me at an early age that would lead to such a determination. But I’ve always had that idea wedged in the back of my mind. Maybe I could have been a preacher. Maybe a youth minister. The idea resurfaced when my wife and I were in marriage counseling for the second time. I had just begun teaching high school, and something during the counseling sessions led me to begin thinking about it again. It was an idea that had been tucked away, springing up only in my fiction, as characters struggle with missed callings and wondering how life would’ve been different had they answered what they believed to have been God’s calling. The idea comes and goes. I’ve often joked about it. What sort of pastor would I be? I drink. I cuss. Major no-no’s in most Christian circles.

It’s been hard for me to shake the legalistic views I saw while growing up. I began to see everything as a sin, everything from smoking a cigar to going to a bar to see a band play. I saw Christianity as a list of rules that shouldn’t be broken. My reading the work of Donald Miller helped combat this view (if you haven’t read his work on Christian Spirituality, I recommend you do so.) But some days this view still lingers at the back of my mind. My mother once told me, though I don’t remember why or in what context, that there were men in our church would go get drunk. I’m fine with drinking—drunkenness, no; that is one point on which I will agree with fundamentalist Christians. Over ten years later, though, I still find myself wondering about whom she was talking. Not that it matters—I wish the best for those struggling with alcoholism. Or any form of addiction. And one of the most beautiful sentiments I’ve heard from the pulpit came from one of my ex-wife’s friends, a local youth pastor. He talked about the perception some people have of church and those who attend it. “Oh, but that guy’s an alcoholic,” he said, mimicking those who would caste a negative light on certain groups who may attempt to worship during a service. “Oh, yeah? Great, he can sit next to me. I’m a liar.” And it was beautiful, and it was all about love.  

Dress was another issue. Sandals were okay for women if they were dressy sandals. Guys—well, you’d better be wearing shoes. Shorts? Forget about it! Khakis with worn and frayed hems? Not a chance. I saw women turned away from singing in church for wearing pants. All of these views bothered me. I thought Jesus was far more concerned with my heart and how I helped others than with the fact that I may be wearing a Ramones t-shirt and jeans to church.

And all of this is not to make a blanket statement about Christianity, which I would have once used it for. I merely want to relay my understanding and views and how my beliefs and ideas have been shaped. Some of the best Christians I know are also some of the best people I know. Others of the best people are of no religious affiliation. Or they are Pagan. Atheist. Agnostic. And these are people who once I would have looked at mainly in the light of being non-Christian.

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When my wife left me the second time, I called someone in her family to meet me to talk. He is one of the best Christians I know, answered the call to preach, has led house churches, and once called just to pray with me. We met at Starbucks for coffee, and over the course of a couple hours, we talked about everything from God, to my faltering marriage, to music and film. And one point of the conversation that stuck in mind was what he said when I told him I felt as though there were people in my life who were offering too many opinions on the state of my marriage. I understand now that they were only trying to help; but I suppose I wasn’t really looking for help as much as I was looking for sounding boards. I told him this and his response surprised me: “Man, you’ve to tell them to just move the fuck out of the way. This is your relationship.” I was stunned, for he wasn’t one I’d have expected to use the F-Word (as it is so often called in polite, conservative circles). But I have to admit that his doing so made him seem more human. He then proceeded to pull his Bible out of his backpack and lead me in a quick devotion and prayer.

There were other areas of my life that didn’t (and perhaps still don’t) really seem to mesh with my Christianity. Although I was technically a virgin when I married, most pastors would debate my using that term to describe myself. I don’t pray as often as I should. I rarely read my Bible, and I’ve been known to read the Bible looking for bits that I’ve never heard read in church, wondering about the social and cultural context in which they were written. I am a strong proponent of gay rights: gay marriage, gay adoption.  I drink in public. I go to R-rated movies and read books about other religions and views not so I can find the errors of their ways but because I find them interesting. All of which I have heard preached against at one time or another.

But somewhere along the way, I began to see Christianity far less as rules to follow and more about helping others. The legalism began to fade, though remnants still linger, and I began to see it as more about missional living, about helping those around us—the poor, the needy, the downtrodden. For a while, I wanted to find a church that practiced missional living, for I felt that that was where I needed to be. I didn’t really see that at my church, but that’s because I was convinced it wasn’t there without really looking. After a crisis of faith, I tried different churches, each of which had its merits. But for now, I’m home, where I spent so much of my time questioning. Are all of my questions answered? No, of course not. I don’t agree with everything that I hear preached, especially in a socio-political context. I’m a strong liberal, socially and fiscally. But it’s home, with Godly people, who love God and who love each other. And who have a concern for those in society who need help.

