As the bell rang, I was already in go mode. Game face on, I guided various and sundry goofballs into seats with the veiled threat of lost participation points.
"I wanna start off today by running through the eight evil thoughts." I said "I want to gauge two reactions: raise one hand if you found yourself a little scared by the evil thought, and two if you said to yourself 'holy crap that’s me.'"
We ran through them. We got generally honest responses, except, because of the societal taboos it violates, on lust. Will Parks and I raised our hands high, as did a few other young men. “Aha!” I said, “here’s the thing about this—we’ve talked about how the eight evil thoughts are in everyone, to some degree. Most of us feel confident admitting everything except lust. Don’t worry, that’s totally ok—it just means we know that about 98% of us tell lies in religion class.” My students laughed an uncomfortable laugh. “See that? There’s so much that brings us together.”
We ran through the last three. A smattering of students had Holy Crap That’s Me reactions to vanity and pride, and many were scared by Wrath.
“Y’all, please believe that I didn’t do that little exercise to embarrass anyone. Again, when we get that stuff out in the open it’s to normalize it—to make us realize that the struggle’s ok and we’re not alone in it. That’s a huge chunk of what I want this class, as a whole, to do for folks.”
I stopped for a minute. “Take a minute to notice something. My classroom isn’t decorated with apples and rulers, and there are only a few examples of Student Art on the walls—stuff people have done for extra credit over the years. What does decorate the walls here?”
Ralph Cain said “It looks like you took sayings from fortune cookies and decorated the class with them.” Everybody laughed.
“That’s true, Ralph” I said, “but no, my sad white keister does not sit in the dark compulsively eating fortune cookies just for the sayings. It’s common, in the monastic tradition, to collect what in Greek are called ‘apophthegmata’ or wise sayings. I guess, when I left the monastery, I kept doing it. It helps me recognize the truth when I see it.” No one seemed completely disengaged, so I went on. “What I want to talk about today is what we do about the eight evil thoughts if we find them to be true. We’ll end up identifying the opposite of compulsive thought—I call them the “steps of deliberate thought”—but don’t write that down yet. For now, Hillary Jones: would you please just pick a saying off the wall and read it aloud?”
Hillary looked around, picking a saying to her right. “I’m not ok, you’re not ok, and it’s ok.”
“Thank you, Hillary. There was a book that emerged from Hippie pop-psycholology era of the late sixties. It was entitled I’m Okay, You’re Okay. It was a hit with that generation. Future generations kinda had a problem with it though. Think of it this way: when I’m okay, You’re Okay was published, it was an era of massive experimentation with drugs. The next generation experimented with harder and harder drugs, until a whole generation was in rehab. Alcoholics Anonymous, who plagiarizes quotes like it’s their job circulated ‘I’m not ok, you’re not ok, and it’s ok’ as a way of saying ‘Something’s off, but somethings off with all of us, so we can accept that in one another.’ The saying is one of the goals of this classroom: to unite around shared failure to live up to the ideal.” I looked around again. “Fatima, read me another wall-saying.”
Fatima picked one and said “Identify, don’t compare?”
“What does it mean,” I asked, “If you ‘identify as an addict’ or ‘identify as gay or straight.’”
Cole Jensen raised his hand, and I called on him “It means, like, that your lives are the same.”
“Good, Cole. It does mean your lives are the same. So what might ‘identify don’t compare’ mean?”
Will Parks raised his hand. “It means focusing on how we’re the same, not how we’re different.”
“Yes sir it does. So it's better for us to focus on the fact that we all deal with the same crappy compulsive thoughts, rather than comparing the ways we're unique.” I said “Now, Will, read me another.
He looked around. “How about ‘You alone can do it, but you cannot do it alone.”
“Good! Fatima, can I ask you a serious question?” She turned toward me. I went on “When was the last time you got someone to wake up for you?”
Fatima was confused. I went on. “Fatima, when was the last time you had to go to the bathroom and got a friend to go instead of you?”
Again, confusion. “Let’s get more simple. How many people live in your body?”
Fatima knew this one. “One.”
“So who” I replied “is the only person who can get work done when it has to do with your body?”
Fatima said “Me.”
“You alone can do it! But what if you get cancer, or what if your Aunt dies, or what if your arms get cut off in a freak run-in with an extremely talented ninja warrior?
