Significant Others

Your close friends help you see yourself, like looking in a mirror reveals both your beauties and your flaws. That's part of the idea behind classical sociologist Charles Cooley's idea of the "Looking-Glass Self:" we derive our feelings about ourselves largely from how others esteem us. Cooley points out that this is especially true when it comes to our significant others (S.O.).

My S.O. is often my mirror. Yesterday, when T passed on a compliment from his friend to me, I pounced at the opportunity to "primp" in this so-called "mirror." I wanted to gobble down the compliments, as T put it. He then enacted a person scarfing down imaginary food with ravenous gobbling sounds and hand gestures. I got the message well in that moment: Tis not good to be too hungry for positive reflections! The nature of the compliment was about a topic I already knew about myself, so indulgence in it was not necessary. The line between humility and pride! I now see something new, that our S.O.'s can help us tred those lines delicately. Where we are proud, they can call us out; where we need encouragement and to hear positive truths about ourselves, they lift us up. Since two metaphors isn't enough for one blog post, may I add, as iron sharpens iron?

I won't be a Mara, no matter who is my Neighbor

God's commandments are easy, so long as they're abstract. As soon as specifics factor in, they're impossible.*

I have serious problems loving the way Jesus wants me to. As soon as I make someone out to be harmful in my mind -- as someone who doesn't care about me or wants to take my joy away -- I am as unforgiving to him/her in my mind as pound cake is to a sweets addict's body. I basically stop thinking in the light and enter into complete darkness, where every turn of the road leads to more negative thinking. (Luke 11:33-36)

Jesus wants me not to "like" my neighbor, but to love him/her. He wants me to see my neighbor as a piece of the reflection of God's image (because that's what s/he is, just like me). Also, He wants me to serve him/her -- not just tolerate him/her, not speak badly of him/her, or pretend I love him/her (Hertz 2007). Remember how Jesus treated his betrayers? He washed their feet.

Why service works to transcend ugly feelings and negative thoughts: it allows you to beat out mushy feelings, which are equally bad in terms of loving and not loving someone. It FREES you from enslaving feelings. When it comes to learning to love in general, action counts more than words or intentions or wishes. (Do you hear DC Talk in the distant background? "I said love -- love is a verb!")

So there I am. I can see where I stand now in my spiritual-relational terrain: caught up in wishes and intentions, but without service, no real heart change. As Hertz puts it: First pray for the neighbor, then continually look out for a way to help him/her. At that point, "it's very hard to think they're worthless. It's very hard to stay mad at them."

So here's my prayer today: That I serve, and really be free from the negative, self-pitying, never-ending dark path that is my alternative. God's really protecting me when He commands me to love my neighbor. He's leading me in a better direction, to a place where I won't become a Mara (embittered).

* which is why we need Jesus.

Heart-full research

Yesterday, I conducted 6 interviews for my project about teacher retention. Today, I am still considering all their thoughts, all the paradoxes, good points to reflect on, ideas they caused me to have about ways that might actually work for boosting teacher retention. But most of all, beyond my head being full of ideas and swirling with connections and common themes among the group, my heart is utterly full from this research.

Interviewing is the easy part. I love sitting with people and talking about a subject I have experience in. I get to sit with them and reflect on the profession dearest to me. I am intrinsically invested in this topic, and in this back-door way to stay vicariously involved in public schooling.

I wish I could be some of my subjects' friends. I wish I could spend more time with them, but alas, that breaks social research protocol and also, and interview is an interview. It only lasts for x amount of minutes. But instead of mourning this fact, I am simply reveling in the fact that my life's work allowed my path to cross with theirs just one more time, and this time, in a more valuable way than would have been if I were merely their coworker. Now I hope that I do their voices justice in the next stage -- the more demanding part: data analysis.

Pathetic Little Book

So I definitely should be reading right now. But I really want to write this down before I forget!

What is the best way to build a book collection? And by 'best,' I mean, simultaneously the most inexpensive, effective, and sentimental approach? Here's how:

It's your day to present on the week's readings. You design a nice presentation, practice it, read every last word of the book and two companion articles. Being the experienced student you are, you found this book in the library's stacks and checked it out months ago, so you're ready to go. You proceed with book notes on your own notebook paper, instead of in the book's margins, since the book isn't yours to keep (obviously). You're not deterred by the book's humble canvas-y cloth cover and binding, in its dreary dark blue hue. It's clean and free, is it not? And not terribly worn either. Just a little aged.

So towards break time of my presentation, my professor comments on my book: "You got that out of the library?" (incredulous.) "Yeah," I say, unaffected. "I have a couple of extra copies in my office. You can have one." He laughs his good-natured laugh. Basically, he was saying, what's a decent grad student like you doing trumping around with a raggedy, poor excuse for a book...on LOAN, of all things? Clearly, my miserly ways are not totally acceptable in the grad student role. In fact, this here may be a transgression of the role. I'm willing to re-evaluate my role performance for a moment, but kid not I a soul: I won't part with my economical ways.

When I stopped in his office today on an unrelated errand, it was he who remembered to give me the book. "I mean, that one was just pathetic," he said with a laugh. This one, a shiny, youthful blue paperback copy with bold red streak designs across the front, "is much better," he said.

Coupon Queen (my childhood alias) strikes again! In a new way!