"We've Created Monsters"



For those of you who don’t know me well, I’m an English teacher at the local high school. I teach Senior Applications, which was formerly known as Business English. These students are the ones who did not want to take English IV because they typically do not do well in English, so Senior Applications is their alternative. At the beginning of the year, I was rather excited to be granted the responsibility of such a challenging group of young people.

I was excited for many reasons. The main reason for my excitement was because I thrive on meeting challenging situations, and compassion has always driven my heart to great lengths. I wanted to embrace the class and truly make a difference on several levels. I wanted to provide career inspiration/motivation, a love for literature, and a compassion for others.

Wide-eyed and naïve, I entered the classroom. It took me about two weeks to learn that not only was I not going to make a difference but also that I was about to embark on the worst year of my career. After witnessing the worst degree of apathy that I had ever seen, I spent every single night—for several weeks—crying myself to sleep. Deep, painful tears drenched my bed without any promise of an ending to this horror movie that I was calling life. Every day I would devote countless hours to the meticulous planning of lessons that I thought had the power to move people to greatness and conquer the world. But to no avail, they would lay down their heads, indifferent to my every word.

As the year progressed, the students began to prey on the weaknesses that they had created, and they would thrive on making my life even worse. There were times that I cried in front of them, only to have them laugh in my face. I’ve never wanted to quit a job so badly.

But over time, I grew more callous, and I foolishly believed once again that I had the power to make a difference in their lives. I thought, “If only I can teach them the principle of empathy, THEN I will be able to change their lives and set them on a track of greatness.”

This new idea invigorated me. My every thought revolved around the vision I had in my head of them starting their own organizations to feed homeless people. I (said in a lofty tone) was going to be the one to show them how to do it. I (said in a lofty tone once again) was going to be their leader, their provider of wisdom. I (you get the idea now) was going to have my own band of social activists.

I started introducing them to various topics associated with social injustices. I talked about sweat shops, slave trading, homelessness, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I was certain that this was going to do the trick. They were going to be putty in my hands.

When I talked to them about sweat shops, one kid replied, “Well, they ought to be grateful that they’re getting paid at all. They should be thankful that we’re giving them a job."

When I talked about homelessness, I asked them if they would give money to a homeless man on the street. I even pointed out that if they were afraid of his spending the money on drugs or alcohol that they could buy him food and deliver it to him, and one kid said, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy food for some crack head homeless guy.”

One of my students even started talking about a homeless guy in town who was riding a bicycle one night and got run over and was killed because the vehicle didn’t see him. One of the other students laughed and said, “Well, he deserved to be run over. He shouldn’t have been drunk in the middle of the road.”

My face flushed, and for the first time ever, I violently raised my voice at my class, trying to shut down the uproar of laughter. After I was finally able to quiet them down, I opened up the subject of sex slave trading, a subject that I was CERTAIN would move them to compassion. I talked to them about how women are removed from their hometowns (by being led to believe that they will be employed elsewhere) and then are drugged, only to become prostitutes against their will. I told them stories of sex slave trading that has occurred right here on American soil. The class was silent. I did it! I moved them to compassion. And then, a little voice rose from the ashes and said, “If a woman is stupid enough to fall for that kind of trick, then she deserves for that to happen to her. And who would be stupid enough not to be able to get away from that? Do you mean to tell me that FOURTEEN [referring to one of my stories] women don’t have the power to get away from ONE pimp? Well, they’re just idiots.”

Then, the class erupted, jumped on his ignorant bandwagon, and began throwing out their own slanderous comments.

That night, I would cry myself to sleep once again. The tortoise shell exterior that I had created was once again the feeble exterior of a wet moth, all in a matter minutes.

I couldn’t understand how anyone could say such things. I agonized over it for the rest of the year. I wanted answers. And then it hit me: We’ve created monsters. The faults of THIS generation lie in the hands of all generations that preceded them. We’ve created social monsters. We’ve created a “What’s in it for me?” generation.

