What They Had

What They Had

Terry Zimmer, 2010

 

The usher on the left approached the altar,

 draped in mixed furs, dyed, pied greys, to this season’s colors, and

 cut square-shouldered, falling below the knees, to this season’s style.

 She rotated on one heel and assumed a posture of practiced dignity

 as though receiving diplomats, executives and artists into her

 well-appointed salon for evening repast and short cello programme. The

 cathedral was cold and she stood in her fur because it was what she had.

The usher on the right sauntered to the rail in a faux-leather jacket

 that read Sun City Motor Oil across the back, which cracked surface was

 interrupted with souvenir patches and an American flag. He turned and leaned

 forward, leading with one shoulder, welcoming the good folk to the feast of

 flesh and blood a few short steps away, like a used car salesman

 welcoming the next prospective deal to the lot. The cathedral was cold

 and he stood in his jacket because it was what he had.

The priest stood facing out from the center of the apse, rounded shoulders

 giving shape to a gleaming alb and green chausuble and stole threaded in

 gold and silver symbols of faith holding up a hand bearing a ring bearing

 a gem bearing both heritage and tradition. His words in English echoed

 in Latin in the diction and cadence of an engraved invitation. Break this

 bread. Drink this cup. The cathedral was cold and he stood in his vestments

 because it was what he had.

Faqspeak

Having googled “faqspeak”, I am surprised to have retrieved no hits for its use as a word. Therefore I offer it as a neologism. What do I mean by “faqspeak”? Exactly that. Well, almost. 

I hereby coin "faqspeak" (pronounced 'fak-speak') to  describe the phenomenon by which a speaker habitually begins each point of an exposition with a question. As a rhetorical device, asking a question then answering it can sometimes be effective. As a rhetorical habit, where it shapes most of an entire discourse, it not only annoys by its repetition, but undermines the art and effect of exposition. 

Effective exposition contains an element of drama. The thesis (or protagonist) may enter in the first scene, or be introduced after the stage is set. Subtext and subplot artfully carry the argument along, adding nuance, color and, most important, multiple levels of access in understanding motivation and purpose. The denouement closes the story leaving the audience convinced it is the only way it could have reasonably ended. The speaker established dogma with drama.

By contrast, "faqspeak" constitutes a coarse opening for a simple assertion. By controlling the question, the speaker crudely controls the range of response. Faqspeak sounds defensive because it is. I remember first noticing its use in the press conferences of a bush-league Secretary of Defense trying to explain why we should topple the regime of a dictator who did not pose an immediate threat. He did not explain anything: he merely answered his own questions. Repeatedly.

Many catechisms have long used the FAQ format it to reinforce recitation in a pedagogical setting. Cyber-wizards in the early internet days brought it to the mainstream in a technical support context. Somehow it morphed into a marketing tool to push information rather than to document user-originated inquiries and user-oriented responses. The kudzu-like spread of faqspeak found in corporate and political messaging today means to induce catechetical recitation of corporate and political agendas. We let powers that be (or wannabe) ask our questions for us.

My challenge for myself is to eschew the temptation to control the conversation by avoiding faqspeak. Used occasionally, it can be effective. This article uses it exactly once. Used habitually, it reduces what could be an eloquent description or explanation to a series of talking points. (Do not get me started on PowerPoint presentations.) Talking points do accommodate our short attention span, but they excuse us from the responsibility of thinking something through to the point where we might understand it.

Adding “faqspeak” to my own vocabulary helps me recognize it when I hear it and label it when I use it. I intend to catch myself before using it and to replace it with a more thoughtful (if not brief) explanation of what I am trying to communicate. This means letting listeners ask their own questions and answering only questions other people ask. It means waiting for others to form a response to my questions and to form a response that is not a question itself. That strikes me as a more effective, humane and satisfying way to conduct discourse.

Where have you heard faqspeak? Does our vocabulary need this new word?

Our Horse for a King

I am reading several Psalms in my devotions that are heavily themed with God's majesty and royalty. It made me think of a statement I read recently that among King James' motivations for providing a new translation of the scriptures 400 years ago was the intention to reinforce the authority of the monarchy. I don't know what word choices or interpretations reflect that, but it caused me to consider the disconnect between how some passages are understood differently read in a democratic society, as opposed to under monarchical or dictatorial rule. What do we miss and misunderstand by not living under the same kind of government the KJV was specifically meant to shore up?

My readings this morning also reminded me of God's reluctance to let Israel have a king in the first place. They pleaded like a six-year-old child: "but everyone else has one!!". God warned them that a king would draft their young men into armies and appropriate their property in taxes, which results the scriptures dutifully record. But other than the bureaucratic, militaristic and economic burdens in His warnings, God did not warn them of one consequence. They would no longer view Him as they did before. Having a king would diminish their relationship with Him.

