The Ultimate Oxymoron

There I was, minding my own business in Sunday morning worship – actually I was trying to mind HIS business – taking notes on the sermon with the worship-order sheet provided, when the phrase hit me. Now I’m pretty much a fan of oxymorons. You know the ones: good grief, pretty ugly, military intelligence, adult male, guest host, freezer burn, constant change, found missing, 12-ounce pound cake, same difference, silent scream, sweet sorrow, small crowd, airline food, rap music, sanitary landfill, civil war, and the many others you could add to that short list especially if you look online at the myriad Websites giving us hundreds of others. However, I had never heard one quite as good as this morning’s – especially given the setting. One of my favorites until this morning was probably "adult male."

Before I spill the beans about my new #1 in the world of oxymoronic phraseology, allow me to let Wikipedia offer this quick review: An oxymoron (plural oxymorons or, more rarely, oxymora) (noun) is a figure of speech that combines two normally contradictory terms. Oxymoron is a Greek term derived from oxy ("sharp") and moros ("dull"). Thus the word oxymoron is itself an oxymoron.

Our pulpit minister Randy Owens, preaching on "The Fruit of the Spirit Is Kindness," let it slip. He used the phrase “Nazi kindness.” I heard it clearly; it sort of jumped into my head. “Nazi kindness”? That just had to be the ultimate oxymoron or perhaps the penultimate oxymoron…the oxymoron to end all oxymorons. Fortunately my mind was instantly able to picture the entire context word for word as it had been uttered only moments before.

Suddenly, in less time than it takes to say “decently and in order,” it all made sense. I realized that “Nazi kindness” was inside the phrase, “People tend to not see kindness.” Do you see it? I bolded it in case you missed it the first time - perhaps you're a smart jock or an honest lawyer. It’s stuck in there amidst the split infinitive. Don’t be concerned if you haven’t even heard of split infinitives since about 11th grade. And, no, Randy, I’m not picking at your grammar. It’s just that, had the infinitive not been split, the Nazis would never have been part of the sermon on kindness; I would’ve just sat there oblivious to the humorous potential; and this blog would not exist.

Funny how the mind endeavors to sometimes play tricks on a guy, even in the more serious moments of this life. Oh, if you missed my split infinitive in the previous sentence (in bold type to get your attention), please believe it was intentional. I didn’t spend 10 years as a high school English teacher for nothing…well, perhaps next to nothing; but certainly not for nothing.

TeacHEROlics Anonymous = TA

Recently I noticed on the Martin Methodist College faculty secretary’s desk a copy of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous that she had been typing for one of the psychology professors. It made me think that a lot of that was applicable, with some slight editorializing, to teachers. I am part of a team of professional educators whose task it is to prepare prospective teachers as well as possible. The motto for our Division of Education is Reflective Educators Preparing for Service (REPS). Reflecting is a huge part of our profession; so, with some slight apologies to AA, allow me to use the “How It Works” section of their Big Book to help teachers reflect on being heroes to their students. After all, isn’t it obvious that HERO is at the very core of the Teacherolic?


[from the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, How It Works]

Rarely have we seen a teacher fail who has thoroughly followed this path. Those who do not succeed are teachers who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of teaching which demands rigorous preparation, constant flexibility, and continuous improvement. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave burnout or refusal to learn, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to change.
Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with students – cunning, baffling, and powerful! Without help they are too much for us. But there is One who has all power – that one is God. May you find Him now.
Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His guidance and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery and innovation for teachers stuck in the rut of dull and mundane teaching:

1. We admitted that we were powerless over our students; that our classrooms had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater then ourselves could restore us to passionate teaching.
3. Made a decision to turn our classroom(s) over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching inventory of our teaching methods and classroom management strategies.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another professional the exact nature of our burnout.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all our deficiencies of character education.
7. Humbly asked Him to replace our shortcomings with positive pedagogical dispositions.
8. Made a list of all students and colleagues we had alienated and became willing to change those relational capacities.
9. Made direct amends to such students and colleagues wherever possible, except when to do so would violate professional distance or relational capacity with them or others.
10. Continued to reflect on our teaching, and when we needed to change promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through reflection (prayer, meditation, journaling, networking, etc.) to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out in our classrooms.
12. Having had a passionate awakening of enthusiasm as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to teacherolics, and to practice these principles in all our classes.
    
    Many of us exclaimed, “WHAT AN ORDER! I can’t go through with it.” Do not be discouraged. No one among us had been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints – we are teachers; we touch the future of young lives. The point is that we are willing to grow as professional educators. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim pedagogical progress rather than perfection…Our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:

• That we were teacherolics and could not manage our own classrooms.
• That no human power could have restored our lack of passion, dispositions, and relational capacity.
• That God could and would if He were sought.
  