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I used to scoff at the idea of Christian music and the idea that it is so strongly represented on local radio. We have no jazz station, no true oldies station, no indie rock station, but there are three or four Christian stations. I’ve always had a love for gospel music, a love that I’ll not discuss to thoroughly here for I’ve written an essay about it that I’m trying to get published. But I have to admit that I’d have not gotten through several months in the last year without KLOVE and WALKFM, stations that, cliché as their commercials sound, truly are encouraging and uplifting.

These days, I find myself reading and listening more to people like Derek Webb, Donald Miller, and Rich Mullins. And I suppose I’ll end this with one of my favorite Rich Mullin’s Quotes:
 “I had a professor one time... He said, 'Class, you will forget almost everything I will teach you in here, so please remember this: that God spoke to Balaam through his ass, and He has been speaking through asses ever since. So, if God should choose to speak through you, you need not think too highly of yourself. And, if on meeting someone, right away you recognize what they are, listen to them anyway'.” 

Love in the Beginning

Attraction at some point likely blends into love, and love in the beginning is usually easy to spot, even stereotypically so. There are tell-tale sings we’ve come to associate with it, molding it into a stock character we can easily identify: holding hands; sitting close together, two young lovers crowded into the same side of a booth; silly texts that elicit a smile from the receiving party; walking down the street, arms around each other; and even in a crowded room, the two in love can look for all the world as though they are the only ones who exist. When it appears, we know it and what it is going to do and be. There are giddy feelings of euphoria for those involved, those in love, and these feelings are often manifested through expressions: a silly smile at random times, a dreamy look of longing and contentment. And I don’t intend to make light of these feelings and outward manifestations of something we all (at least most) of us can relate to. In fact, that is part of my reason for mentioning them here—these are feelings almost everyone can appreciate, for nearly everyone, at some time in his/her life, has been in situations where these feelings were prevalent. But what I want to consider is what comes next. What happens when this honeymoon feeling passes, when real life settles in? For surely it will.

The length of this honeymoon feeling, of course, differs for each relationship, but if we are going to be adults about love and our interactions with each other, we must accept that, at some point, the giddy feeling we so enjoy is going to diminish. It may not totally end, but that high we get from another person will begin to wane. So what happens when it does? I’ve come to find that what happens next is dependent upon the maturity of those involved. This is in no way to suggest that any set answer is intrinsically linked to a particular achieved level of maturity, though perhaps love would be so much simpler if that were the case; but it wouldn’t be quite the learning experience, now would it? Some people reach the point in a relationship where they determine it is time to marry; others reach a point where they determine it is in their best interest to break up and go their separate ways. And when I was younger, these were the only two options presented to me. I was always told that every relationship reaches the point where those involved must decide to either marry or break up. It was, as I understood it, the natural order of things. I’m sure there is some truth to this, but the third option that was never presented as a viable option to me, for it was deemed sinful and wrong, is that two consenting adults could choose to live together outside of marriage. This idea was always presented as one that was riddled with shame, those who conducted themselves in this manner subject to gossip behind covered mouths between the pews one morning per week (at least in my experience).

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to see that life isn’t always so black and white. There are shades of gray that are subject to personal views and feelings, personal convictions that determine individual’s actions. And it’s the shades of gray that I find so interesting in relationships, for the shades of gray are, I believe, what determine the actions of those in a relationship after the newness and giddiness of love have worn off, replaced by what comes next: real love. Some get wrapped up in that giddy feeling and try to make it last long after it has faded; some allow this giddy feeling to lead them down the aisle, and then a predicament truly arises once the feeling has faded: they’ve married a feeling with a person attached, and once that feeling is gone, all that is left is the person once attached to it. Others go their separate ways once the feeling is gone, long before any trip down the aisle. Still others differentiate between the feeling of love and loving someone, the latter of which is determined by a choice, a choice to stick by the person whom you love even after the feeling is gone. To stick with that person when he/she is sick. To stick with that person through affairs and through reconciliations.