After World War I, a generation emerged that became disillusioned by the American Dream and cynically began to question the validity of everything. Before the Civil War, when society was delusional and thought that life revolved around reading sonnets to their bonnie lass while sitting in a wheat field with their pet sheep, no one would question a good thing. If you were to travel in time to the Romantic era and tell someone that he had just won a million dollars, that person would leap for joy, kiss you, and ride you off into the sunset on his white horse. But now, when we receive a letter from Publishers Clearing House that reads, “You’ve just won a million dollars,” the first thing we look for is the trashcan.

Marketing experts are aware of this phenomenon. It is impossible to turn on the television and not be bombarded by their tactics. They know that if they want to reach this current generation, they’re going to have to offer them something much more than just the product. If it’s a shampoo commercial, they’ll have to offer them more than good hair; they also are offering them happiness and sex appeal. One hundred percent cotton Dockers offer them more than pants; they offer them the status that is associated with hanging out with other people who wear cotton Dockers. Nearly every commercial offers them more than the product at hand.

But what concerns me more than the nature of television commercials is the current nature of the Church. We, too, are responsible for catering to this generation’s need for knowing “what’s in it for them.” We have fliers that offer them more than God. We make promises that they’ll get something in return if they put money in the offering.

But how cool would it be if we could simply offer them God? How cool would it be if we were able to encourage them to give to missions instead of assuring them that the money would benefit them in some way?

We’ve created such a self-centered generation that the only way to counter our mistakes is to “kill the monster.”

Church, the way it’s always been done, is no longer effective. The current trend in youth services is to create a climate that students think is cool enough to bring their friends to so they won’t be embarrassed by anything lame. We have bought into the mindset that if we can create a cool atmosphere, they will come. The problem with this arrangement is that when they DO come (and they inevitably WILL), they expect more and more. They don’t expect more GOD; they expect more music, more entertainment, more comedy, and you get the idea.

Why don’t we, instead, create a climate that is not student-centered (or church member-centered) and create a climate that is God-centered? It would be fantastic if students could bring their friends to a meeting place where they could come and immediately take on the role of Christ. After all, that’s what being a Christian is all about, right? Perhaps youth services could be a place where they could learn more about becoming involved in their communities and learn how to do more to fight against social injustices. Of course, I would never want church to quit being a house of worship and a place to dig into the word of God, but I would like to see church also become a place of action, not just a place where the woes of social injustices are DISCUSSED, but a place where action is involved.

Church leaders could get newcomers involved IMMEDIATELY instead of waiting on them to be “good enough” to get involved. The problem with most ministries today is that they are placed on a pedestal, and many people that are involved sit atop them and guard the tower with the pitchfork of judgment and gossip, deciding for themselves who is good enough to “join.” But with a new mentality, ANYONE can be involved because ANYONE can serve others. There’s no loftiness associated with helping others.

We often try to think of new ideas to reach today’s generation. How about we redirect our energies to trying to think of ways for our generation to reach others who are REALLY in need?

If we don’t take action soon, then this generation will become a lost cause like Frankenstein’s monster: “You are my creator, but I am your master—obey!"—The Monster, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Anniversary Bliss

It’s pretty amazing how a little piece of news can alter the course of your happiness, at least for a little while anyway. Yesterday was a nearly perfect day. For our one-year anniversary, my husband and I loaded up our bicycles and headed to Forsythe Park where we would have a picnic lunch next to a pond. When we drove up, pot-belly, bikini clad women sat shoulder to shoulder with guys who walked around with their t-shirts in their back pockets instead of on their bodies, along with the occasional loud-piped drive by. But other than that, it was easy to tune out the class of the twin cities because I was sitting next to my dear sweet husband of one year, on a quilt, next to the little overflow pond near the Ouachita River, eating a mayonnaise rich ham sandwich that I had seized from my daisy decorated picnic basket.

Our conversation naturally flowed toward how excited we were about finally getting an offer on our house. The constraints of having a house were slowly being untied, and the sense of freedom began to make a way for the things that we really want to do for our lives. My biggest worry at that moment was whether the not-so-healthy lunch would interfere with my energy levels on the bike ride.

We rode around through the neighborhoods that had plush lawns filled with all of my favorite flowers. I especially noticed the buttercups that lay in “bed” waiting for me to pass and be reminded of the buttercups from my childhood. Buttercups only exist in childhood. I’m surprised I saw them. The sweet fragrance of the wisteria also reminded me of my childhood, mainly because my granny used to keep a little paper bag on the back of her toilet that was labeled “wisteria.” I never even knew what they smelled like as a child because the bag of wisteria potpourri had already lost its fragrance. But this day, I was able to match the picture that was on the bag to the genuine wisteria that hung from the tree.

