Go Zen, then!

Yes, I know I'm getting old, but tonight was a terrific night because nothing happened. This morning while the kids were at rock climbing practice, Deb and I both got in some exercise. Then we spent the afternoon with the kids - I played tennis with Mark and Deb took both kids to the pool. Tonight we made a healthy dinner, then worked in the garden for a while. Finally Layne made (with some help from Deb, but Layne was in charge) a blueberry pie, completely from scratch, using the blueberries we got at the farmers' market this morning. (And it was AWESOME!) At 9:30, we're still sitting on the back porch, enjoying the beautiful weather. Deb and the kids decide to head to bed and I say, "I feel like I should sit out here on the porch and write a blog post, but I don't know what to write about." Deb suggests writing about perfect camping weather. One quizzical look later and she says, "Just go Zen, then!"

So here's my current take on religion. I have had a pretty varied religious experience over the years, especially considering that I grew up in Lynchburg, VA, home of Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority. I was baptized in the Catholic Church, grew up in a Presbyterian church, then attended chapel 3 times a week at my Episcopalian high school. In college I checked out all kinds of options without really settling on one. I helped to found the Presbyterian Student Fellowship while at the same time singing and playing guitar at Catholic Mass every week. In graduate school I found a Lutheran Church, where I started to really feel comfortable, and have later attended Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ - you know, that church in your town called "First Christian"), Lutheran Churches, and Episcopal Churches. As a teacher, I have also taught in different schools - Catholic, Jewish, and Episcopalian - with both good and bad experiences at each. (Although I have to admit, in my experience, Jews are pretty awesome!)

All of this leads me to a pretty muddled state of confusion in my adult life. I have tended to stick mostly to my Christian roots, and lean towards the Lutheran or Disciples of Christ traditions, but I've had enough experiences with other religions or denominations to believe that no single church can really have all the answers. Deb said, "Go Zen, then," because she knows that I am very attracted to the teachings of Buddhism. Zen Buddhism especially, looks at the writings and teachings of others as great sources of wisdom, but believes that the true goal of religion is to find the wisdom inside yourself. I have read many of the main scriptures of the world's great religions - the Bible (obviously including the Torah), the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, many of the writings of the great Talmudic Scholars, and foundational documents in Tao and Shinto. When I read them, I can't help but notice all the similarities. The major tenets of all the world's religions truly are the same, they are simply expressed in different ways in different cultures. The one faith movement that really seems to recognize this is the Baha'i Faith, which believes in one God who has expressed Him or Herself through the voices of many prophets through the years, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed. The Baha'i's believe that we can learn something from all of the world's religions and that it is important to understand and appreciate them all. What can be more beautiful, peaceful, and unifying than that?

Within the realm of Christianity, which is most comfortable for me based on my own cultural surroundings, I have really connected with a group called the "Emerging Church" especially through a particular scholar, Marcus Borg. Much of what he says would be considered heresy by more conservative Christians, but it makes a lot of sense to me. He recognizes that the Bible, along with all other religious documents, was written at a particular time under particular circumstances. When read in context, virtually everything in the Bible makes perfect sense. We don't live in that same context today, though, and it doesn't make sense to apply the literal statements of the Bible to our world. Instead we need to engage with them, discuss them, study them, and think about them in order to figure out how they apply to our lives today. Sounds like a much more vibrant religion that way, doesn't it? I believe, along with those of the Baha'i Faith, that the same can be said about all the other major religions. How could I possibly worship a God who is so simple and weak that He can only speak to people in one way? If there truly is a God, then wouldn't he or she be smart enough and powerful enough to address different people in different cultures in the way that will best resonate with them? Also, wouldn't He be more concerned with feeding the hungry and helping the downcast than with what color a minister wears on a particular Sunday or whether or not somebody has had a little water sprinkled on her head before she participates in Communion? We get so wrapped up in our differences that we don't see our similarities. If we could forget about those differences for a while and focus on working towards our common goals, the various churches of the world could solve so many problems. Zen is all about finding inner wisdom, but I don't believe you can find that inner wisdom without being compelled to help the world around you. That same idea can be found in the writings of C.S. Lewis, Muhammed, and Maimonides.

So if you're reading this looking for my answers to the fundamental questions of religion, you'll be disappointed. Is there a God? I don't know. Some days I'm convinced that there is, other days it makes no sense to me. Which religion has the correct route to Him if He exists? It depends. Which religion speaks to you most clearly? That one is the correct one for you even if it's not the correct one for me. Do you have to be religious to please God? On that one, I'm pretty certain of my answer of a resounding NO! The Bible teaches that we are all God's creation. If we do good things and live a life of compassion, then we are inherently bringing glory to God even if we don't believe in Him. Do we have to be perfect? There is not a single religion in the world the expects perfection! So if no religion has all the answers, what do I do now? I say, study them all. Look for the common themes. Trust you heart and your intuition. I hope you don't settle on one religion, because they all offer wisdom in different forms. In the end, if none of them really connects with you just the right way, then live the best life you can and trust that every religion also teaches that God is inherently Good and loves us. He will not turn his back on a good person, even if that person did not communicate with Him the way that his or her surrounding society said was the right way.

Stereotype Threat

The faculty summer reading book at my school is "whistling vivaldi" by Claude M. Steele. I started it today and have read only the introduction, but already I'm hooked. The book is about how stereotypes affect our performance. It takes a little different approach though, by looking at what they call "stereotype threat" - the extra pressure people feel when they are in a situation in which they know their actions might confirm a stereotype. This is important to us as teachers, because no matter how fair and balanced we might feel that we are, we need to recognize that students feel this stereotype threat even when the stereotypes are not being actively enforced. A girl in my math class may feel the pressure of knowing that, if she messes up, it will just confirm the stereotype that girls are not good at math, like in this cartoon from xkcd.com:

The introduction to the book claims that the author will propose concrete ways to combat the effects of this stereotype threat, so I am hopeful that I'll have something more useful to post soon. The research that Steele mentions in the introduction is compelling. The study that prompted this book involved minigolf of all things. College students were asked to complete a minigolf course. Some students were just asked to play the course. Another group of students was told that the course was part of a test of Natural Athletic Ability. A third group of students was told that the course was part of a test of Intellectual Strategic Ability. Compared to the control group, white students' scores were several strokes worse when told that it was a test of athletic ability, while the negative effect on black students' scores was even worse when they were told it was a test of intellectual ability. There was no difference in the scores between the control group and either the white students in the intellectual task or the black students in the athletic task. There were no extra obstacles. Nobody told the black students they wouldn't do as well on the intellectual task, and nobody told the white students they wouldn't do as well on the athletic task. The difference seems to be that the white students put pressure on themselves not to mess up the athletic task and the black students put pressure on themselves not to mess up the intellectual task because they didn't want to confirm negative stereotypes. That's tremendous pressure to believe that your mistakes will reflect on your entire group! It's important that we teachers realize that being unbiased (as if that's humanly possible) is not enough. We need to actively fight these stereotypes if we are ever going to defeat them. Ignoring the problem won't make it go away!