I am a fairly avid football fan. Especially if my students or brother are on the team I am watching. I am very competitive and I will think, if not call, cruel things to poor referees. I am from Texas, and not that it is an excuse, but I expect a fair game, a tough game, and a game where the people I care about win.
However, the past two weeks the school I teach at has played, and I have wondered the cost of the other team losing. It had rather shaken me to the core, as I look at the student's faces, see their tears as they get so close to the title and have it ripped away.
Last week the team we played lost by 8 points, and it wasn't that they were not talented, or big, or didn't have their heart in it. It simply came down to a couple plays that had they ended differently, we would have lost.
This week, we played a team that put their heart into it for the final title. It was them or us that would walk away with the championship, and their team played their heart out. The game ended tied, with an NCAA playoff. We set up and scored first, and made our kick. They set up, scored quickly and set for their kick. The person setting the ball fumbled and they missed their kick. They lost by one point, by one set of shaky hands, and I can only imagine the pressure on that one student for the failure.
The competitive side of me gave way to the compassionate side. I have no doubt that the championship title was not worth one student's misery as he realizes all blame would go to him for the loss. I have no doubt that the cost of a championship should not be measured by shaky hands. And yet, I also know the fact that one moment in that student's life may affect him adversely forever.
You see high school, in my mind, is meant for developing and growing. It is meant to teach good sportsmanship, to rejoice the winnings and come together at the losings, and appreciate the talent shared.
Somehow, I feel like it wasn't recognized that both these teams played well. I feel like the title went to the winner, but that we didn't really prove we were better. We just proved that one set of hands didn't have as much sweat. Somehow, the cost doesn't make the title worth it in my mind.
The cost of one student being held responsible for a small amount of sweat doesn't make it a good game.
I struggle with this. I really do. I see our boys walking around today happy about winning state, but all I can do is wonder the cost.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
the question of guilt in ministry
When i has the official title of "minister" at a church, i somehwat took it for granted. I spent hours pouring over books, spent hours looking at curriculum, spent hours studying Jesus's relational ministry. The years placed into it, I expected a filling of fullfillment, for my heart to be constantly softening, and for my world to be seeking the warmth of God's love always.
Part of the issue was that some of the teenagers in my group had read the blog, seen the words and listened to their parent's interpretation. My priest recognized that my words were more from intellectual study during my time in theology school, but those that had decided I was unfit (and their children that treated me like the town leper) did not sway so easily. It was difficult to hold youth with these students that so easily gossiped behind my back and see God in their faces.
In the end, I left. I feared the church would split over their position on me because of a misunderstood blog. You see, at one point I listed reasons why people contemplate suicide, and ended it along the lines of, "but to commit suicide you'd have to give up the hope that God holds some greater knowledge as to the rest of how your life should play out." Well, some were in a fizzy because of the mention of committing suicde, others believed me to be emotionally corrupt, while others stood by me. In the end, it was a decision made with God at heart that this church could not divorce over something so silly. They had divorced before, and I wouldn't be the reason they divorced again.
Eventually I turned in my resignation, and told the students. It was heartbreaking, especially as the students who hadn't been a part of the situation found out more and subsequently blamed their peers for my departure. It was painful, but I knew I'd go down in the history books of that sweet little church's damned ministers who posed a threat to their sacred children's lives. Well, at least in some minds. Others were still far helpful.
But this brings me to the here and now. I feel guilty not knowing how to respond to those students who hurt me. My intelligence says their innocence should have been the excuse for their ignorance of action, but I still cannot truly close that wound. The wound that these students and their parents left is something I cannot surmount easily. And in fact, brings me to tears quite regularly when I think of the people. It is the last church I truly felt home in, as I now wander aimlessly searching for that feeling of home again.
Perhaps I am far to grudging, and perhaps it is a grudge I still hold, but I cannot help but feel guilty when a mention of their name sends me reminisicing into those moments of sheer hurt. I hope one day there is no grudging feeling, and no holding back of myself for fear of being burned again. I do truly hope it, because then only will the guilt subside.
Part of the issue was that some of the teenagers in my group had read the blog, seen the words and listened to their parent's interpretation. My priest recognized that my words were more from intellectual study during my time in theology school, but those that had decided I was unfit (and their children that treated me like the town leper) did not sway so easily. It was difficult to hold youth with these students that so easily gossiped behind my back and see God in their faces.
In the end, I left. I feared the church would split over their position on me because of a misunderstood blog. You see, at one point I listed reasons why people contemplate suicide, and ended it along the lines of, "but to commit suicide you'd have to give up the hope that God holds some greater knowledge as to the rest of how your life should play out." Well, some were in a fizzy because of the mention of committing suicde, others believed me to be emotionally corrupt, while others stood by me. In the end, it was a decision made with God at heart that this church could not divorce over something so silly. They had divorced before, and I wouldn't be the reason they divorced again.
Eventually I turned in my resignation, and told the students. It was heartbreaking, especially as the students who hadn't been a part of the situation found out more and subsequently blamed their peers for my departure. It was painful, but I knew I'd go down in the history books of that sweet little church's damned ministers who posed a threat to their sacred children's lives. Well, at least in some minds. Others were still far helpful.
But this brings me to the here and now. I feel guilty not knowing how to respond to those students who hurt me. My intelligence says their innocence should have been the excuse for their ignorance of action, but I still cannot truly close that wound. The wound that these students and their parents left is something I cannot surmount easily. And in fact, brings me to tears quite regularly when I think of the people. It is the last church I truly felt home in, as I now wander aimlessly searching for that feeling of home again.
Perhaps I am far to grudging, and perhaps it is a grudge I still hold, but I cannot help but feel guilty when a mention of their name sends me reminisicing into those moments of sheer hurt. I hope one day there is no grudging feeling, and no holding back of myself for fear of being burned again. I do truly hope it, because then only will the guilt subside.
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