When we arrived home, I suppose we were intoxicated by all of the fragrances, so we decided to take a nap in the bag yard, using the same blanket from our picnic. Our unruly basset hound was determined to interfere with our picturesque setting, establishing her domination by licking us incessantly and leaving little chocolate surprises in the neighbor’s back yard. I swear the temperature had to have risen 6,000 degrees while we were out there. There’s nothing else quite like waking up with sweat in the bend of your knees and your hair welded to your cheekbone.

I then remembered that we had forgotten to do the little tradition where you eat the top of your cake from your wedding. The idea of doing this scared me more than I’m willing to admit, but nevertheless, we took the freezer burned glob of whiteness out of the freezer and stuck a couple of pieces into the microwave. I ate a couple of bites and nearly vomited, and Cody ate probably a little more of it than I did, regretfully.

We were excited to be embarking on a new era of our lives. The day was so carefree. But the news of today sent our morale into a downward spiral. Our real estate agent called and informed us that the man who had given us an offer on our house did not qualify for a loan and would, therefore, be unable to follow through with his plans to buy our house. Cody’s and my spirits plummeted, and it seemed for a moment that nothing good could happen to us. How would the house sell now? I had put the house on the market two other times for months but never any bites, not even one.

I began feeling sorry myself and for us. It had seemed almost too good to be true when the offer was made since the person who made the offer was the first person even to look at the house and then immediately made us an offer for full asking price. Even though it seemed too perfect, we were hopeful and had begun making serious plans for our future. But now, after the few fateful words of my real estate agent, “I have some bad news,” our spirits would make a complete revolution in a matter of seconds.

After wallowing in our pity, I began to think about our time yesterday. There’s nothing that anyone could say or do to take away from our great day. That day, along with our other 365 blissful days, cannot be taken away or foreclosed on. So I want to veer away from my normal cynical attitude and embrace the fact that I have a loving husband, a healthy dog, and food in my belly. I have much to be thankful for.

"Bicyle...BICYCLE. I Want to Ride My Bicyle; I Want to Ride My Bike...." (Thank you, Queen.)

My bicycle sits in the spare bedroom of my house, the bedroom that my mother keeps trying to turn into a baby nursery. But there it sits, out of the weather, unbothered by nature, the fluctuating Louisiana temperatures, and the guy who stole my last bicycle right off my front porch. I’m sure it was a guy. I don’t have proof, but girls are the only ones who understand that bicycles are the mother ship of all that is pure and good. Riding a bicycle is the equivalent of flying a kite, roller-skating, or eating ice cream. They remind you of the little girl that lurks beneath the surface of your adult pretense. Every girl in the world is aware of this fact, which is why a girl would never steal a bicycle.

I’m saving up fifteen dollars to have the professionals repair the inner tubes. I used to keep my bicycle on the front port, but the tsunami-esque rainfalls made their way into the tires, rendering the bicycle unusable. I discovered this tragedy the last time I rode. I was so busy daydreaming that I wasn’t aware of the fact that pedaling had become twelve times harder than the previous time until I had biked a couple of miles. My friend Amy laughingly pointed it out to me from behind. The ride home was treacherous, but a nice lady who was in her yard gave me some free air, which made riding more bearable for at least a half-mile or more, enough time to firm up the noodles that my legs had become.

Taking the bicycle out again will be a turning point in my life. I long for that day. By then, perhaps, Cody will have bought his bicycle. In the meantime, I’ll be telling him of the wonder and magic of owning a bicycle. But I think I’ll leave out the part about the little girl lurking beneath the surface.

Tevia, You're Not the Only One Who Wants to Be Rich

My husband and I were riding home last night from his hometown Jena, a town about an hour and a half from where we live. All of a sudden, I gasped, “I have a great idea for an invention: battery operated coffee mugs that will keep the coffee warm the entire time you’re drinking it.” The idea seemed so fresh, so right. With a subtle smirk, I leaned back in my seat; closed my eyes; and envisioned a luxury kitchen with stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, and a convection oven that we would soon be able to afford because of my invention. Earlier that day we had complained about our coffee getting too cold too fast, but in a matter of time, we would be cashing in on the most brilliant idea ever to be introduced to modern day society.

