The Mud Pie

Howdy!

Today at Sojourn, a pastor who is living in Houston with us who hopes to plant a church in Italy, spoke from the passage of Isaiah 61:10-11.

10 I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up
    and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
    and praise spring up before all nations.

Isaiah 61:10-11

What stuck with me the most from the sermon was what he shared with us from a CS Lewis quote from his book, The Weight of Glory. 

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

After our gathering, my parish went out to eat, and we spoke with each other about our own "mud pies", the way we half-heartedly settle for life in the face of Isaiah's claim to "delight greatly in the Lord." I've probably read the passage, heard the quote from CS Lewis, agreed with it and moved on multiple times before, but today, I was unable to shake it. I couldn't help but agree that there are so many areas in my life where I "settle." Settling for me has looked like a great many things. Sometimes it's busyness in work. Sometimes it's Netflix, Clash of Clans, or reading comics. This is not to say I should stop doing all of these things, but I think in my heart I know when I'm using those things to hide from the scary unknown of engaging people in relationship.

Having taught in a public school classroom now for about 2 and a half years, I've walked through failure, despair, and heartache enough with God to see how He would use even those situations to show up strong and bring joy to me and to those around me. It's to the point now where I can get up in the morning, have no desire to leave my warm bed and yet say to myself, "God, I'll walk through today with You. Despite my expectations for this day, what would you have for me?" And more often than not, it doesn't mean that I get to avoid the places I'm afraid of, the trial and error of working with kids and doing relationships with people, but I can at least choose Jesus Christ's love to be enough in the midst of them.

Something said often by the leaders of our church is of their desire for us to be a place of smaller communities where people are known, the scary, unnerving kind of "being known" where you'd rather sink back into the shadows rather than risk your skin. Over time and thanks to invitations like this from this pastor and Jesus Christ, I think there is a kind of bravery we can find. It's not a guarantee that we will not walk through that which we fear but that we can walk through those places with Jesus Christ and give Him the chance for His love to be enough.

Failure doesn't phase me as much as it did in the classroom because of this. I hope that one day, rejection and disappointment in relationships or any place in life will not either, because I'll have had the chance to see God's love BE enough even in their presence. I think that's the adventure our hearts long for.

I'm encouraged by the conversations I had today and of the many others that were brave enough to share their mud pies and to slow down and consider their hearts over a meal. Without that and this sort of hope, I doubt I'd even have the bravery to share the walk I'm on here with anyone who's interested in reading this post. If this resonates with you at all, come talk to me.

Also, here's some recent awesome pictures from life lately.

A pic I love of my parents and I.

R2 the rat.

A sneak peak of what a select group of exceptional science students will get to do on our Health Museum Field Trip.

My cheek cells.

A fantastic slide prepared by a group of my students observing "budding" in yeast cells in studying asexual reproduction. So cool! Anytime you see a smaller cell coming off of a larger one, you can see the cells budding.

The update

People often commend me for my efforts as a teacher. People say, "Man I couldn't do what you do! Man you must be so patient!" It's nice, but I have to admit, I hide behind it. It's easy to.

Kid in class checking out the Circulatory System of a goldfish under a microscope. You can actually see the blood moving in the capillaries! So cool!

When I was about 5 years old, I remember sitting in church while we were praying. I asked God, "God, I want to be a power ranger." I even remember where I sat, near the back on the bottom floor. Its kind of hilarious, the things little kids pray for, but I think that's my heart's prayer even today more often than I realize. I was a soft hearted kid, easily beat up by what neighborhood kids would say about me and easily offended. From the get-go, I decided being a power ranger would work for me, that it was who I needed to be in life to stay safe and be okay. If you're strong, if you're noble, if you're a good guy, people won't hurt you... right? It's highly logical in the eyes of a child. In the stories, heroes have friends and everything works out in the end.

Our kiddos at HoggWyld playing "bigger or better."

Flash forward twenty years... I love super hero comics, Master Chief, Star Wars, etc. A hero is strong, self-sacrificial, noble, something people can look up to, and I spend most of my waking moments trying to be that. My efforts have been generously thwarted by God many times, as He knew I was performing for others out of a dire need in my own heart, a desperate need to find refuge in an incredibly difficult world, a world where we are not for others what we need SOMEONE to be, a world where disappointment, despair, anger, and frustration runs rampant. It was never God's plan for me to save myself, and it took Him awhile to show me that I was trying to.

My kiddos in class playing a game to get them out of breath to talk about the Respiratory System

All I can say after trying to be the hero for so long is that it is not satisfying. It is still a lonely place, and every day you have to wake up and be that hero again. Even if you are, you are not exempt from the pains and trials of life, contrary to the lie I wove for myself at a young age. A happy ending does not come from being a good man. And how may times do we hear in church, "You are saved by grace alone"? I knew that intellectually, but what I did not realize until recently, buried under the weight of a great many responsibilities in school, ministry, and life in general, is that there is no Life in being your own hero. Others may benefit nonetheless, and that's great, but I believe God has more to offer than that life.

I'm beginning to think that God would say, "Lay down that identity at my feet. You don't have to walk this road alone. You don't have to shoulder the burden alone. Let me be your Hero." Its complicated, because there's no way I'm going to show up completely underprepared for school tomorrow or not try and help my kids who are signed up to travel to NYC and DC raise money for their trip. Those are my commitments, but it has given me the grace to decline coaching basketball this season, to be okay with saying no to commitments, and really the grace to CHOOSE Jesus Christ as my Hero, to let Him be God in a world that needs far more than any human hero can offer.