Stories in the Old Testament, before the time of the kings, concentrate on patriarchs and prophets. But in those stories, God also came to the people in personal visitations and close encounters (Immanuel - God with us). Even in the exodus from Egypt, God made Himself known in a pillar of fire or leading cloud that all the people could see. For all the thundering and roar of Sinai, people witnessed God's presence directly. Not that it always made that much of a difference to them.

In God's plea with His people to forgo a king, might there have been a grieving plea not to interpose a figurehead between Himself and them? Like a wise father who sees his child run off to join the me-too of his generation, did God not restrain Himself from lamenting the mutual loss that would come from inserting a government between Himself and Israel? When a king became the only leader Israel would follow, did then the Messiah not have to be prophesied to be a king among his other identities? And did not the anticipation of a kingly messiah not obscure the arrival of an unlikely messiah in the actual incarnation.

Immanuel did come near again, disguised, but Himself nonetheless. But what did we miss in the distraction of demanding a king?

Really Good Parents

This post is in response to a Facebook post of the type that I run into every couple of weeks. It is titled "Angry Mom Shreds Common Core by Writing This on Her Son's Test".

I don't know whence Angry Mom gets her information about Common Core, or her Anger. But this is my response....


Dear Really Good Parent,

I mean that. You are a Really Good Parent.

You want what is best for your son. You want him to do well, to be well, and, well, even to exceed you in his character and his fortune, I would bet.

You are a Really Good Parent.

Being a Really Good Parent, however, does not make you a Really Good Educator. Nor would being a Really Good Engineer make you a Really Good Educator. Even having been a Really Good Student would not make you a Really Good Educator.

I can tell you were probably a Really Good Student because you can solve that arithmetic problem from the Common Core a lot faster using the way you learned than by using one of the modeled procedures in the Common Core. You learned a long time ago that 7-takeaway-6 is 1 and that 2-takeaway-1 is 1 and that 4-takeaway-3 is 1. You memorized a lot of simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems that led to harder problems where you had to carry, borrow and remember decimal places. You internalized those methods so well, you probably don't even have to think about how you solved the problem, you just did it.

I learned those methods, too, and even learned "the New Math" along with it. I internalized the procedures and can do those problems really fast. Just like you.

Doing those kind of problems relies heavily on being able to manipulate symbols and to process logic. Those are fairly abstract capabilities. I would guess that being able to process logic and manipulate symbols contributed to your being a Really Good Engineer.

Here's the thing: not everyone can process logic and manipulate symbols like you and I can. Those are two powerful capabilities that are not common in the population.

Developing those capabilities is not really a matter of practice, trying harder, technique or virtue. Developing those capabilities is more about how you perceive and process your world - in short, how your brain is wired. Of course, a person not wired for those capabilities can practice, try harder, google a technique and clean the chalkboard erasers for their teacher and they may be able to demonstrate some progress. But, because that is not how they perceive and process their world, it will not help them when it comes to learning new things.

When we learn new stuff, we first revert to form.

Most Really Good Students are those who are typically wired with those capabilities to process logic and manipulate symbols (especially math and engineering students). The majority of students have to rely on other capabilities to succeed - like spatial reasoning, kinesthetic experiences, or story telling. And this is the good news: those students can also be Really Good if they are presented with learning opportunities that address their learning styles.

Really Good Educators know that.

Here's something else: Really Good Parents only have to apply their Really Good Parenting over two or five or maybe eight children. They get a long time to practice and even a few years to learn who their children are. Over that time, they can make mistakes, make up for their losses and often be forgiven by their children because they have taught their children how to love and respect others' differences and shortcomings.

Really Good Educators have to hit the floor running on Day One with 15, 20 or 30 children. They have to ensure that everyone has the same opportunity to learn. Not just the Really Good Students like you and me. They have to address multiple learning styles and even learning disabilities in the course of their work. They didn't have 6, 10, 15 years to learn about any of those children or watch them grow up.

The approach to subtracting in the homework problem you didn't like relied on the position of numbers on a number line and on movement to represent addition and subtraction. It used space instead of symbols to represent the problem. (Remember that numbers are abstractions and numerals are only one of many possible representations. Counting on your fingers is another representation.)

Think about how you felt when you couldn't make sense of a problem represented with space and movement. That is how most students feel when presented with columns of numeric symbols and told to "borrow one from the hundreds' place". They don't get it and say "this problem is stupid". For those students, saying "4-takeaway-3 is 1" may be no more meaningful than saying "Roses are red, violets are blue". They are words and words can be arbitrary. (Roses can also be yellow. Or blue. And what, exactly, is 'violet'?) When those students are confronted with a problem that requires manipulating symbols and processing logic, they often conclude "I must not be good at math".

