Friends in Christ,
It’s the first day of school today! And guess what? I haven’t done my homework! Egads! You see, yesterday was Karla’s newsletter deadline, and (thankfully) she gave me an extension on my assignment, so the following school-themed article will not only be timely, it will hopefully keep me from getting sent to the principal’s office (more on that later). I take you to Bismarck High School, circa 1980….
To someone who was used to getting in trouble, it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but for someone like me it was huge. I still think about it from time to time, even though it was almost 40 years ago now. I was a good kid! That was pretty much my identity at Bismarck High School: defined by keeping my nose clean and following the rules. I never got sent to the principle’s office. Ever. But, one day, it happened…a big deal. A disappointing, frustrating, big deal. Who was I now? How would this dumb event define my identity from that moment onward?? What was at stake now?
We were seniors in high school, my buddies and I. And we got a little carried away one day in the lunchroom, of all places. We had a split class period our senior year and that meant we took a break in our senior Political Science class to eat lunch—a whopping 15 or 20 minutes to gulp down a hot lunch and race back to the rest of the class. But it was plenty enough time to make a mess at the table and egg on a couple guys to make the mess even more gross by writing a couple words on napkins (I still am too shamed and embarrassed by that event to confess this act fully to all of you, kind readers, but suffice it to say the words just multiplied the gross-ness).
Of course, one of the “lunchroom ladies” found our mess and took it as a personal affront to her. Uh oh. We never meant it that way, but that is what landed us in trouble with the school authorities. This, after all, was woman whom many kids disparagingly referred to (behind her back) as “pizza face,” given her unfortunate blemish problem, as well as her rather…yucky lunchroom habits: she would often lick stuff like ketchup from her fingers as she cleaned up! Eeeeew!!!
Yes, she was often the butt of jokes, but this little stunt of ours was NOT directed at her. Clearly that didn’t matter to the assistant principal, though, the faculty leader of our Fellowship of Christian Athletes group and a man I deeply respected and looked up to, both for his leadership skills as well as for the Christian faith he modeled for all of us.
Mr. S. handled most of the disciplinary problems at school, and with over fourteen hundred kids in the school, his days were full of that. But, when I got called out of class to report to his office a couple days later, discipline was the furthest thing from my mind. Maybe it was something about FCA! Maybe he needed me to carry out a task, a project or some such thing! Maybe he just wanted to talk to a kid whom he didn’t need to suspend or try to convince to stay in school. What an honor…
“Hey, Mr. S. what’s up?” I said playfully, expecting him to greet me with his usual enthusiastic smile. Without looking up from his desk, he calmly, seriously, and bluntly said, “Sit down, Phil. We need to talk.” Nothing was registering in my teenaged-brain at that point, other than the fact that something was clearly amiss. “Would you like to tell me about the lunchroom incident from this past Monday?”
Oh. My. Goodness. Busted! But how?! My mind raced to process what was a relatively new experience for me. A million thoughts must have raced into my head at that moment, one of which was: “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding—THAT? That harmless, gross little prank? We were just messing around!” And the other of which was, “Oh, no. This was never supposed to happen. I have just disappointed someone I looked up to in so many ways. I have let him and myself down.” Help, God. Please.
It didn’t matter that I wasn’t the main instigator at our table that day. It didn’t matter that the lunchroom lady really wasn’t really the target of our silliness. I was involved--complicit in stupid prank. Guilty by association. When that woman had cleaned up that table, she had felt personally attacked--once again—and disrespected for the umpteenth time. And so, she told Mr. S. She didn’t know all the boys’ names at the table, but of course she knew mine. I was nice to her. She had gotten to know me. And now I had betrayed her. Help, God. Please. I am such a schmuck.
So, one by one, we were all hauled into Mr. S.’s office, and he doled out the appropriate punishments. We weren’t suspended from school, but we were kicked out of the lunchroom for several weeks, which probably doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but considering the fact that we didn’t have enough time to run home or out to a restaurant, brown bags it was. How embarrassing! And for a kid like me, how shameful. That just wasn’t me. I didn’t do stuff like that. And yet, it was. At least that one day, I did stuff like that. Welcome to the shadow side of all of us, as one of my psychology heroes, Carl Jung, would say. Why good people do bad things…bumped into that shadow many times since, I must say.
Not being in the lunchroom wasn’t the hardest part of those several weeks; feeling badly for hurting the feelings of the lunchroom lady wasn’t the hardest part, either (but I do still feel badly about that, truth be told). No, it was hoping that Mr. A. wouldn’t ever find out. It was fearing the worst: that what I had done would somehow damage the relationship I had with someone I looked up to more than I did to Mr. S. Mr. A. was one of our school’s guidance counselors, but he was way more than that to me.