  
  Are you perhaps thinking this is a little over-the-top or “out there”? Think reflectively again. I do understand that federal law prohibits public school teachers from openly testifying about God or religion in any overt manner. We can, however, conduct ourselves and our classrooms in such a way that it is obvious whose we are. I believe that character education is the foundation for relational capacity – that mutual respect that will do more than any other one concept to form the basis for academic success and emotional growth among students within the professional classroom. Seek God reflectively in private and then model his precepts professionally in public…remembering that you can become a hero to your students by joining the ranks of TA. Reflect on the seriousness of this, if you dare!

Surrendering the Thorns

It wasn’t a thorn, but it was a huge splinter, as splinters go – a sliver over an inch long as I recall – and we couldn’t get it out. Matt had apparently scooted along the bleachers in the gym of Green Country Christian Academy in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was young and the sliced-off piece of wood gouged him deeply in his upper back leg. It didn’t bleed much, but we knew it hurt; it had to come out. It was imbedded securely and neither his mother nor I had the stomach or the expertise to remove it; so off we went to the clinic. Once we surrendered to the idea that we needed a trained professional to remove the splinter, the battle was about over. In the doctor’s office, with a helpful nurse assisting and anxious parents half-looking, it took only a second for the physician to douse it with antiseptic and pull the shard right out. Matt didn’t even seem to wince. When thorns or splinters are so severely imbedded that they can’t be plucked easily by a steady hand and a pair of tweezers, the only option for the cure is surrender. We had to surrender to the right person – a well-trained medical professional. You see, thorns fester and worsen if not surrendered.

The Apostle Paul wrote about having a deeply embedded spiritual thorn that was festering in his very soul: To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. (2 Corinthians 12:7) I believe it was a spiritual thorn festering in his life possibly as an addictive tendency or at least a character defect. Perhaps he was susceptible to lust or grandiosity. He certainly mentioned sexual immorality in all of his writings that mention lists of sins. Additionally, he seemed to be prone to doing some “boasting” at times. As a single man he would have been tempted by the proximity of beautiful women who would have naturally become “followers” of the Way. Perhaps he was strong enough never to succumb to those womanly wiles, yet the thorn festered just below the surface of his being until he surrendered it to the Great Physician. As the apostle to the Gentiles having had a special revelation from Jesus on the Damascus road, it would have been easy for him to have thought more highly of himself than he ought given the “surpassingly great revelations” mentioned above. So what did Paul do? He turned to the perfectly-trained medical professional in his life, the Great Physician; but God didn’t answer the way Paul hoped: Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9a)

Apparently Paul was as satisfied with the answer as Matt and we were with the doctor’s almost painless removal of that splinter. Matt’s wound healed well and quickly and, within a short time, he was never bothered by it again – though his dad still cringes at the splinter-image conjured by this blog. Paul responded in this way: Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12: 9b-10)

On the other hand, I’m not so sure Paul was never bothered again by his thorn in the flesh (read that double negative carefully and you’ll see it makes sense). He may have had that character defect – whatever it was: lust, grandiosity, or something else – rear its ugly head from time to time. He penned these “difficult to understand” words in Romans 7:14-20 (read them slowly and aloud in order to grasp the reality of the message): We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

If you got a little lost in those verses, read them again more slowly and aloud. This just might be one of those scriptures of Paul’s of which Peter writes in 2 Peter 3:15-16: Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

James chimed in on the issue of festering thorns – although not calling them that – when he penned James 1:14-15: But each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. The evil desire might be the character defect such as lust, grandiosity, resentment, fear, etc., that can, over time, fester and grow into full-fledged sin leading to death.
Then there is the wisdom of Proverbs 5:22-23 that enlightens us a little more about such behaviors: The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him; the cords of his sin hold him fast. He will die for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly. Sounds to me like a description of addictive sin ensnaring and holding fast that comes from lack of discipline and excess of follow.So here’s the invitation: any burden, any festering thorn can be brought in surrender to the Great Physician. He will either remove it or make the way for you to escape the rancid effects. There’s a lot of wisdom in the Bible…read it to be wise; believe it to be saved; live it to be holy.