None of this is to say that there is any one set answer, of course, or that a particular maturity level really dictates actions in an explicit way. Here’s an example: I’ve a friend who has been with his boyfriend for nearly 18 years, better than four times the length of my first marriage. He, my friend, is quite well read, an academic, a writer. His boyfriend is not. He will be the first to suggest that they don’t seem to be a likely couple. The boyfriend (I’m trying to keep names out of this) has had at least two affairs over the years, left, but always come back. And my friend has taken him back each time. Why? Because he loves him. They’re beyond just that euphoric feeling of newness, beyond the telltale signs of love in the beginning, and they’ve settled into a life for themselves.

It’s cute and, I believe important, to tell the one whom we’re with that he/she make us happy and that we hope to always make him/her smile.  But maybe we can’t always make that person happy, and perhaps it’s unrealistic to believe we can. But we try to do so every day. We send texts in the morning to tell the person about whom we care to have a good day; throughout the day when we think about him/her; again at night to wish sweet dreams. But that feeling will fade in time. So what happens when attraction blends to love in the beginning and then morphs into love in the mundane? When seeing someone every day becomes the everyday? I can’t say I truly know what lies in the gray. I wish I did. I wish I knew what path my love life is going to take over the next several years. But since I don’t, I suppose I’ll just sit back and enjoy it. For I’ve been reminded of something lately that I had forgotten: relationships are supposed to be fun. What a pleasant surprise.

We drink. We smoke. We teach.

When I was 17 I decided that I wanted to be a high school English teacher (actually, I wanted to be Jack Kerouac, hitchhiking across the country, hopping freight trains, and writing; but I decided teaching English would be a more viable option.) I love literature and the realization that I could spend my day, every day, talking about literature and the ideas about society and humanity, was enlightening and amazing. I couldn’t wait for my future to come.

And then sometime during my sophomore year of college, I decided that I wanted to teach college English, prompted in part by a couple courses I took that changed the way I thought about literature, writing, and education, and how the three meld together in academic discourse. At that point, my metamorphosis from mere reader to academic intellectual was beginning. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time; all I knew was that I wanted to teach college. So, of course, I did the most logical thing I could: I got a degree in middle grades education, with certifications to teach English and social studies, knowing that I had no desire to teach in most of the grades in which I would be certified, 5-9. Ninth grade? Sure. Anything lower than that? Not a chance, especially after my student teaching experience, wherein I spent 16 weeks teaching 7^th graders how to write poetry and about the society of Ancient Rome. That experience taught me much about the world of education, but it primarily served to exacerbate any underlying concerns I had about teaching anything lower than high school. But I convinced myself that my BA in education would serve as a springboard to getting an MA in English, thus allowing me to teach college.

After college graduation, I would spend two years as an adjunct teaching developmental writing and ACT preparatory courses at a local community college. And then, through a twist of fate and providence, I wound up back where I’d wanted to when I was 17: I got a job teaching freshman and sophomore English at a local high school. To say I was nervous as my first day of my new job approached would be an obvious understatement. I was petrified, especially as in the month leading up to the first day, as I spent time planning and prepping, I learned that the high school experience I had left just eight years previous was remarkably different from the world I was entering as an educator. Nearly totally gone was the discussion of literature that I had loved as a student, replaced by a focus on informational texts. No longer did we read the entirety of novels, instead focusing on individual parts that met various standards. In fact, I was told that I may be wise to choose my standards to teach prior to selecting a work; that way I would ensure I was meeting the different standards. And, perhaps best of all, it seemed, I may not even have to teach the entirety of the work to meet the standards! If I could teach the theme of Of Mice and Men by reading just a few scenes, why waste time reading all of it? In the place of reading whole novels in class came Accelerated Reader, a program I had last seen as a middle school student. I quickly came to the conclusion that nothing in my past—not my time as a high school student, not my education courses, not even my time teaching developmental writing—had prepared me for teaching high school.

And I found the amount of paperwork and documentation, to say nothing of the grading, as certain assignments were mandated, staggering. Overwhelming at times. There were days during the first few months of teaching high school that I went home on the verge of tears, questioning whether I was truly supposed to be teaching high school, if maybe I had missed my calling somewhere and had totally screwed up the path my life was supposed to take. The newness of my teaching experience coupled with the tumultuous twists and terms of my personal life during the course of the year left me stressed, overwhelmed, and often unbearable to those around me, a fact of which I’m not proud. But I’ve learned a lot this year—about teaching, about the world of high school, about the nature of learning and what it means to learn—and I hope to carry all that I’ve learned this year into the next; and I believe I will be a better teacher for what I’ve learned and done this year.