He was my friend. Someone with whom I could share anything, talk about anything, and best of all, grow in my faith. He was someone who taught me that you could believe in Jesus Christ and still be cool at the same time. Maybe, by some miracle, he simply wouldn’t find out, and that would take care of things. As much as I could tell him anything, I just simply couldn’t tell him this…so I kept it a secret. And prayed that he wouldn’t find out.
And then one day, just a few days into my suspension from the lunchroom, I ran into Mr. A. between morning classes as I often did; he was a very personal guy and liked to hang out in the hallway and talk to kids as they came by. As usual, he had a colored toothpick in his mouth and friendly smile on his face. “Hi Phil!” he said, in his usual chirpy way. And then he pulled me to the side of the hallway. “Say, Phil…I have something to talk to you about, but I need a few minutes; do you suppose I could buy you lunch in the lunchroom today?” Uh….
Now I had to tell him. Either that, or lie, which I never was good at anyway. And lying to Mr. A. would have just added more guilt to the burden-bundle I was lugging around. “Uh, I can’t, Mr. A…um…not that I don’t want to, but um…” And then he interrupted me before I could go any further. Looking me straight in the eye, right past my shame, my guilt, my embarrassment, he smiled a strange, silly sort of smile, leaned in and said, “I know about everything that happened.” No sooner had my anxious heart begun to sink than it began to rise; death and resurrection, maybe?
He then slapped me on the back, walked away and started laughing. LAUGHING!! Loudly, all the way down the hallway! And it was the most blessed, beautiful laughter I had heard in a long, long time. Because in the wake left behind from his laughter, I heard the good news that things were still okay between Mr. A and me. I heard that I was still okay in spite of the mess I had been part of. That lunchroom incident will be seared in my soul for the rest of my life, but Mr. A. never brought it up again. Ever.
While we still were sinners, Christ died for us, St. Paul writes in his Letter to the Romans. What a mess we sometimes make of things this side of heaven, people of God. Gross! But what unexpected transformations God creates—and keeps creating--out of those messes. All because of the beautiful mess of the cross. That good news still takes my breath away at times. May it take yours away as well.
Peace, in the cross,
Pastor Phil
(As posted in August 2019 Newsletter)
It’s the first day of school today! And guess what? I haven’t done my homework! Egads! You see, yesterday was Karla’s newsletter deadline, and (thankfully) she gave me an extension on my assignment, so the following school-themed article will not only be timely, it will hopefully keep me from getting sent to the principal’s office (more on that later). I take you to Bismarck High School, circa 1980….
To someone who was used to getting in trouble, it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but for someone like me it was huge. I still think about it from time to time, even though it was almost 40 years ago now. I was a good kid! That was pretty much my identity at Bismarck High School: defined by keeping my nose clean and following the rules. I never got sent to the principle’s office. Ever. But, one day, it happened…a big deal. A disappointing, frustrating, big deal. Who was I now? How would this dumb event define my identity from that moment onward?? What was at stake now?
We were seniors in high school, my buddies and I. And we got a little carried away one day in the lunchroom, of all places. We had a split class period our senior year and that meant we took a break in our senior Political Science class to eat lunch—a whopping 15 or 20 minutes to gulp down a hot lunch and race back to the rest of the class. But it was plenty enough time to make a mess at the table and egg on a couple guys to make the mess even more gross by writing a couple words on napkins (I still am too shamed and embarrassed by that event to confess this act fully to all of you, kind readers, but suffice it to say the words just multiplied the gross-ness).
Of course, one of the “lunchroom ladies” found our mess and took it as a personal affront to her. Uh oh. We never meant it that way, but that is what landed us in trouble with the school authorities. This, after all, was woman whom many kids disparagingly referred to (behind her back) as “pizza face,” given her unfortunate blemish problem, as well as her rather…yucky lunchroom habits: she would often lick stuff like ketchup from her fingers as she cleaned up! Eeeeew!!!
Yes, she was often the butt of jokes, but this little stunt of ours was NOT directed at her. Clearly that didn’t matter to the assistant principal, though, the faculty leader of our Fellowship of Christian Athletes group and a man I deeply respected and looked up to, both for his leadership skills as well as for the Christian faith he modeled for all of us.
