Augustine: Native Tongue

Dear Athena,

I came here this morning after waking up at 6:30am and following a normal routine. A routine I don't need to follow because I'm off from work, but one that I realize, if I don't practice now, will become difficult to return to. I drove to my favorite coffee shop Enchanted Grounds to review my todo list (todoist), which, as of today, stands at 131 neglected inbox events.

I sat down at one of my favorite tables with one of my favorite teas (bottomless, so as much as I want) and went to open up to open up the list. A few seconds later the middle aged man and twenty something woman sitting in the leather chairs in front of me began talking about student papers.

"I'm grading senior papers." He said

I was hooked. I spend so much of my life dealing with assessment and I can't seem to turn away when I get to hear the raw thought process of teachers openly reading, critiquing and judging student papers.

He lamented his terrrible fate at having to grade endless papers. And I understand, grading with 150 stuends at take an entire weekend. But this was not his primary complaint. It was the "abysmal" nature of their writing. He pulls up one paper that he anticipates will be particularly painful and let's her read.

The assignment is explained as to write four papers on issues you feel passionately about. That you must argue and defend your point of view.

They begin discussing the student and my heart saddens a bit as they, in vague terms, belittle her. But then the twenty something, who is seeming more like a girl, comments that the paper is not that bad. That she defends her points.

He comments, "Oh she probably wrote something about gender equality or whatever."

In the next minute, the following would come into stark clarity. Have you ever seen  chocolate or another food pulled out of liquid by a string or machine? You might never know it was there, then sudden realization you see a solid shape emerge from the dark liquid, dripping, but its form seen now clearly above the liquid's surface.

The paper was about homosexuality. She wrote, in her best defense, how Christians do not need to accept gay lifestyles, but that they do not need to interfere with governmental laws that guarantee the same rights. Her points are well argued. The college girl, a previous student at this incredibly wealthy private Christian school, acknoweldges the well-made arguments. He dismisses the affirmation, "well that's just one, and there's a lot of other terrible papers waiting at the bottom, I'm sure." Both he and she reiterate "Oh, but I really like her. I think she's good."

For the next couple of hours I would play a card game on my computer, trying to not listen, but only occasionally putting on my headphones and then not even turning them on. She talked about college and her conversations with other students. They discussed the school and students. He would ask her about boys in her life.

Athena, I don't know how to capture my thoughts from here. They were ranged and did not seem to represent a larger form.

I've thought to myself:

Oh God, this is horrifying to listen to you? Why did you invade the safety of my coffee shop?

Cami, would be such a better mentor for this person.

Amy, needs to take the program in school counseling and work with these students instead.

I need to get back to mentoring students. Maybe that's the real work I should be doing?

(Heart sinks) You are so judgmental and young. Not towards my people but towards the other people in your own community. You are judging other people's faith based on their tattoos.

This is who I was when I went to Gordon. This is who so many of us were when we first started. And Gordon, for whatever it is becoming, saved so many of us from this.

Rachel Evans use to be like you, exactly everything you are, she was there, and she has come so far, there is hope for these students. Maybe not this teacher, but for these students there is hope.

That student who wrote that paper is trying, she may very well break free one day and see in ways she never did before, but it will not be while she is there. In her own time.

Why is this the church? Why is the church seem to  mostly  be a before who are entitled about their own positions, judging and shaming others in small ways that they don't even comprehend? Why is it that the place that claims so much love, forgiveness, compassion; the one that seems least capable of practicing any degree of empathy or perspective taking for others? The church feels more like a tribe of insulation. A cult if I might say. That is constantly evaluating who is "in" and who is out.

Rachel Held Evans comes to mind in her speech when she says, the greatest scandal of the church is not who it keeps out but who it lets in. The scandal of grace. I wish that were true. I wish the church was not this.

This all seems like a strange curiosity now. This church, resembles nothing of what it claims to believe, but that doesn't seem to matter anymore. It doesn't matter anymore to me. Like Paul said in response to Elaine Phillips writing on homosexuality: I've read this all before and can see it at a distance.

Like a stranger revisiting home, I know it all, but it no longer seems to move me to action. Like an immortal being, I feel like I walk through the castle I was raised in, as it clutches to its traditions and the walls slowly crumble, I don't feel nostalgia, just curious abstraction.

I have to get my hair cut. I wish I could write more. I leave you with words…words I don't have an adjective for right now.

+Augustine

"Native Tongue"

I know what you’re saying it’s my native tongue

Heard it as a child and it soothed me

I know where we’re going like the river runs

In its pathways

I know what you’re saying

I know what you’re saying

Something really happened

It was wild and true

We talked about it for a hundred years

Looking for the Spirit but the Spirit moves,

I believe he’s moving here

I know what you’re saying

I know what you’re saying

Looking for a language that is older still

The taproot of a living Word

Resonating echoes of an Eden song

Waiting to be heard

I know what you’re saying

I know what you’re saying

Looking for a language that is older still

The taproot of a living Word

Resonating echoes of an Eden song

Waiting to be heard

Looking for a language that is older still

The taproot of a living Word

Resonating echoes of an Eden song

Waiting to be heard

Waiting to be heard

I know what you’re saying it’s my native tongue

I know what you’re saying, I know what you’re saying