And one thing I’ve learned is that many of us who teach are medicated; some self-medicated, some actually medicated. Lexapro. Prozac. Zoloft. You name it, we’re on it. Enough of us in education are on some sort of anti-anxiety medication and/or antidepressant that we could moonlight as apothecaries. We stand in the hallways between classes, talking about how we can’t wait to “tie one on” that evening, how we plan to wreck our livers over the weekend, all to cope with the stress of teaching. Just to get up and do it again the next day, the next week. The next year. Many of us sneak off on planning periods and lunch breaks to smoke out of the sight of our students, anything to calm our nerves before the bell rings. We vent and complain, bounce ideas off each other; we lament the way it used to be, the way it was when we started teaching, how it was when we were students. We wonder where society and education went wrong and what we can do to fix it. We have ideas and plans, grand schemes to save the public education system and our students, to better prepare them for college and the real world they will enter after graduation. We have the best of intentions, ways to get our students engaged in the arts, in the world around them, to make them more well-rounded individuals and citizens. And we do this, every day, in some form or fashion. Yet we always lament that we could do more but don’t, for one reason or another. Perhaps it’s a lack of resources, of funding, or maybe it’s simply a lack of time to accomplish all we would like to. Time is our greatest commodity, and it is so fleeting. The day ends and we stare at the paperwork on our desks, just waiting for us to get back to it the next day. We spend evenings and weekends grading and planning for the next week, documenting student successes and failures, parent contacts.

And then the year ends, and we’re tired. Some of us check out in the last few weeks, following our students down a path of apathy once survival mode sets in. We welcome summer with open arms, ready for the months-long break that awaits us. And I know we’re not that unique. Most people find their jobs overbearing and difficult; most people have down days and reach survival mode long before the weekend offers a brief respite. But I suppose I write this because I’m surprised: surprised by the difficulties of teaching in a world where the standards of education are in flux ; surprised by the level of stress associated with my chosen career; surprised by the number of us who love our jobs but get through them primarily with the help of medication.

But I’m also surprised by how rewarding it can be. Every once in a while, I’ll see the progress a student has made, or a student will thank me for making a difference in his life, or for being the first English teacher in ten years of school to teach her anything about English. And even on the darkest days, that brief thank you is bright enough for a silver lining. 

What to Know Before You Sleep with a Writer

“You should know that I’m a writer. Anything you say can and will be stored away or written down, edited, revised, and manipulated over the course of the next several years, before ultimately winding up in a short story, novel, or play.” I actually said that to a friend of mine over dinner one night. We decided that if any story or dialogue I stole from her side of the conversation wound up in a prize-winning work, I’d give her co-author credit for Pulitzer purposes. That dinner has since become the basis for a scene in my play.  It was a few weeks later that she and I went to dinner again. We had decided that it would be a good idea for me to meet new people now that I’m divorced, so after she and I went to dinner, we met up with her boyfriend and several of her friends from medical school at what I soon learned was a college bar in Huntington. It was the second bar she and I had been to in as many months, and I quickly came to realize that this one was quite different. The first had been dark and moderately quiet, had unique décor, and had been filled with well-dressed people who could easily have passed for stereotypical yuppies and intellectuals. My kind of place. This one, however, was bright and loud, with sports on the TV, people crammed all around the bar in skimpy clothes and t-shirts, everyone trying to hook up with anyone and anything that was awake and breathing. And I’m starting to think the lack of the last qualifications would’ve by no means been a deal breaker for some. I ordered a Courvoisier, my favorite cognac. The bartender looked at me as though I had two heads and then wandered off to find the other bartender, who ultimately affirmed the first’s belief that either she or I had no idea what the hell we were talking about. “We don’t serve that,” she said suspiciously upon returning. So I ordered a Hennessy. Nope. No cognac of any kind.

I was out of place and I knew it as I sipped my Maker’s Mark. (At least they had bourbon.) I was surrounded by strangers, friends of a friend, most of whom I will likely never see again, all of whom were lost in varying degrees of drunkenness. I tried to engage some in conversation—a fellow divorcee who was more than happy to give me drunken advice on the ills of marriage was also all too happy to talk about his new-found freedom—but mostly I did what I do best: I listened. In most situations, it seems that’s what I do best. I walked away from that night more sure of who I was (and was not) as a person (ideas best kept for another entry) but more than that, I walked away with stories. Several stories taken from drunken conversation about hang-ups, hookups, one night stands, love, and loss. I was amazed at the stories people would willingly tell over drinks with a stranger. And I warned them that I was a writer working on a play and a novel, that anything they said may well be used against them in fiction. They kept talking. I walked away from the bar typing notes into my phone and leaving myself voice memos in which I ran dialogue with myself as if I were rehearsing.