To be certain that someone had not already thought of my idea, I took my husband’s phone and Googled “Battery Operated Coffee Mug.” But to my dismay, someone had indeed beaten me to the gold mine. There it was. Plain as day. The patent on MY invention.

Suddenly, my visions of a luxury home dissipated into a vision of a tiny, one-bedroom shack. I stuck out my bottom lip, much like a kid at Wal-Mart who didn’t get that toy, and said, “I want to be rich.”

“I don’t,” my husband responded. “I just want to be comfortable.”

I stuck my lip out even further. “Well, I do.”

Is it wrong to desire wealth? Should we feel bad for wanting to be prosperous? I have always believed God wants us to live meek, humble lives, without any material wealth or societal status; but let’s look at the matter more closely. In Mark 10:35, James and John approach Jesus and ask him to place them in a position of high authority and status. Jesus does not respond to their request “You fools, no one shall be prosperous…EVER!!!” His response is quite the contrary. He explains that he is not in the business of awarding places of honor and that only through servanthood will people earn these places of respect.

After reading this passage, I began to question what that could possibly mean. I have always been told and preached to that this means that we should “be servants” in the church by picking up trash, cleaning toilets, washing the cars of various preachers, running errands for the pastor, and the like. But doing this in the church suggests that there is a church hierarchy that people should aspire to climb. And I personally don’t believe there is such a hierarchy. Who’s to say that the pastor of a church or a member of the board is any more vital to the kingdom of God than the person who keeps children in the nursery during service and vice versa? By nature, we humans place these roles on a hierarchy, but I don’t believe that God does the same.

So what was Jesus talking about? I believe that he wants us to be servants of the lost, the hungry, and the hurting, not servants of those who have already achieved great wealth or those who are already saved.

To be considered great among people, we must be the servants of those people. We have selfish human desires to be great. The desire for greatness will never go away, but it’s important that we channel those ambitions in the right direction. We must ask ourselves whom we are trying to impress. Are we trying to look good in the eyes of corporate executives, church board members, or any other given “who’s who” figure? If so, then we’re trying to impress the wrong people.

Jesus sought to impress the lost. He wowed them with his miracles and offered them mercy that was both undeserved and uncommon. Believe it or not, he was indeed impressing these people. He didn’t worry about what any of the “who’s who” had to say.

I believe that the spiritual side of the issue is quite similar to the secular side. If we are good stewards of our time, money, and resources, then we will be more deserving of wealth and success. God is not in the business of helping us to win the lottery. He is in the business of awarding good stewardship. When Jesus healed or blessed people in the Bible, he always required an action of some sort beforehand or he petitioned a particular behavior after their interaction.

So I will probably not attain wealth by inventing the next greatest thing. I know that some people do attain wealth this way, but Jesus points out that this goes to people’s heads. But perhaps I will attain wealth by taking care of what God has given me, working diligently, and honing my God-given talents.

"I'm more spiritual than religious": The Return to FernGully

I often sat on the stone covered bench in the garden outside my house at the age of 13, or maybe I was 14. Either way, I was probably a little too old to be sitting around in fairyland, pretending to be in a rainforest. When no one was watching, I would make my way to the alcove in the woods where I would sit on the ground and allow the curtain of leaves to engulf my body. I remember the perfection of the leaves and how they made it possible for me to hide from those who would ridicule me for pretending. Directly in front of me was the living room whose walls were not entirely perpendicular to the ground. The wall of leaves casually met the ground without any regard to symmetry or adherence to architectural standards. There could be a sarcastic, gaping hole that would permit weather, both good and bad, to enter at will. Most of the time, it would be sunshine peeking through, contributing a sweet fragrance to the moistened iridescent leaves. In my living room, the people had no character flaws; they never spoke at all, for that matter. But their presence would often remind me of the laundry that needed to be folded in the next room. The laundry here was invisible, along with the dirty dishes and the laughter of close family.

