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Every day when I step in front of my two E.S.L. classes, I peer at my students with a sense of wonder and admiration. While each student’s culture and language is drastically different from the other, their lives are similarly courageous. One student arrived in Pittsburgh from western Africa where he earned his M.B.A. in his own language, but desired to escape his prejudicial country. Thus, he came to America in order to learn English from scratch and eventually earn his PhD in business. Sitting near him is a student from Guatemala who grew up in a country where 20+ different dialects of Spanish are spoken. He had a difficult time learning to read and write in his own language because his grade school teachers taught in a different dialect than him; thus, he finished school at a sixth grade level and worked on his home farm for self-sufficiency. Across from them is a married couple who came from a refugee camp in Napal where they learned basic English in the ‘safe’ confines of a camp for 10+ years. A few months ago, they came to America where they finally live in a physically safe home, but don’t necessarily feel or speak as if they were at home.
Each morning and evening, as these adult students come in for a two-hour long English lesson, their facial expressions clearly illustrate the wonder and expectations that they can not always verbalize to me. Questions such as, “How will she be teaching me English today, since I can not verbally express my specific needs and desires to her?” “Will she be my friend seeing how lonely I am in this foreign country? Can we be friends since we can not always speak?” “Will she be sensitive to my fears?” “Will she challenge me?”, or, “Will she go slow enough for me?” “In her youth, will she treat me as the respected adult that I am?” Initially coming into this year, I possessed a lot of zeal and enthusiasm to respond to each and every one of these questions and expectations. My heart’s desire wasto serve God, to be the image of Jesus and to imitate the great saints I read about and admired; Mother Theresa of Calcutta, Saint John Bosco, Saint Angela Merici and Saint Francis of Assisi. Responding to each of these student’s unspoken questions and needs comparatively seemed like nothing, and fully responding to them is what I thought it meant to live the Gospel and to serve God and his people.
Soon, however, these tacit questions and expectations began to weigh very heavily upon my heart. Balancing the different students’ cries for “Challenge me more!” with the “Please slow down!” seemed impossible. Multiple students began asking for my phone number to “hang out” after work, but balancing my already an day of full-time work with God, family, a boyfriend, community members and friends was just stretching me too thin. My lesson plans also began to seem like a complete failure because I had explicitly created English lessons around what I thought my students needed to know or would have fun with; topics such as ordering from a coffee shop or knowing people’s professional working titles. When in fact, only a few of the students really knew or cared about going to coffee shops, and most of them only worried about functioning in their current, often blue collar, job. In the midst of this experienced inner chaos and feeling of failure, I started to dread seeing my students and teaching in the classroom every day. The pressure to “measure up” as a good Christian woman who always loved and served people with an open heart felt emotionally and physically unbearable. And finally, I believed that I couldn’t really teach well – I surely wasn’t entertaining enough, and I couldn’t meet everyone’s needs – I didn’t have the time or capacity. So how was I supposed to serve people if I couldn’t give to them what they needed? How was I to respond to the Christian call to serve God and his people if serving God and his people just seemed like too much to handle?
For the first three months, as I continued to grow in apathy and fear toward teaching my beginner E.S.L. class, God was simultaneously beginning to transform my call to service. The transformation of service began slowly and subtly through reading a few books by Henri Nouwen, by talking with my close housemate, Jaimee, as well as a few other close relationships, and through consistent prayer. A moment of clarity occurred one morning when my housemate Jaimee and I were talking about a few books we had recently read together by Henri Nouwen. Before we ran off to our service sites, she shared with me a beautiful insight regarding service that she had read the night before in Henri Nouwen’s book, “Adam.” “Laura, I’ve realized that it’s not so much about what you do, but it’s who you are that matters to people!” This shared insight struck me as quite simple but valuable. Here I was, this whole time, focusing on what English topic I could efficiently teach and what lesson plan I could perfectly whip up in order to fully serve each and every person in the class. But now, with this idea of “being” versus “doing”, a mysterious human need was beginning to emerge in my heart. Perhaps the most important aspect of my service was not to create the perfect lesson plan, to adequately entertain my students, or to impress my supervisor and co-workers. Perhaps the most important aspect of my service was to first be open and present with my students in the classroom, and to listen, be interested and engaged in their everyday lives during class.
