A brief reflection on RE Teacher Appreciation Sunday. As I hope you will see, I try to inject a bit of humor into my reflections. I find that my personality is one that leans far more to irreverence than reverence. I can do the serious introspection thing when I need to, but more often than not I spend my days rolling my eyes or shrugging at humanity. The universe is an amazing, awe-inspiring place, but humans tend to dwell somewhere in the realm between ghastly and ridiculous. Just a thought, totally unrelated to what is to follow. Get used to it. It's my blog after all.
“Our UU Teachers”
At the heart of any religion we will find teachers. What is the Buddha if not a great teacher? Could the Tao exist without Laozi? Where would Christianity be without the Sermon on the Mount? It is the great teachers who we credit with inspiring the masses, dispensing wisdom, or bringing new answers to old questions. Churches need teachers to span generations and to both preserve and challenge beliefs. They are the gatekeepers to knowledge and the sowers of seeds. Simply put, they rock!! I say this both as a seeker of knowledge, and, somewhat immodestly, as a teacher myself. Yes, I will say it. I rock!!!
At the heart of any religion we will find teachers. What is the Buddha if not a great teacher? Could the Tao exist without Laozi? Where would Christianity be without the Sermon on the Mount? It is the great teachers who we credit with inspiring the masses, dispensing wisdom, or bringing new answers to old questions. Churches need teachers to span generations and to both preserve and challenge beliefs. They are the gatekeepers to knowledge and the sowers of seeds. Simply put, they rock!! I say this both as a seeker of knowledge, and, somewhat immodestly, as a teacher myself. Yes, I will say it. I rock!!!
Each religious tradition has its teachers, its scholars of the faith, professors of ancient wisdom and current thought. But I will let you all in on a little secret. In the university of religious thought, our little community, our liberal faith, has the best faculty.
How can this be? you might ask. Is he talking about Harvard? There are Unitarians at Harvard, right? No, that’s not it. We count ourselves fortunate because our faith has an excellent, dedicated faculty of Unitarians, Universalists, Humanists, Spiritualists, and Transcendentalists, but even more, we are fortunate because our religious classroom has an endless supply of visiting professors, substitute teachers and guest lecturers.
Who’s to teach Ethics today? Mr. Gandhi, Dr. King, Professor Bonhoeffer?
For philosophy do we sit in with Socrates or Starhawk?
Do we study the nature of nature with Thoreau, Aristotle or Whitman?
We have an open curriculum. And none of the classes are ever closed. Our catalog is pretty new, and easy to read. Just look under the seven principles and you will find our different departments, our six UU sources.
Direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder, interesting
Words and deeds of prophetic women and men, does that have a lab?
Wisdom of the world’s religions
Jewish and Christian teachings, I used to major in this one, but I had a couple of bad classes, so now....???
Humanist thought and counsel.
Spiritual earth-centered traditions. hmmm... Sounds like we might have class outside.
Within each of these sources, we have countless teachers to choose from. We can go back to our old favorites, Starhawk, Tik Naht Hanh, Mary Oliver, or challenge ourselves with the new hire who may hit us with something cutting edge. So many teachers to choose from, so many things to learn.
Today I feel daring. Is anyone with me?
Let’s skip Mr. Emerson’s class on transcendant mystery, he’s always giving that class. Perhaps today we should hear what Albert Einstein wants to say on the subject. You see, I told you we would go to some different classes today. Everyone says Einstein is pretty smart, so his thoughts on mystery ought to be worthwhile. Einstein tells us that ...
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of
How can this be? you might ask. Is he talking about Harvard? There are Unitarians at Harvard, right? No, that’s not it. We count ourselves fortunate because our faith has an excellent, dedicated faculty of Unitarians, Universalists, Humanists, Spiritualists, and Transcendentalists, but even more, we are fortunate because our religious classroom has an endless supply of visiting professors, substitute teachers and guest lecturers.
Who’s to teach Ethics today? Mr. Gandhi, Dr. King, Professor Bonhoeffer?
For philosophy do we sit in with Socrates or Starhawk?
Do we study the nature of nature with Thoreau, Aristotle or Whitman?
We have an open curriculum. And none of the classes are ever closed. Our catalog is pretty new, and easy to read. Just look under the seven principles and you will find our different departments, our six UU sources.
Direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder, interesting
Words and deeds of prophetic women and men, does that have a lab?
Wisdom of the world’s religions
Jewish and Christian teachings, I used to major in this one, but I had a couple of bad classes, so now....???
Humanist thought and counsel.
Spiritual earth-centered traditions. hmmm... Sounds like we might have class outside.
Within each of these sources, we have countless teachers to choose from. We can go back to our old favorites, Starhawk, Tik Naht Hanh, Mary Oliver, or challenge ourselves with the new hire who may hit us with something cutting edge. So many teachers to choose from, so many things to learn.
Today I feel daring. Is anyone with me?
Let’s skip Mr. Emerson’s class on transcendant mystery, he’s always giving that class. Perhaps today we should hear what Albert Einstein wants to say on the subject. You see, I told you we would go to some different classes today. Everyone says Einstein is pretty smart, so his thoughts on mystery ought to be worthwhile. Einstein tells us that ...
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of
all art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer
pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.. his eyes are closed."
Ooh, he sounds like he has been talking to Emerson.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we
Ooh, he sounds like he has been talking to Emerson.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we
currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and
create.”
Did everyone write that one down? That is definitely going to be on the quiz.
