Jul 5, 2008
Snatching Excitement From The Jaws Of Dullness! Now, there is
a topic that most of us would at least like to relate to.
Where would we be in technology if fewer elementary school teachers
had used math drills as a punishment? And had more actual
interest in science? I recall how Miss Lauer, my third grade
teacher, managed to make mathematics repulsive to me. We had
the little rhyme "Miss Lauer is sour" for a reason.
And where our spiritual learning is concerned, how much of our
earlier (and even later) learning was so concerned with the form
that the substance was almost entirely forgotten?
We got drilled on memorizing the words to prayers, on when to bow
our heads and close our eyes, and even how to fold our hands
(should the right thumb or left be on top?), but did anyone bother
to consider telling us in plain English what the words to the
prayers meant? Or what the particular exercise was supposed
to accomplish? No, we just learned to recite
"la-te-da-te-da-te-da", in some cases while Sister Sweathog hovered
over our heads with a brass ruler in her hand!
I admit to being lucky. Instead of being dragged into a
Catholic school, I walked into an Episcopal church on my own feet,
and the priests I met were a better kind than most you'd meet
today. And they taught me the substance, and let the form
fall into place when it came along. And so, I came to love
and find meaning in something that so many people learned as, in
essence, an empty drill.
And so, let's see what it might be to reclaim something that was
made into a hollow rote drill, and let's make it exciting!
I'm telling you how I'm going about it with something that I am
reclaiming. And, I'm giving you some specifics.
So, what might you do? Find something that you can reclaim,
and reclaim it for yourself.
The possibilities are limitless!
Blessed Be!