I don’t remember what I was trying to escape. Perhaps the desire to escape family is only natural for adolescents, but I do know that I longed for a place with no rules, no order, and no noise. I was indeed in search of a great abyss, a place of nothingness, a place where I could enjoy the serenity of isolation.

Oftentimes Christians find themselves in this same desperate state, a state where they become disillusioned by some of the tragedies that lie in the Church, and they begin to search for their great abyss.

A few years ago, I heard Jennifer Lopez’s character in the movie Monster-In-Law say, “I’m more spiritual than religious” when giving her rationale as to why she didn’t want to be married in a church. Since then I’ve heard this statement a number of times, usually from a celebrity who’s tired of “religion as usual.” But I’ve noticed that it has become trendy and hip to denounce one’s religion (while sipping on a cappuccino) in order to embrace the abyss of spirituality. When people denounce their religion in order to seek spirituality, one of two things has happened: Either they have been really hurt by a person or organization within the Church or they’re tired of all of the rules and protocol that is associated with the Church. Many feel that if they claim to be spiritual instead of religious that they rid themselves of any obligations or duties.

This new spiritual lifestyle sounds appealing, especially when many churches are littered with hypocrisy and political protocol. It’s easy to embrace the trend of spirituality when the pastor of your church is oblivious to social injustices or when the Church is more concerned with selling peanut brittle than with feeding the homeless people on the church steps.

In the midst of this unsettling reality of the Church, it’s tempting to be charmed by the current trends that bombard us in the media. It seems that anyone with a voice is proclaiming, “I’m more spiritual than religious.”

The problem with this practice is that it is quite deceptive. It is a notion that a person can embrace a lifestyle that is devoid of rules, regulations, hypocrites, Pharisaical maniacs, and traditions. Although this is the case for a while, that great abyss of nothingness lasts only for a season. By nature we need rules, consistency, and stability; and eventually, we will be searching for something to bring us those things.

When I was a kid playing in the woods, although I was trying to escape the responsibility, the pain, the rules, the obligations, I sought for yet another household to fill that void. I tried for a while to sit in my alcove and allow nothingness to fill my mind with peace. Instead, I found myself turning my space into a house, imagining my own living room, bedrooms, and family. After a period of time, I could no longer sit in woods and think of nothing. I had to fill my mind with something.

If we choose to leave the Church and embrace a “spiritual” lifestyle, we are not headed to a place devoid of the negativities of the Church. Instead, we are headed to a blank slate, a fairyland that is vulnerable to the lies and deception of the enemy. Once our minds become bored with the abyss, we will begin to accept ideas that do not align with the Bible and begin to build things in our lives that aren’t even real. We will create an invisible living room with invisible people who are reminding you to wash the invisible load of laundry.

It is important to seek truth wholeheartedly and seek to change the face of religion by creating a climate in your own house of worship or meeting place that is socially conscious, nonjudgmental, and open-minded, as opposed to running from a religion that could serve as the doctrinally sound source of your livelihood.

No longer should anyone view spirituality as an escape from religion. Since when have the terms been mutually exclusive? I've had more spiritual experiences when I've embraced my core belief system than when I have allowed myself to become cynically detached from them.

Gays: Natured or Nurtured? Does It Matter?

Sausage and cheese kolaches are a perfect complement to our Sunday morning debating rituals, mainly because they allot me only a small window of interjection time between bites. Someone says, “Barack Obama is going to be a terrible president.” I'm unable to respond to this claim because I'm savoring the warmth and comfort of the sausage. Every new topic seems to blossom at the exact moment of my next bite, so whenever I do eventually find my way into the conversation, I come across as a sage or an ancient oracle instead of soap-box-standing-know-it-all. I prefer it this way.

A man wearing a tan suit with a red, paisley-print tie saunters about the room, poking into various conversations. “I don't care what anyone says. Gays are not born that way,” he whispers over his Styrofoam cup of coffee as the steam from his cup encircles his asymmetrical face. I shift uncomfortably in my seat and, naturally, am trying to ingest the impossible-to-swallow kolache. No one responds to Paisley Man. Everyone, instead, glances sideways and attempts to avoid eye contact with him. When I finally manage to swallow, the topic becomes irrelevant and people are laughing again.