If my life were easier, if I kids in my classroom who were saying, "Woah, Mr. Mark! You're awesome! I'm going to sit quietly, not play around, and learn everything you teach to me!" then I would not have been worn down enough to meet God here. I would not be so tired at the thought of continuing to do what I do every day from my own strength. God has driven me into the desert to address the needs of my heart, for Him to say, "You who are thirsty, come to me and drink." I wouldn't even have known I was thirsty in the first place!

All that to say, I do still need to revisit my lesson planned for tomorrow, because part of being a teacher is knowing that what you planned probably needs to be changed based on where your kids are at as opposed to where you expected them to be. I still need to write a warm-up for tomorrow. Bleh! And honestly, even though God has worn me down to a place of needing His love, I still love my job. I love seeing kids enjoy themselves and the other leaders at HoggWyld where they normally would rarely enjoy such connections. I love getting to be in the struggle with them every day at school.

And I don't think the solution is to say, "All right. I hide behind my noble efforts, so I will stop trying." I think Jesus would rather say, "Choose me here. Let me be your Hero." And that is an adventure in itself. I don't know how God would love me in this place. I don't know what the "drink" will look like for my thirsty soul. But I am willing to choose it because I'm willing to believe it will be better than "trying harder" and better than "giving up to bitterness." And who knows what it would look like to show up as a teacher instead of from a needy place, from a place that I have received greatly and generously from Jesus Christ, time and time again?

The journey continues. And regardless of what that means for me and my relationship with Jesus Christ, I am still incredibly excited to see the new Star Wars in 59 days with my nerd friends on opening night. Watch this trailer if you have not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGbxmsDFVnE
There is something magical and mythical about it. When Han Solo exclaims, "It's true. All of it. The Dark Side. The Jedi. They're real." I can't help but think about our world and the epicness of who Jesus Christ truly is. You could easily say, "It's true. All of it. The great enemy of our Father, Jesus Christ and His plan for our good. They're real."

Also, my pastor at Sojourn, Brandon Barker, pointed out to the whole congregation on Sunday that we as a church tend to hide in plain site. We show up, enjoy the service, go to parish, and we hide behind our smiles. I do it too. And as the journey continues, I don't think the opportunity for us as Christians is to only say, "Well, stop hiding!" I think we can also say, "Jesus Christ, I am hiding because I am a scared, broken, and hurting person. And I am choosing Your Life and Your Love here."

He's real, and He is faithful. Amen!

The Truth

A few weeks ago I was charged with the task of pairing up with a fellow teacher on giving a presentation on inquiry-based learning for our staff. Immediately when I read the email and its directive, my heart felt like it would if the teacher called on you in class and you didn't know the answer. It's kind of like, "Oh crap!"

I love inquiry-based learning, but I am still new too it. I'm not an expert, and I've only been teaching for a year. And honestly, most of the year, I didn't know what I was doing! I learned a ton of course, but most of my trial and error was necessary, grueling, and life-defeating error. So is the life of one who works with kids. Anyway, once again, as I've found myself many times before in life, I do not know the answer.

Don't we all feel like this some days?

I set out to fix this. I did a bunch of research online about other people's research about inquiry-based learning. I familiarized myself with it's basic concepts, on top of the ones I already knew, and I strove to learn as much as I could as to not be seen in front of my peers as someone without the answer. Sure I want to give a good presentation for their benefit and the benefit of our kids, but I think I was also working out of the fear of my own exposure. I didn't want to be known as that failure.

I called a friend and explained my predicament. He asks me, "What is inquiry-based learning?" I explain to him, "Well, it's kind of like learning by experience. You want to solve a question, a problem, or a scenario, and to do that, you have to learn about the dynamics of the situation. By giving kids this problem, you drive their learning by research, group work, experimentation, and presentation of ideas. You don't give them the answer. They find out for themselves because there is a purpose for their learning: solving the problem!"

Or at least... I said something like that...

Anyway, I explained to him how hard it is for me to be in front of a crowd, how I felt more unprepared because I didn't know the subject as well as I wanted, and even more unprepared because I've only taught for a year and sort of tutored another. He stopped me and said, "You know what? God is giving you an inquiry-based learning experience right now!"

It was hilarious. Here I am freaking out over how to make this presentation work, and God is giving me an experience where I get to learn how to walk through a situation where I do not know the answer, where I am not the most qualified, where I am not "the expert." Inevitably, we come across these situations in life, and unfortunately, I know I have spent much of my life trying to avoid them. I could read in the Bible or hear from another about how they responded to that sort of situation, but here God is giving me the experience. He's teaching me like I'm trying to teach my kids.

I've always loved the brutal honesty of Jesus. He provokes Pharisees, pushing their buttons, knowing how fake they are with their lofty prayers, generous offerings in public, rule following, etc. I believe He invites us out of our masks, out of trying to be someone we're not. It takes great courage to say, "Hey, I'm not what I'm afraid everyone thinks I should be." Because honestly, I'm not. Most of us are not, I think. I wonder how often we think everyone else is totally sane and that we're the only person who is losing their mind.

Anyway, I believe God is inviting me to be honest about my struggle here, and my hope is that others can join me in that honesty in life. We spend far, far too much struggling, fighting, clawing to keep up the facade, and with our job, as teachers and just being human beings, already being so difficult, that's just something we should not have to do! Don't we have a hard enough time already trying to navigate awkward social situations, trying not to step on peoples toes, trying to love our fellow man, and whatever else without judgement and death?

And I hope that could be the same in my life with anything, with family, with WyldLife, with church, friends, anything. I hope to have the courage to say stuff like this in my every day life, not just behind my computer screen, but when doing ministry with my teammates, when walking the halls at school, when eating dinner with church friends, wherever. It's terrifying, but I believe it is worth it.

Here's to another year of teaching middle schoolers, inviting kids to meet Jesus Christ, and enjoying life with friends and family!

Hogg teachers ready to RUMBLE