God First

This one's kinda scary.

I mean, all the other writing I've done here has been purely theoretical, very non-committal and has never required much in the way of action on my part.

This one's different. This one could actually answer one of those small questions that make up my lifelong big question.

A Christian teacher has to put God first. That's the definition of Christian. Putting God first means that in everything we do, we should be working for the Kingdom... including teaching.

In Canada, from what I can tell, the best way of doing that is to be a staff sponsor for an IVCF High School group. Each group needs a sponsor in order to exist in the first place, so it's an excellent place to start.

Too many staff sponsors, however, become staff supervisors. That is something I do not wish to be. I pray that when I find myself in that situation that I will invest my time in the growth of Christian students and the advancement of God's Kingdom. I hope to be fully involved in IVCF even while I teach, even if it means I can only teach part time. That way, I hope, I will be recognized as the "Christian teacher" which will be a witness in and of itself, provided God helps me teach well.

The result would be a teacher who students see as someone they can as tough questions, who will give an honest answer and will help them find the answers for themselves.

That is, after all, what a teacher should do anyway.

On Ф

Phi is a Greek letter: Ф.

Ф shows up all over the place. You've all seen it... you might just not be aware of it.

Supposedly, Ф is the most pleasing ratio to the human eye. Many paintings and buildings have been built, whether on purpose or by coincidence, according to the dimensions of Ф. A rectangle that is drawn according to this ratio will have sides, say, of 10cm and 16.18cm. I could go into how to calculate it, but that would not be exciting for too many and if you really want to know, look up the "Golden Ratio."

The fascinating thing is that this ratio shows up everywhere:

- The head of a sunflower is packed with seeds according to Ф in order to maximize space.

- The leaves on most flowers rotate around the stem according to Ф in order to get the most out of every drop of rain and sunlight.

- The human body is full of golden ratios simply because we perceive it to be pleasant.

- As a result portraits also use the Golden Ratio, especially, the Mona Lisa.

I could mention the pyramids, the Parthanon, various sea creatures and apparently, even the music of Mozart.

What boggles my mind is that our universe was created to fit so perfectly with this one particular ratio in mind and that we have been conditioned to find it pleasant. Truly we have a God who set things up to work in the best possible manner and is pleased to see us be pleased as well!

On Questions

One of my favorite activities is the investigation game where a situation is presented and you have to figure out what happened using yes/no questions. It really forces a person to think creatively and usually by the time you figure it out, you're thinking, "Why didn't I think of that earlier?" The problem most people have in figuring these out is that they try to ask questions that answer the whole thing at once. That rarely works. Instead, to solve these situations, you have to ask specific questions and slowly build your solution.

I've always felt that the most important ability anyone can have is to ask the right questions. No matter what the subject area is, if you can ask the right question, you're well on your way to understanding the subject. For example, an excellent question for grade 10 geography would be, "How does glacial movement in the last Ice Age affect population patterns in Canada?" But to answer that question, you have to first answer a number of smaller questions: How did the glaciers move? What effect did that have on the landscape? What population patterns exist in Canada? etc... You can't answer the big question without breaking it down into smaller chunks.

Thus, the theory would state that any question, no matter how big, can be broken down into a series of smaller questions... but is that really the case?

We were told today that everyone has a question that is so big that it has no business going away... the type of question that defines our dreams... the type of question that nobody really has a definitive answer to, though many try. Like:

How can people successfully live in deep community?
How does a person serve God while working in a secular environment?
and so on...

Now, we all have quick answers for questions like these, but rarely does someone actually live out what the quick answers say. So the answer to a question like these is really more of a lifestyle... a constant commitment to living out what we think the answer should be.

So, what does a Christian teacher look like in a public school?

On Comparisons

On one of the last days of school before Christmas Break the teachers at my school accepted a challenge from the students to play a game of hockey. I signed up to play with the staff team and took the ice for the challenge. As it turns out, there are some teachers on the staff that are not as good at hockey as I am. But there are also some that are far better than me... and as it turns out most of the student players are better than most of the teachers. Their superior skills led to an 8-1 drubbing that most teachers knew was coming.

But, though the students are much, much better than I am at playing hockey, that doesn't necessarily mean they are all that good. They only appear good at the game because they are being compared to me. "Good" is a comparative term. If, instead, one was to compare the students to Sidney Crosby, they would no longer seem so good. That doesn't change the fact that they are better than me, it just changes the way they are described overall.

In life, we have this propensity for comparing ourselves with other people. It's like we need to find some place where we're better than everyone else. This habit of ours comes out especially when we try to compare ourselves, as Christians, to those who don't adhere to our values. We claim that we are better than they are in various moral aspects. For all I know, maybe we are... but that's not my point.

Even if we are better than others in our morals, that doesn't mean, by any means, that we are good. Just like our comparison between me, my students, and Sidney Crosby, our ultimate level of goodness depends on the standard to whom we are comparing ourselves. The standard, in this case, is Jesus. Compared to Jesus, we're no good at all, no matter how many people we're better than. Whether we're twice as good as someone else, or a thousand times better, Jesus is perfect... infinitely better than us. So really, our comparison to that other person doesn't matter at all.

So what are we to do about this?

Well, in the first example, when compared to Sidney Crosby, the comparison is a little different. I'm sure if you asked Crosby, he wouldn't say that he's a perfect hockey player. Though he's considered one of the best in the NHL, he still practices every day and could name the ways he wants to improve. Together with his coach, he finds a hole in his game and works on fixing that. I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb to say that throughout his career he'll ever feel that he's arrived at the perfect hockey player.

Similarly, in our lives, we have to come to the realization that as long as we're living here on Earth, we won't reach perfection. No matter how much better we might be than someone else, we're far from perfect. Therefore, we should find a place that isn't perfect in our lives and work on that. We won't reach perfection, but we can take the next step toward it... and as long as we're doing that, we'll turn into a better person than we were previously, which is the only comparison we should really be making.