Humanism is always fun, and today Mr. Vonnegut is teaching, so it’s sure to be entertaining. The last time I sat in on a Vonnegut lesson he was reading from Breakfast of Champions and what struck me was that he identified for us the most horrible possible thought any human could possibly have. You want to know what it is? That I alone, no one else, I alone am the only one who has free will. That everyone else is somehow less important, more mechanical, less feeling than I am, so I should do what I want and not worry about them.
That is a dangerous way to think. So now when I feel like lashing out at others, I try to remind myself of Mr. Vonnegut’s lesson on narcissism. When I start to ask myself why, and catch myself doing it, I remember another lesson from this visiting UU teacher:
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand."
I like Mr. Vonnegut’s class. Never boring.
Not that I want to skip any more classes today, but once you get into a conversation with the world religion and judaism-christianity teachers there is a good chance you won’t get out for several hours. Plus there is too much math, 8 laws, 10 commandments, three in one, one in three. I didn’t bring my calculator, so if it is ok with you all, we’ll skip those for today. Maybe next term.
Earth-centered traditions is perhaps the toughest for me personally. I haven’t taken most of the prereq’s, and I don’t know a lot of the vocabulary, but there is one teacher I learned a lot from years ago. He maybe wasn’t tenured in the Earth-Centered department, but I think he was pretty good. He taught one of those extension courses on TV. It was called COSMOS.
Well, Dr. Sagan was giving this lecture on Astronomy or Biology or Philosophy, I get them confused. But he said a few things that really stuck with me.
The most important is that we are all Star Stuff. That you and I and everyone are the atoms of trees and rocks, air and water, planets and stars, and that someday those atoms will again be trees, and rocks, air and water, planets and stars. So whether or not we can see it ourselves, we are all the same, and we are all everything.
He also talked a lot about truth. So maybe it was a philosophy course after all. Sagan said once, and I wrote this one down, so I have it now...
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true.
And like any good teacher, Dr. Sagan sometimes went on a tangent. And I found some scribbles in the margins of my notes that prove this. It is one of my personal favorites.
Did everyone write that one down? That is definitely going to be on the quiz.
Humanism is always fun, and today Mr. Vonnegut is teaching, so it’s sure to be entertaining. The last time I sat in on a Vonnegut lesson he was reading from Breakfast of Champions and what struck me was that he identified for us the most horrible possible thought any human could possibly have. You want to know what it is? That I alone, no one else, I alone am the only one who has free will. That everyone else is somehow less important, more mechanical, less feeling than I am, so I should do what I want and not worry about them.
That is a dangerous way to think. So now when I feel like lashing out at others, I try to remind myself of Mr. Vonnegut’s lesson on narcissism. When I start to ask myself why, and catch myself doing it, I remember another lesson from this visiting UU teacher:
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand."
I like Mr. Vonnegut’s class. Never boring.
Not that I want to skip any more classes today, but once you get into a conversation with the world religion and judaism-christianity teachers there is a good chance you won’t get out for several hours. Plus there is too much math, 8 laws, 10 commandments, three in one, one in three. I didn’t bring my calculator, so if it is ok with you all, we’ll skip those for today. Maybe next term.
Earth-centered traditions is perhaps the toughest for me personally. I haven’t taken most of the prereq’s, and I don’t know a lot of the vocabulary, but there is one teacher I learned a lot from years ago. He maybe wasn’t tenured in the Earth-Centered department, but I think he was pretty good. He taught one of those extension courses on TV. It was called COSMOS.
Well, Dr. Sagan was giving this lecture on Astronomy or Biology or Philosophy, I get them confused. But he said a few things that really stuck with me.
The most important is that we are all Star Stuff. That you and I and everyone are the atoms of trees and rocks, air and water, planets and stars, and that someday those atoms will again be trees, and rocks, air and water, planets and stars. So whether or not we can see it ourselves, we are all the same, and we are all everything.
He also talked a lot about truth. So maybe it was a philosophy course after all. Sagan said once, and I wrote this one down, so I have it now...
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true.
And like any good teacher, Dr. Sagan sometimes went on a tangent. And I found some scribbles in the margins of my notes that prove this. It is one of my personal favorites.
The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
So perhaps when I can hear students laughing in my class, that means I am a genius. Or a Bozo. It could go either way. What I am trying to highlight today, I guess my lesson for today, is that we have a great wealth of teachers. We should appreciate them all. And perhaps most important of all, we should keep taking classes. Experiment, study, read, listen and learn.
Today we are here to appreciate our teachers, Tik Naht Hanh and John H. (RE teacher at our church). Starhawk and Sarah M., Waitstill and Martha Sharpe, Kathy B. and Megan U.
We Unitarian Universalists are lucky to have such teachers, now if only we had a football team like Notre Dame, maybe we could boost enrollment a little more.
So perhaps when I can hear students laughing in my class, that means I am a genius. Or a Bozo. It could go either way. What I am trying to highlight today, I guess my lesson for today, is that we have a great wealth of teachers. We should appreciate them all. And perhaps most important of all, we should keep taking classes. Experiment, study, read, listen and learn.
Today we are here to appreciate our teachers, Tik Naht Hanh and John H. (RE teacher at our church). Starhawk and Sarah M., Waitstill and Martha Sharpe, Kathy B. and Megan U.
We Unitarian Universalists are lucky to have such teachers, now if only we had a football team like Notre Dame, maybe we could boost enrollment a little more.
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