Mr. S. handled most of the disciplinary problems at school, and with over fourteen hundred kids in the school, his days were full of that. But, when I got called out of class to report to his office a couple days later, discipline was the furthest thing from my mind. Maybe it was something about FCA! Maybe he needed me to carry out a task, a project or some such thing! Maybe he just wanted to talk to a kid whom he didn’t need to suspend or try to convince to stay in school. What an honor…
“Hey, Mr. S. what’s up?” I said playfully, expecting him to greet me with his usual enthusiastic smile. Without looking up from his desk, he calmly, seriously, and bluntly said, “Sit down, Phil. We need to talk.” Nothing was registering in my teenaged-brain at that point, other than the fact that something was clearly amiss. “Would you like to tell me about the lunchroom incident from this past Monday?”
Oh. My. Goodness. Busted! But how?! My mind raced to process what was a relatively new experience for me. A million thoughts must have raced into my head at that moment, one of which was: “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding—THAT? That harmless, gross little prank? We were just messing around!” And the other of which was, “Oh, no. This was never supposed to happen. I have just disappointed someone I looked up to in so many ways. I have let him and myself down.” Help, God. Please.
It didn’t matter that I wasn’t the main instigator at our table that day. It didn’t matter that the lunchroom lady really wasn’t really the target of our silliness. I was involved--complicit in stupid prank. Guilty by association. When that woman had cleaned up that table, she had felt personally attacked--once again—and disrespected for the umpteenth time. And so, she told Mr. S. She didn’t know all the boys’ names at the table, but of course she knew mine. I was nice to her. She had gotten to know me. And now I had betrayed her. Help, God. Please. I am such a schmuck.
So, one by one, we were all hauled into Mr. S.’s office, and he doled out the appropriate punishments. We weren’t suspended from school, but we were kicked out of the lunchroom for several weeks, which probably doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but considering the fact that we didn’t have enough time to run home or out to a restaurant, brown bags it was. How embarrassing! And for a kid like me, how shameful. That just wasn’t me. I didn’t do stuff like that. And yet, it was. At least that one day, I did stuff like that. Welcome to the shadow side of all of us, as one of my psychology heroes, Carl Jung, would say. Why good people do bad things…bumped into that shadow many times since, I must say.
Not being in the lunchroom wasn’t the hardest part of those several weeks; feeling badly for hurting the feelings of the lunchroom lady wasn’t the hardest part, either (but I do still feel badly about that, truth be told). No, it was hoping that Mr. A. wouldn’t ever find out. It was fearing the worst: that what I had done would somehow damage the relationship I had with someone I looked up to more than I did to Mr. S. Mr. A. was one of our school’s guidance counselors, but he was way more than that to me.
He was my friend. Someone with whom I could share anything, talk about anything, and best of all, grow in my faith. He was someone who taught me that you could believe in Jesus Christ and still be cool at the same time. Maybe, by some miracle, he simply wouldn’t find out, and that would take care of things. As much as I could tell him anything, I just simply couldn’t tell him this…so I kept it a secret. And prayed that he wouldn’t find out.
And then one day, just a few days into my suspension from the lunchroom, I ran into Mr. A. between morning classes as I often did; he was a very personal guy and liked to hang out in the hallway and talk to kids as they came by. As usual, he had a colored toothpick in his mouth and friendly smile on his face. “Hi Phil!” he said, in his usual chirpy way. And then he pulled me to the side of the hallway. “Say, Phil…I have something to talk to you about, but I need a few minutes; do you suppose I could buy you lunch in the lunchroom today?” Uh….
Now I had to tell him. Either that, or lie, which I never was good at anyway. And lying to Mr. A. would have just added more guilt to the burden-bundle I was lugging around. “Uh, I can’t, Mr. A…um…not that I don’t want to, but um…” And then he interrupted me before I could go any further. Looking me straight in the eye, right past my shame, my guilt, my embarrassment, he smiled a strange, silly sort of smile, leaned in and said, “I know about everything that happened.” No sooner had my anxious heart begun to sink than it began to rise; death and resurrection, maybe?
He then slapped me on the back, walked away and started laughing. LAUGHING!! Loudly, all the way down the hallway! And it was the most blessed, beautiful laughter I had heard in a long, long time. Because in the wake left behind from his laughter, I heard the good news that things were still okay between Mr. A and me. I heard that I was still okay in spite of the mess I had been part of. That lunchroom incident will be seared in my soul for the rest of my life, but Mr. A. never brought it up again. Ever.
While we still were sinners, Christ died for us, St. Paul writes in his Letter to the Romans. What a mess we sometimes make of things this side of heaven, people of God. Gross! But what unexpected transformations God creates—and keeps creating--out of those messes. All because of the beautiful mess of the cross. That good news still takes my breath away at times. May it take yours away as well.
Peace, in the cross,
Pastor Phil
(As posted in August 2019 Newsletter)