I’ve always been interested in where stories come from, where we get the ideas that formulate our plots and subplots, how our characters and their words are based in elements of reality, and how much truth—personal truth—goes into fiction writing. It is not uncommon, now, for me to grab my phone mid-conversation and start typing out a gist of what the other person is saying. Those who also write get it; they understand what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I suppose that makes my seeming rudeness forgivable: it’s in the name of art.

A writer friend and I were at a pizza place a few weeks ago and our waitress was rather funny. At one point, she started to launch into a story, but I stopped her. “I should warn you,” I said, motioning to my friend across the table, “we’re both writers. There’s a chance anything you say will wind up in print.” She laughed and then launched into a story that one of her customers told her when asked if he wanted a straw. “I don’t drink from a straw,” he had said. “It looks like I’m drinking from a penis!” We chuckled at her story, but all the while, I couldn’t help but wonder what had prompted the man to say it in the first place. I’m intrigued by the conversations we have in public. What is it that drives us to tell things to complete strangers, things we likely shouldn’t? Or to have private conversations in the most public of forums: restaurants?

I don’t have an answer. I don’t even really know that I want one. If I figured out what it was about us as a people that drove us to do that, I don’t know that I would find the idea so interesting. So in the meantime, I’ll keep listening to those around me. Keep lifting parts of text messages and manipulating them. Writing down the conversations I have.

So what should you know before you sleep with, live with, or marry a writer: we write, and we don’t just make everything up from scratch. So be careful what you say and know that we really are listening, just maybe not in the way you think. Maybe we’re tweaking your words to make them sound just a little bit better, or imagining what your speech would sound like in an Irish accent. Maybe with a few more or less swear words. Or maybe we’re wondering if you’ll recognize yourself ten years down the road when you wind up in our work.

"That's gay!" "I'm sorry, that's what?" "I said, 'that's..."

I often encourage my students to pay attention to how they present themselves--the language they use, the effect that language has on those around them, and what that language says about them. Oftentimes my students look at me as though I'm from another planet because I often speak grammatically correctly. My doing so is a conscious decision, the seed of which was planted shortly after high school. I had decided that I wanted to spend my life teaching English (OK, so actually, I wanted to spend my life being Jack Kerouac; teaching English seemed more realistic) and that if I was going to do so, I should present myself in a manner befitting one of that profession. So I have made a conscious effort to speak and write properly since then. My doing so has been deemed offensive and off-putting by some, and this has always bothered me; it is never my intent to seem as though I am holding myself in higher esteem than those with whom I am communicating, but alas, that is at times the case. I've tried to be mindful of that around certain people, thus allowing me to make a mental effort not to come across as condescending. It doesn't always work.

And I say all that to say this: I understand how language functions in society, both by denotation and connotation. Such skills are not always present in my students, whether at the high school or college level. I tend to place more of a focus on the use of language with my college students, those who are either already in the workforce or preparing to enter it. In most cases, my students are nontrads who have spent years in a particular profession and for one reason or another have reached a stage in life where it is necessary to make a change. So they come back to school. And after some standardized testing, they end up in my class, taught by someone half their age. It is in these particular situations that my use of language and the manner in which I present myself can seem off-putting or demeaning. For example, my first semester teaching college, I made the mistake of telling students how old I was: 22. An older student stood up in the back of the class and called out, "My God! You're how old? My stepdaughter is your age!" This was not an ideal meeting, but sixteen weeks later she approached me and said, "You know, when we started, I thought you were a pompous little prick. But you're all right. You helped me a lot this semester." I've seen her several times since she left my class, and she's always nice and conversational. But had she not gotten to know me over the course of the term, I would likely always be that "pompous little prick" she thought I was in August. 

