Avoiding the Big God in the Room

I wish to talk about what it is like to step way back every single day and not talk about God with my students – even though I'm pretty sure we talk about spiritual and religious matters regularly due to themes in our canonized literature– teachers have pretty clear guidelines on what is and is not appropriate rhetoric about our personal views. The American in me is offended when teachers do not adhere to this rule. I'm not writing today to discuss those teachers or to change the law. I'm not considering a change in jobs nor location of employment. I'm here to discuss the discomfort of hiding a major part of who I am as a human being while everyone else in the room is welcome to explore their own.  This would be no different from all those teachers who don't discuss their same-sex partners or recovery from any addictions. They can't risk the judgment and therefore remain more impersonal and continue the ridiculous notion that teachers live at the school and spend all their time grading and planning for the return of their students.

Sometimes I cringe not at the fact that my students have differing beliefs, but at the simplicity and ignorance of their statements. For example, some do not even understand that their Christian denomination is just that. They think some people are Christian and some are Lutheran. I have students who proudly declare that they have Native blood, but they have no idea from which tribe they came.  Some of my students think all ghosts are evil. They think a ghost is a demonic force while a spiritual presence is something else. One word there – media. Just two more words – negligent parents.

Some students are so concerned with fitting in, they do not acknowledge their beliefs and I cannot model this for them. I am free to help them define, clarify, reason and justify all day long, but I must be clear, I am not to share my own views on God. This is an understandable law of the public school system and I choose to work within it; however, I also feel challenged by it from time to time.

This was not an issue for me when I had no God in my life. I could listen and say or think, “Well, that is great for you, but I do not have a limit on my beliefs,” nor did I feel I was in any way at a disadvantage for it. That is how I was raised and I knew nothing else.

This was not nearly an issue for me when I followed the rarely understood Ojibwe traditions in the first part of my career, since it was only thought of as “cultural awareness” or I was simply considered a “native wannabe”. No one felt threatened; they considered me lost.

Nowadays, things have become a bit tricky. I follow a Christian path that I never in a million years would have considered until my late 40's. I follow a path known and shared with over 35% of the world.   It is one thing to be a closet Christian with my agnostic and highly secular family; they'd be far less comfortable with my assertions than any stranger. Yet, being a closet Christian at work generates a lot of frustrations for me.

First, I don't declare it openly, because the last thing I want to do is be labeled “one of those narrow-minded, judgmental Christians” by any of my students who are non-Christian. They might assume I am now against their beliefs.

Second, I consider myself deeply spiritual and profoundly devoted to becoming more spiritual by the minute. I want to share this spiritual experience while I inhabit my human form so that others can also find the peace, joy and wisdom it brings.

Third, I hate being anything but authentic and covering up these facts feels like presenting myself as a boy when in fact I am a girl – which is just an analogy by the way – but you hopefully get the tone of sincere angst.

I must respect that I have more power than I think – the power to influence my students - and that is why I must keep my mouth shut. I can't go around suggesting that one single religion is a choice I have made, because parents will resent their children feeling pressured to gain my approval via conformity.
The only thing that bugs me is that what I really want to pressure my students into is the act of being who they are and still showing amazing grace with those who believe differently. Isn't that what a Christian is supposed to do?

Perhaps it is for the best that I do not have to really say anything. I might have a lot more power never seeming like a particularly religious person but rather a spiritual being untethered by any specific label. I can't help it if I see people at church. I also can't help it if there are students who call themselves Christian and then go about doing horrible things.

I guess I will just leave my ego in the car and don my multicultural cape with a touch of Jesus-laced thread woven inconspicuously along the edges. No one will know, except of course the anonymous higher power of whose name we will not speak.