Your son, like you and me, might be very successful at processing symbols and logic. Even so, it doesn't hurt us to learn alternate strategies. Other students who are better at reasoning in space or motion won't be hurt by learning to manipulate numerals. Few people operate in a single mode. All of us can probably benefit by alternate ways of seeing. Or hearing. Or grasping.

Real Good Teachers help children become Really Good Students by giving them alternate paths to a goal. They help them become Really Good People by seeing (or grasping) that those who take alternate paths are not valued any more or less than they are.

States and districts adopt Common Core because they want everyone to get the opportunity to succeed at a set of baseline learning outcomes. Some students may do it faster by one approach over another, but everyone gets the chance. No one should be held back because they learn differently or require alternate paths to achievement.

Common Core is an exercise in respecting others' differences and shortcomings when it comes to reaching a common goal together.

I am thankful for Really Good Parents and Really Good Students, because I teach, too. I am also a parent. I am especially thankful for Really Good Educators who rise to the challenge of recognizing and responding to a room full of diverse capabilities every semester that measures out their career.

My hat is off to all Really Good Parents and Really Good Educators who are committed to helping all children become Really Good Students and Really Good People.

Point of View

One of my daughters emailed me last night asking if I had gotten to "the museum part" in Wally Lamb's book I know this much is true where he talks about how we curate the pain and injustices that people have wrought on us. I emailed back "no" and she found it herself shortly after.

When I went to bed that night and opened the book to continue reading, I came upon "the museum part" within a few pages. In the scene, a psychiatrist responds to the protagonist in a therapy session with "You are merely giving me a tour of ... your museum of pain. Your sanctuary of justifiable indignation.....You are a meticulous steward of the pain and injustices people have visited upon you... a scrupulous coroner."

The book is very good. And it has given me many opportunities for reflection.

I went to church this morning. The homily was on the Gospel passage, the story of the Prodigal Son (or the Prodigal God, as Lloyd John Ogilvie would have had it.). But the Epistle lesson was from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. I read the Epistle text like I had never read it before.

The perspective of the passage is instructive. It is not written in the second person. That is not because Paul was ever sheepish about speaking directly to his audience. He never shied away from an assertion. This passage, however, is written in the third person. I believe that perspective is critical to understanding what Paul means to say.

When this passage is generally read or preached, the message delivered is "because you, sinner, are a new creation, you should be able to bring your life into line with morals, expectations and rules by dint of your transformed life in Christ." This is a key passage in the message "you are not what you should be - so change!" (And don't make any excuses.)

I have heard, received and internalized this message as the following: If I am a new creation in Christ, then I have the power - the obligation - to change myself, or to let myself be changed. To become more acceptable. More normal. The unspoken corollary is that if I cannot (or will not) be changed, then I must not be in Christ in the first place.

It is true that we are renewed and transformed when we encounter the astounding love and grace of God. We do change. But that is not what this passage is about. The metaphor of a "new creation" echoes the original and sudden "Let there be..." moment. The changes that actually occur in our life take time. They are the result of long process and often do not take us where we or others expect.

What has happened immediately in Christ is that our sins are forgiven and no more held against us. This is exactly what the passage addresses. Read the passage again, and pay attention to the third person perspective. In the second person, one would expect to hear "You are a new creation.... (so shape up!)" But Paul goes in a different direction.

In the third person, Paul discusses how we look on one another and how we look on Christ. How we "regard" someone else "from a human point of view" and once knew Christ from that same view. But now we regard one another as a "new creation". "See"! (that is, "see the other person") "See" others as "in Christ". What does "seeing others in Christ" amount to? Holding them to higher standards? Judging them more severely because they are "new creations"? Paul does not go there with this language.

"Seeing others in Christ" means this: In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. That is the significance of the new creation. It is a creation where accusation and offense have no place. To "see others in Christ" is to count others' trespasses against them (or, our own against ourselves) no longer.

A gracious and merciful "let there be reconciliation" moment through Christ resulted in the new creation. The "newness" is simply that we are forgiven. We are impelled, then, to treat others as forgiven new creatures. Reconciled. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. That treatment goes beyond the church. Paul is explicit. "... in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them". This is where the third person is significant. Paul doesn't say "you are a new creation, etc". He says "the world".

"their"

"them"

In Christ, the supreme fact is that God has reconciled the world to Himself. We carry the message of that reconciliation. The message is "God no longer counts your trespasses against you." If God does not, how can we. It remains only for the world to reconcile itself to God's grace and love. Nothing impedes our office as ambassadors of that message more than to maintain our own "sanctuary of justifiable indignation" or to curate others' offenses against God or ourselves.

I haven't finished the book yet. I still have several hundred pages to go. While I don't always care for "happy" endings, I always like redemptive ones. I am hoping by the end of the book there will be one less museum of pain.