My Load and Your Burden

For some time now I have pondered the difference between a load and a burden. Recently I noticed that my Bible concordance “defined” burden with the words “heavy load.” Webster, guru of definitions, in his 9th “New” Edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary (1983) that had it’s beginning as a first edition back in 1898 – the latest hard copy of a dictionary that I possess with all the online capabilities these days – lists burden three times. For the purposes of this blog, I’ll only share the first one: “something that is carried, load, duty, responsibility; something oppressive or worrisome, encumbrance.” There’s more, but that will get it for the moment. The same volume takes an entire half column to define load. Interestingly, beside burden in my Bible’s concordance is the phrase, “that which is borne, physically or spiritually.” So is there a significant difference, or not? Perhaps it is merely a matter of semantics dependent upon context.

Rather than take Mr. Dictionary’s or even my Bible concordance’s word for it, I decided to journey into the book that actually defines all aspects of life including the real or semantic differences between related words. Here are some verses that may give us insight:

Psalm 38:4…My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.

Psalm 68:19…Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.

Luke 11:46…Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not life one finger to help them.”

The passage I intentionally left off that short list is from Galatians 6:2-5…Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load.

Here Paul uses my two words in the same context. If they are the same, then verses 2 and 5 seem to contradict each other. I am to carry another’s burden while still shouldering my own load. There must be a significant difference. What an amazing lesson for each of us. I have a responsibility to carry my own load – life’s daily struggles and challenges. At the same time I am commanded to help others with their “physical and spiritual” burdens. When the load goes beyond the norm, I am supposed to step in and step up. Perhaps another scripture will illustrate this more effectively than my ramblings seem to be doing.

In the very familiar story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35), Jesus tells of a half-breed who, when he finds his Jewish enemy beaten and left for dead, doesn’t take the “religious” path – the other side of the road as the priest and Levite had done – but rather he “put the man on his own donkey” and takes exceptional care of him. I would surmise that not only did the Samaritan show love for an enemy demonstrating brotherly kindness and the Golden Rule, but he also spent his time and money bearing a burden. The Jew was way beyond carrying his own load. His daily load had indeed become extremely burdensome. He needed help. The Samaritan was the last guy by. He added the Jews burden to his own load and gave the Son of God the plot for a wonderful story of love. He also gave me a way to illustrate that load and burden can be much different. We need to be concerned about both.

Matthew 11:28-30…Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke [load] upon you and learn of me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

What happened to the ear?

There are many unanswered questions in the Bible…many mysteries possibly to be solved one day. That day of solution may just have to wait until heaven. I have frequently stated over the decades that I have questions “I want to ask _______ when I get to heaven.” You can fill in the blank with just about any name you wish – God, Jesus, Abraham, Moses, David, Peter, Paul – the list goes on. Recently, while listening to a Sunday sermon, I revisited one that has been on my mind in the past. I wouldn’t call it an earth-shattering query or even a very important, need-to-know thought. It’s rather trivia-stereotyped. What I would like to know is this: “What happened to the ear?”

In the gospel accounts of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane with its sleepy apostles, weeping Savior, unity prayer…you know the story. When the betrayer Judas arrives at the head of the mob, Peter strikes out with his sword. Now one might expect the Big Fisherman to have a knife or pike or gigantic fish hook, but somewhere he’d found a sword. Peter seems to have been trying to prepare for the worst. Having just had a nap, this giant, who was in the habit of acting and speaking prior to thinking, lashed out at the nearest enemy. He didn’t connect with the evil kisser Judas; no, Peter’s thrust took out the ear of the servant of the high priest (SHP) – the right ear. The anatomy of that dissection might need Abby or Ducky from NCIS to figure out the handedness (left or right) of the defender. Perhaps the SHP was standing sideways to his attacker, thus his right ear might be nearer to the sword as all watched the betrayal unfold. Nevertheless, it happened that the sword blade met the right ear. What is interesting to me is Jesus’ reaction.

Luke’s account (22:51) records that Jesus stopped the blood-bath before it could progress with a, “No more of this!” and then “he touched the man’s ear and healed him.” So my question is about the location of that severed ear. When the ear was “cut off,” wouldn’t it have fallen to earth adhering to the God-created Law of Gravity? If so, did Jesus pick it up and put it back from whence it fell, thus healing the SHP? Or, did our Lord just touch the place where the ear had been? If the latter were the case, then what happened to the ear that lay in the dirt of that garden?
Alas, I must add this query to my lengthy list of questions to ask when I get to heaven – that non-existent list. You see, I have not adhered to the saying that adorns my office wall and that is mentioned frequently in my classes: “If it isn’t in writing, it doesn’t exist.” So now “What happened to the ear?” goes to the end of that list. I can only imagine that, when it comes my turn to ask anything in heaven, I won’t have a clue and will stand there dumbfounded. I am cut to the quick by that realization!