One Last Post before Nuptials

by Dave Gregory

Well friends, I’m getting married in a few days, so I’ll try to keep this brief, because I’m currently prepping like a maniac. Erin recently wrote on the cost of faith, and I’ve been pondering this very same thing for several months now. The high school I teach at hemorrhages faculty and staff each year; as a Cristo Rey school, we simply cannot afford to offer salaries that compete with those of the public school system. Moreover, the combination of our renting a building from Portland Public Schools and outstanding loans means that we cannot even meet the payscale set by the archdiocese for its schoolteachers.

Editor's Note: I mean just look at this screenshot of their wedding website that I just took.
The substantial elegant beauty is enough to disgust common taste.

On top of all this, teaching at our particular school entails “getting the emotional shit kicked out of us” (in the words of one colleague, from a faculty lounge conversation a while back) on the day-to-day. This fact of my work has begun to sink into my bones a bit, and while most of my interactions with students are positive, regularly occurring and notably challenging engagements still leave me reeling.

Even those conversations that grow into a form of prayer, of cor ad cor loquitur (“heart speaking to heart,” to borrow from Newman), leave this borderline introvert drained of emotional energy; a student discloses, in the sort of innocent trust that only the less-jaded remain capable of, the difficulties of their non-academic life, and I consequently catch a glimpse of the enormous responsibility inherent to the ministry of education. “You stand in the gaps,” recently declared one of my juniors at a faculty discussion concerning equity, referencing the abyss of her father’s and brother’s absences brought on by gang violence. There’s a weightiness to all this, really, and one can feel the gravity of what one does at De La Salle. It pulls on the lungs, making it harder to breathe.

In short, unless one truly buys into the Lasallian charism and its mission of educating and forming socioeconomically oppressed youth, there’s no real reason to remain.

This environment constantly forces me to ponder what makes the shit-expelling blows worth it, and this ensuing reflection forces me to apply some book learning. It’s all about that distinction laid out by Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship, I’ve discovered, the one that articulates the stark opposition of cheap grace and costly grace and thereby reveals a deep truth: grace isn’t grace unless it costs us. If I’m sitting around on my laurels, reveling in my supposed Christianity, it’s not Christianity I’m reveling in...it’s the snares of the Enemy, who would love little more than lukewarm complacency. The opposite danger, methinks, lies in indulging the hubristic tendency to inflate my own Christian ego; in an era of stark political division, fingers are pointed and cries denouncing the Christianity of others fill the masturbatory space of social media.

I digress. My own pedagogical disposition must constantly deflect these temptations of self-gratifying praise. I can sit here and discuss the wounds inflicted by my students, but so doing would distract from the real work at hand. Real humility, as the saying goes, is not about thinking less of myself, but thinking of myself less. In a very real way, I need to ignore the shit-kicking, for those who fling their feet at my gut are doing little more than testing my grit, my dedication, and/or my ability to care enough about them to endure. They’re just teenagers, I need to remind myself, “Jesus in his least recognizable form,” to steal the words of a Jesuit quoted by a dean I worked with. Every defense I throw up in return, be it indifference or overly-indulgent disciplinary action or misplaced sarcasm, is a failure on my part to love these young human beings into who they become; I’m still growing into this understanding.

In the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius instructs that one must hold onto graces for periods of desolation: that is, when you’re in a funk, savor the blessings until the funk lifts. No place has taught me this more than my classroom in Room 208 on North Fenwick Avenue in Portland. Looking back on this year -- a year in which my father has been rendered immobile by the final stages of Parkinson’s and has been hospitalized multiple times, a year in which both my parents and I moved to what seem to be more or less permanent homes, a year throughout which Sarah and I have planned and coordinated all the infuriating details for this weekend’s nuptials, and a year that precedes welcoming a new puppy and the commencement of doctoral work -- I’ve got some graces to show you.

And they come in the form of haikus written by fourteen and fifteen year-olds for final exam extra credit. Although many may be silly, they all reflect a degree of authentic biblical and theological understanding. Others offer pearls of deep truth and mystery, thereby realizing the authentic purpose of a real haiku.

You’re welcome.

* * *

Theological Haikus Composed by Disadvantaged Youth

Regardless of the
situation, sin always
will somehow exist

Jesus loves us much,
no matter if I fail this,
he loves me through all

Finals can be hard.
Theology can be hard.
Just believe in God.

Was Samson like a
Disney princess with powers
like Rapunzel’s hair?

Be a good person.
Judges and kings are bad, so...
so don’t be those.

So God gave up on
the Kings? No wonder they suck.
Basketball is rigged.

Mr. Gregory
is forcing us to do these
haiku poems, dang

God had one job: don’t
break Job, and lost his bet, he
could lose five big ones!

Oh, hello Job, it’s
good to see you once again.
Yeah, thanks a lot, God.

Satan was not bad
in Job, but now seen as bad,
just like my sister.

The Song of Songs was
really beautiful, much much
better than Bieber

Guy: “Let’s add a song
about sex to our God book.”
Everyone else: “Sure!”

The Song of Songs was
too secular, ew, too gross,
too much to handle

If I fail this test,
Jesus might still love me but
my mother will not

God is a puzzle
We cannot figure him out
He’s complicated

I know this isn’t
theological, but have
fun getting married

If Jesus still loves
us then he would give us As.
But you are not him.

Thank God I am an
atheist. Oh wait,
that’s contradictory.

I wish I was a
king, you know...violating
commandments for fun

Why are there minor
prophets? It’s because they didn’t
mind their own business.

I think Jesus would
have letted me use the bath-
room if he were here

Jesus loves you more
than white people love their dogs
and morning coffee

I am nothing but
a blind beggar who received
a merciful gift