I walked into class that day listening a little bit closer to the unspoken words my students were expressing; the words behind their silent expectations. No English was necessary to exchange the questions of our broken but gifted humanity. Who were my students, what were they really here for, and what questions and lessons were really relevant to their everyday lives? Listening to my own silent words likewise became bit easier. And even by listening and understanding the audible, basic English words I was teaching in class revealed that the words and actions I use in every day conversation effects how I view service and relationships with others. The distinction I made between the words for and with finally marked the beginning of a unique kind of service for me. As I was acting out the definition of for to my students (rather than using a wordy English definition), I noticed that my body popped upright, and I cupped my left hand almost lifelessly facing the palm upwards. I then swiftly swooped my right pointing finger from my right side into the left palm. My right pointing finger became very tense. As I spoke, I illustrated to my students, “I have a gift for you!” SWOOP. “I work for Goodwill.” SWOOP. “I am here for you.” SWOOP. After acting out this word several times, I noticed that it was the right hand that did all the movement while my left hand remained open to receiving, but dull and motionless, time and time again receiving the rapid pointing finger from the right hand.
About 10 minutes later, I acted out the word with. Both of my hands were gradually brought together in a rested fashion in front of my chest. The students watched my hands with ease as one finger naturally folded over the creases of the other. Each knuckle provided a necessary support for the two hands to remain fully balanced, folded and rested together. One hand was not pressing too hard onto the other, but neither hand was pulling away, either. “I like to eat bread with butter.” FOLD. “Everyday, I eat dinner with my family.” FOLD. Or, my favorite, “I am here with you.”…FOLD.
Driving home that night, I was memorized by this distinction that I naturally made between the words for and with. As I mediated upon these words in a short morning prayer, the image of Jesus Christ on the cross had become much clearer in my mind, and God had provided a sudden revelation regarding love and service: I am to be the image of Jesus Christ in the world, the image of Jesus Christ crucified. Jesus serves us not only by dying for our sins, but He serves us by dying with us in our humanity as we die with him in his humanity. He calls us to die, to struggle, to laugh, to work, to love, and to live with him and with others in all our humanity together. The crucifixion provided for me a new way of unifying both an active and passive service and love of God and of others.
Reflecting back upon my hands when describing for and with, I realized the mistake I had previously made service to be. I had seen myself as the “right hand” in the definition of “for”. I had made myself the privileged, college educated, ambitious young Christian; fully alive, fully available, and fully on fire, who was giving gifts for the weak, the lifeless, and the dull of the world, “God’s precious people” you could say. They were the “left hand”. Although I had good intentions in my service, I was completely blind to the fact that I was serving people mostly for me to have the opportunity to serve; for me to have the opportunity to be the “right hand” and to do something for someone.
However, Jesus has not called me to offer my gifts for my students. Like two hands rested, open, giving, and supporting each other, God has shown me that through listening and experiencing all the suffering and joy and life with my students in class, by listening and responding to the subtle, unspoken suffering and life they have to give to me and I to them, we can offer each other the service, support, and giftedness we all need in this world. John Michael Talbot beautifully said in his book, Reflections on St. Francis, that in serving, “We intentionally make ourselves smaller than others…The lesser brother genuinely sees the good gifts of others, and helps them to realize the full potential of those gifts. We must see the good in all people, and the gifts that each person holds as their own unique gift. In this sense, everyone has a gift that no one else has. Everyone is “better”, and everyone is equal. Only then can we genuinely realize our own gifts as well.”
How am I to serve, and how am I to follow Jesus? I am to serve and follow by first folding together with Christ’s crucified hand – for to serve is one human, wounded hand giving, supporting, holding, resting, and receiving from the other human, wounded hand. All is well; in the midst of our poverty and our giftedness, we remain folded together with God and with each other.
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