But sometimes we aren't given the opportunity to get to know those with whom we interact. Our decisions concerning them are based on a brief encounter. I always use the interview process as an example when discussing these ideas with my college students. I tell them to imagine that they've just walked into a job interview, that they're interviewing for their dream job, the first step in a long career in which they'll be happy. And then I tell them to imagine saying something along these lines: "I needs me this job 'cause I ain't got no money." Guess what, I tell them. You ain't got no job either. Now they understand that this example is a bit extreme, and we chuckle about it. But I stress that there are those who view us in Appalachia in a light not much brighter than the example I gave. It's up to us to affirm the stereotype or rise above it. And I can always see a glimmer in their eyes at that point; most of them, anyway. They get it. And over the course of the term, it never fails that students will come up to me and tell me that they've begun correcting themselves when speaking, that they make a concerted effort to focus on how they speak and the language they use and what that language says about them. 

Which leads me to the titular story here. I have a general rule in my classes: if a particular term could be considered offensive to a group of people, don't use it. I don't provide examples until prompted to do so. That is, when a student uses a particular term, I tell him or her not to use it, though sometimes I do it in the manner suggested in the title of this blog, as was the case earlier this week. I don't remember what prompted the conversation, but at one point, a student, kindhearted and one of the first to ask how I am most days, said, "That's gay," to which I responded, "That's what?" And he looked at me as though he couldn't understand how I could possibly have not heard him when I was standing a mere foot from where he was seated. "That's gay," he repeated.

"I'm sorry, that's what?" 

He thought for a split second. "Ah," he said. "That's dumb." He thought he'd done so much better this time. He wasn't prepared for my response.

"So you equate gay with dumb?" I asked, a quizzical look on my face. He just looked at me. I walked away, giving my implicit lesson time to sink in.

A minute or so later, it dawned on him. "Oh, ok," he said, nodding his head in final understanding. It was a breakthrough, it seemed. Will it last? Who knows. He may revert back to calling things gay. He may call something retarded, another word I don't allow in my classes. But for a moment, he realized the error of his way. And I sometimes wonder if that's what education truly is: a series of small moments, small breakthroughs, each of which builds on the previous until one day all those small steps coalesce into new thought, fully formed thought, and we are forever changed, incrementally but finally wholly, into creatures with a new intellect, a new way of seeing and interacting with the world around us.

And who knows-- maybe it does start with the language we use.  

The Naming of Parts

I've considered myself single since Christmas of last year, though in truth I wasn't officially divorced until yesterday. After months of planning, fretting, and arguing, we sat before a judge who declared my marriage over--confirming the status that we had assigned to it months ago. My now ex-wife cried. My ex-mother-in-law cried. Even the judge cried, having to stop at one point and compose himself, wiping away the tears that had begun to form in the corners of his eyes. I sat there stoically, just waiting for it to be over. And as I waited, I couldn't help but think about the proceedings in relation to my wedding ceremony four years previous. We spent a year planning the wedding and then on the day of the ceremony, we waited nervously and anxiously for the evening to come, time dragging by, and when it did, it was all over in a matter of minutes-- twenty, maybe thirty. And yesterday's proceedings didn't last much longer. We spent more time waiting in the lobby than we did before the judge.

 And then it was over.

I'm writing this not to evoke sympathy or even to vent, but to put forth this idea: where do I go from here? I had dinner with a friend from high school who is also recently divorced. We've had numerous conversations about the turns our lives have taken and what those changes mean for our futures, the extent to which the decisions we've made and the circumstances under which we've found ourselves (whether by fate or our own doing) define us. Over dinner a couple weeks ago, we discussed what terms we now use to define the various aspects of our lives. For example, take the subject of dating: are the terms boyfriend and girlfriend applicable to the lives of people in our situation. (side note: we're not dating.) I have a friend who is nearing fifty; he's lived with the same woman, a woman to whom he is not married, for as long as I've known him--nearly seven or eight years. He refers to her as his girlfriend. I have another friend who is around the same age. She lives with a man to whom she is not married, and yet she and I discussed this subject and she seemed to think that the term boyfriend was not an applicable term, as it seemed to be indicative of an earlier age, of youth. She didn't have an answer.

Nor could my friend and I reach a conclusion of how to define the relationships in our lives. She has a boyfriend, and they use the terms boyfriend and girlfriend, but there seems to be an uncertainty in the terms when she uses them. Perhaps that uncertainty will fade in time, but that leads me to ponder the terms I'll use in my life. And this uncertainty started even before I thought about moving on. I would catch myself being uncertain over the past few months as to what terms I should use when discussing my now ex-wife: call her by name? continue to refer to her as my wife? start calling her my ex-wife even though we were still technically married? I found that I would alternate among the three. My choice was dictated in part by my audience, I suppose, but I still found that I was never truly satisfied with any term I used.

