Beauty for Ashes
Why teaching with honesty and vulnerability matters
Thank you for being here. As always, these essays are free and publicly available without a paywall. If my writing has been valuable to you, please consider sharing it with a friend or supporting me as a patron with a paid subscription. Your support helps keep my coffee cup full.
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. - Romans 5:3-4
The past few weeks have given me a new lens through which to see the world. Sudden and dramatic changes to something as foundational as your housing situation expose what you're really holding onto.
I won’t pretend for a second that what we've been experiencing holds a candle to what many of our neighbors who lost everything have been grappling with. As I've been spending hours upon hours wiping the residue from ash and smoke off our furniture with soapy water, I've been reminded just how thankful I am that despite the smoke damage, many of our belongings can be cleaned and salvaged.
When I went back a few weeks ago to move some things out of our house I walked the neighborhood and ran into some folks up the street who were not so fortunate. They were sorting through what was left of their belongings, searching through where their house once stood for any remnants of the life they left behind. Most everything was gone. Even the rims of their BMW had melted and had re-solidified as a river of molten aluminum.
Stick around long enough on God's green earth and you'll experience suffering of one kind or another. It may not be a natural disaster of the scale of the Eaton Fire, but I'm sure that many of you have experienced something of a similar proportion that has shaken you to your core. Others of you may not have had that experience—yet.
You’re like me, a month ago.
If the storms and winds of life haven’t yet tested your foundation, stay tuned. They will come. Pain, suffering, and the brokenness of our world touch all of us in deep ways sooner or later.
The question is not about trying to avoid pain and suffering, but rather about preparing for how you will respond when you encounter it.
It's telling that Paul uses "we" in the verses I quoted at the top of this essay. Glorying in suffering can only happen in community. It matters not just how you respond as an individual, but how you respond in the context of the others around you.
From time to time I become aware of challenges my students are facing outside of bubble of campus life. Over the years I’ve known of students who have lost family members, grappled with the loss of dear friends, wondered about their ability to pay for school, and grappled with a wide range of mental health challenges.
What we might not realize is that sharing our pain and grief is a gift. Honesty and vulnerability give us a precious opportunity to embrace our shared humanity. To see the ways that pain and suffering are part of all of our stories and to offer our experiences to each other as an opportunity to walk alongside each other.
Having a horrible few weeks teaches you that “how are you doing?” is one of the dumbest phrases in the English language. I understand it’s just a euphemistic figure of speech, but can we please stop asking this?
I’ve gotten to the point where I answer the question honestly. Lately, my goto has been “not great.”
On second thought, perhaps I’m not answering honestly.
The real answer is closer to “lousy,” “horrible,” or “awful.” I don’t say this as a ploy for your pity or sympathy. It’s just that vulnerability must start with honesty. We must first be honest with ourselves, facing and naming what is true about our experiences, even when it violates social conventions or might make someone feel uncomfortable. Even if it makes us feel uncomfortable.
I don't have any hard data to back it up, but I've got a hunch that the willingness to be honest and vulnerable with students is a big deal. The idea that getting an education is about training us to be more economically productive members of society isn't a new idea. But maybe, just maybe, we should think less about helping our students gain technical proficiency in our fields of study and more about helping them learn what a life well lived looks like.
Nobody ever chooses to suffer. It doesn't matter. Suffering finds us. The question is how we will respond to it. In responding, we have an opportunity to model the rawness of creaturely life for those around us.
More than teaching my students how to build a robot, debug a circuit, or solve an equation, I'm willing to bet these uniquely human moments of honest vulnerability will have the biggest influence.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. Isaiah 61:1-3
Got a thought? Leave a comment below.
Hello, student checking in here. I feel that our society is very manufactured and we are trained to follow all these social rules because it's "correct," but I often find myself thinking, "please, can we all just be real?". A bit of a side note but part of the reason why I'm like this is because I'm aromantic (<1% of the population) so I have a different view of relationships and therefore our entire social structure than the vast majority of people. I think also as I am growing into my adulthood, I have stopped seeing professors as these authority figures who are superior in every way to I, the lowly student, and I think of my professors now more as just humans just like me who happen to be in a position of authority, who happen to have more knowledge/experience. All this is to say that I appreciate your vulnerability.
I think "how are you doing?" is a question that is fundamentally good when it is asked genuinely, but it is the societal expectation that it is not asked nor answered genuinely, rather that it functions as a greeting similar to "hello."
In theater spaces when I was a kid, we would say "I'm so glad you're here." I liked that.
I also tend to think that words do not do much though, so when my friends are struggling I always try to provide for them materially, mostly by cooking them food.
Anyways, I'm glad so you're here. I am a better person because I read your blog and because I met you. I appreciate your honesty.
Great piece / peace. Suggestions, please, for a genuine opening that’s better than “how are you doing?” Especially during a time when many of us are checking in more open-heartedly & more frequently on those we care most about.