I'm upset because I just missed the opportunity to wow people with my insight, but what bothers me more is that my friends are going to leave this place without giving any consideration to Paisley's statement. I've heard those types of statements all of my life--that gay people aren't born that way and that they choose to be gay. I have subscribed to and accepted this notion for as long as I can remember. And I've never once had a problem with it until now. I suppose it has something to do with the way the steam from Paisley's cup mirrors his swagger across the room.

God places homosexuals, or the effeminate, into the same category as other sinners: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (I Cor. 6:9-10). We're probably not going to get into a debate about whether homosexuality is a sin, and we might all agree that it's something that God doesn't like. But is it possible that gays are born that way?

A few years ago, I was talking to a guy who was telling me about his friend that happens to be gay. He said, “John Doe is just not attracted to women. Is God going to judge him for that?” I didn't have a good answer for him that day because he raised a good point. In support of his theory, I knew for a fact that there were boys out there who were born with less testosterone than other boys, which oftentimes resulted in homosexuality in adulthood. When I thought about this, I became quite troubled because it didn't seem fair that they would be held accountable for being gay, something that was clearly out of their control.

Then I looked more closely at the aforementioned scripture and considered some of the other sins in that same category, such as alcoholism. Babies have the potential to become alcoholics if they are the offspring of an alcoholic, not only because they are in an alcoholic environment, but because they can be predisposed to alcoholism at birth through the blood. So if the baby grows into a young woman who constantly craves beer, is God going to hold her accountable for those desires? Before I answer that, I must first pose the question, “What separates an alcoholic from a person who is clean?” The answer is simple: one drinks, and one does not. The sin is not the craving; the sin is the doing. So the woman would not be held accountable by God unless she actually commits the sin of getting drunk.

Some women have a natural tendency to desire to have relationships with lots and lots of men. They could respond to this predisposition by having sex on a consistent basis, which would be a sin, or they could make a vow to remain pure until marriage. God would never hold them accountable for that desire. Instead, he would reward their purity.

The same principle can be applied to homosexuals. The sin is not the desire to have an intimate relationship with an individual of the same sex; the sin is actually having that intimate relationship.

Some may not support the idea that people can be born gay, but most would agree that everyone has innate characteristics, traits that are not learned from parents. It is important to note how an adopted child oftentimes behaves quite differently than the parents of the home she was raised in. If we can have a genetic predisposition, God is not going to judge us for having that tendency. But more importantly, He isn't going to let us use that fact as a copout, either. Instead, He is going to offer us a way out; it's called being born again. Being born again would be unnecessary if human beings weren't born into sin. Being born again helps us to shed our old habits and develop new, godlier ones.

If I am ever in a situation where someone in a paisley-print tie suggests that gays are not born that way, I can swallow my kolache with ease and tell him that the issue of being born that way is not even the issue and that we don't have to debate about that. Instead of accusing a homosexual of being wrong about his own feelings, we can tell him that he can be born again, which seems like a better approach to me.

Port Arthur Journey

Highway 165 has never been an exciting road. At least in Monroe, though, it has restaurants and life-endangering gas stations on either side. But here in Oberlin, Louisiana, there's no such excitement or threat, just miles of lopsided terrain. To my left, pine trees tower over my Oldsmobile Alero, just to remind me that the right side has nothing but dry dirt, wannabe wheat, and coke cans filled with dirt. The left side is smug with its branches blowing in the wind, a picture of success, contentment, and preservation of the ideal. But I know the truth. Its success was effortless, at least in the eyes of the right side whose cans and twigs are suddenly pressed down by the construction cones. Little girls with bangs should go sit next to the cones and make clover chains. Their classmates measuring the topography underneath the pines across the street would think them strange. "Three inches," one might say. "I wish I would've brought my pink ruler," cries another. But those exclamations are made irrelevant by the fear of the third: "What's Cathy doing by that cone?" Cathy might be too far-gone now; she might even try to have a picnic on concrete. Anyone can wear a beret and a full skirt in an open field with barley and rye, but only Cathy can scrape a poem on the inside of a coke can. Her class will probably be visiting a landfill next, so they won't get to see Highway 12 or the town of Ragley.