Which leads me to the future: boyfriend and girlfriend? mate? partner?
I don't have an answer. Nor do I know what comes next for me. I hope to make it to California after the school year ends, as I won't be teaching this summer. Maybe Hawaii. I have family in both places. Maybe NYC. I've wanted to go back for years. But who knows whether I'll make it to any of them. I tend to live in my dreams far more than in real life. Well, I used to, that is. With new chapters come new resolutions, and new attempts at making sense of and defining the world around us and our place in it. I don't have all the answers, I don't know what it all means or how to name the parts that make it all up, but I do know one new word that rings true in my life: free.

Beginnings (and maybe an ending)

I've long considered beginning a blog, but in truth, I never really knew what I would do with it. Would it be a place for public discussion of the thoughts that keep my up at night, the concerns I have with the world of education, my chosen career field? A place to try out new scenes or poems? I like to cook, so maybe it would be a forum for fellow foodies, I thought to myself. Ultimately, I finally just decided that I would start one if ever I found something worth discussing. This first post may not be indicative of the true nature of the blog, but it's a starting point. As the blog's name suggests, I am a teacher and writer-- I suppose those subjects are as good of starting points as any.

The deciding factor in my starting this blog, now, as it is, was my being privy to a rumor about my former high school: it seems that my former high school is considering eliminating Theatre Arts from the curriculum effective next year. I find this idea to be quite unsettling, for I know I would not be the person I am today were it not for my time spent in Theatre Arts classes over the course of my high school career. So a significant number of us former students--teachers, writers, actors--have sent emails to the school board expressing our concern over the situation. I'm stealing a page from Nathan Wellman here (http://nathanwellman.blogspot.com/) [I hope he doesn't mind] and asking that those who care about the arts in education take a moment and send an email to the board members, asking them to strongly consider the ramifications of their actions. [Contact info here: http://www.ashland.kyschools.us/districtBoardEd.aspx]

Below is the letter I sent. I hope that we can do some good.

Dear Members of the Board:

I want to thank you in advance for taking the time to read this letter. As an educator, I understand how precious your time is and I sincerely thank you for affording me an audience.  

The pervading rumor online and amongst colleagues and friends is that Theatre Arts will no longer be part of the curriculum at Paul Blazer High School beginning next year. I write today out of concern that there may be truth behind what so many of us have heard, and to express my dismay that such a scenario may well come to fruition.

I graduated from Blazer in 2005, having entered the school four years earlier as a timid freshman who was unsure of himself and seeking a place to belong—to the world generally, but more specifically in the halls that I would inhabit and traverse over the course of my tenure as a student there. I registered for Theatre I as a freshman simply because I needed the Humanities credit, and I entered Janie Modlin’s classroom unsure of what awaited me. To say that my timidity vanished upon entering her theatre class would be untrue, but the lessons I learned as a theatre student over the next four years were countless. Moreover, it was there that I began to truly develop a sense of self and belonging, for it was there, more than anywhere else during my academic career, that I found acceptance. I was free to be myself and to explore what that meant—that act of determining who I was as an individual and an artist—during the formative years of my adolescence.

Theatre Arts was an integral part of my education. And my story is not unique. Countless students have entered Janie’s theatre classes over the years and found there a sanctuary, a haven from the often tumultuous world around them that can seem so confusing and ugly. It is there they find their sense of belonging. It is there they find their voice. It is a place where creativity is fostered and nurtured, where talents are honed, and where the seeds that become dreams are planted. Students who may otherwise fall through the cracks are caught and buoyed through a creative outlet, pushed beyond their comfort zones, and made to explore the possibilities that lie before them. Theatre Arts is a program where, even if nowhere else, possibilities truly are limitless.

The art of performing in front of others prepares students for a variety of situations they’ll encounter over the course of their academic and professional careers. Were it not for my time spent in Theatre Arts at Blazer, I would not be the person or teacher I am today, I would not be writing my first play, and I most assuredly would not be involved with the drama department at my high school, where I hope to foster in my students a creative drive and an appreciation for the arts.

I hope that before any decision is made, you strongly consider the ramifications of eliminating the Theatre Arts program from the curriculum and the effects that such an action will have on countless students, both present and future.

Sincerely,

David Pack

High school English teacher, college instructor, and aspiring writer