They understood “You cannot do it alone. We all have stuff that we can change. And very often, we’re the only ones that can change that stuff. But also, all of us have things that we can’t change. We don’t always have to worry about what we can’t change, like when it’s other people’s choices. But when we do have to worry about what we can’t change, like the fact that we’re suddenly armless, we need help to do it.”
And here’s the thing! All this stuff about the eight evil thoughts? We didn’t ask for this, and we didn’t do anything to deserve it. But if we don’t deal with the uncomfortable emotion in our lives, that emotion will mess us up. Will,” I said, wheeling around and pointing “What’s the last ’wise saying’ on the classroom walls?”
Will read aloud “It is not your fault, but it is your problem.”
“It is your problem. But as the the Alcoholics Anonymous saying says, there is a solution. Next we’re gonna detail what it takes to address the Characteristics of Isolation. Hillary” I wheeled around “what, on the first day of class, did we say the entire point of the course was? It was one sentence, and we wrote it down in our notebooks. We come out of what, into what, by way of what”
Hillary sat up straight, turned to the first page of her notebook “Out of Isolation, into Community, by way of the Sacraments?”
That’s right. Out of Isolation, into Community” I said. “Now that we’ve talked about the ‘Characteristics of Isolation,’ Please write ‘the Characteristics of Community’ at the top of a page in your notebook. Then, down the side, just like we did with Isolation, please write this sentence. ‘Here, Koalas Ate Uncooked Eucalyptus.
“Now turn to the page where you have the ‘Characteristics of Isolation.’ The thing about the ‘Characteristics of Community’ is that they are the opposite of the ones for Isolation. So, very quickly, let’s try to guess what they might be. Will, what is the opposite of denial?
“Like, being real with people” Will replied.
“Right. Now, for the sake of everyone being on the same page,” I said “ let’s call that ‘honesty’ Write that down next to ‘here’”
There was scribbling. I turned to Ralph “Hey Ralph. Super quickly: what’s the opposite of an opinion?”
Ralph: “A fact”.
Me: “So if ‘I think’ expresses an opinion, what might express a fact?”
Ralph: “Like, being certain.”
Me: “Let’s call that ‘Knowing.’ Will, what’s the opposite of Invulnerable? Remember English class, sometimes dropping the prefix gives you a word’s opposite.”
Will said “vulnerable?”
“Good Will.” I said “Hillary, again, remember that adding a prefix also sometimes gives you an opposite. What’s the opposite of “perfect?”
Hillary responded “Imperfect!”
“Right. Hillary. So, Ladies and Gentlemen, The opposite of ‘thinking you’re invulnerable and perfect’ is ‘knowing you’re vulnerable and imperfect.’ Write that down next to ‘Koalas.’”
Scribbling. I turned to Fatima “Fatima, what is the opposite of the ‘Inability to use the sacramental lens.’
“The ability to use the Sacramental Lens.” She replied
“Good. Not the inability to see God through what he has made, but the ability to see him. The ability to use the sacramental lens. Write that down next to ‘Ate.’”
“Cole, if ‘divisive’ is something that separates us,” I asked, ”what is the opposite of that?”
Cole responded “something that brings us together”
“The adjective form of the Word ‘unite’ is ‘unitive’” I wrote the adjective in big letters on the Dry Erase board. “Next to ‘Uncooked’ write ‘unitive thinking.’ Focusing on what brings us together. And here’s what we’ll go into next, it’s the opposite of the ‘eight evil thoughts.’ Next to ‘eucalyptus’ write ‘eight honest virtues.’ More on that tomorrow. For now ‘Here, Koalas Ate Uncooked Eucalyptus’ stands for honesty, knowing we’re vulnerable and imperfect, ability to use sacramental lens, unitive thinking and the eight honest virtues.”
The bell rang.
“More on this tomorrow” I yelled, over the sounds of packing up school supplies. Already standing in the corner by the door, I saw them all out.
Supplies were what the class truly came down to: If we wanted to come out of Isolation, if we wanted to come into community, these are some of the things we would need. I suppose a teacher always hopes his students will bring their materials to class. As the days went on, the stakes on that that aspiration grew higher.
Feeling the press of possibility, I closed the classroom door. Flopping into my desk chair, I surrendered the whole thing. Today was either worthless, or a work of providence. I threw my lot in with the latter.
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