I was entering the grocery store with Sarah (my wife) and a lady that works for the local junior college recognized me from coming into the tutoring lab to get help last semester. She said that I was eligible to "be" a tutor and that they could really use some help.
I got a "D" in algebra the first time, I failed it the second time, and the third time I took it in a summer session and although I got an "A" I did not feel like tutor material. I went in anyways and got the job. $6.00 an hour 2-4 hours a week.
I am currently tutoting math competency, and intermediate algebra. These classes have both taught me new things even though they are lower level math classes. In FACT! I have beat my head on the table more trying to figure out the intermediate algebra than I ever did in college level Algebra.
I have asked myself WHY is it so hard and How I could I have done so well in math and yet, not know the first thing about how to help someone else with math. So I looked at my expeience with being tutored and compared it with my experience of being a tutor.
When I would go to the tutoring lab for help I had a brilliant math person to help me. I had them work out the ones I could not figure out and then I would study how they did it and try to apply that specific progression to any problem that resembled the one they worked out.
Well that line of action and reasoning got me an A in the class. Unfortunately I still did not truly understand. I did not know that I didn't know it untill I became a tutor and could not figure out lower difficulty problems. I had learned the steps, dance steps if you will, but never heard the music. l had heard, but not percieved. I had regurgitated information, but never understood. Well this tutoring job became my opportunity to quit telling people how to swim while standing on the beach and start swimming myself.
So every tuesday and thursday for an hour or so I go and beat my head on the table while the intermediate student laughs, and struggles along side me. And when we figure it out! we are eachothers cheerleaders! Sometimes she teaches me, sometimes I teach her, but we figure it out together.
The other student is in competency math wich is math basics. Most of that stuff is pretty easy for me. I also get to help him with AG class assignments and those are my favorites. With him tutoring is a totally different experience. Almost like he is a completely different person....well obviously he is and I can't work with him the same as the other student. At first when we started he would have alot of his work done, but then he saw that he was able to do less and get more done with me there to help so he gradually was doing less work ahead of time. This is a natural tendency...I am not saying that he planned all this. I think that he is quite unaware of this pattern. He came to get fed and just regurgitate info like I was doing. "Can you think of any places where that happens?" So I started asking him questions, like tell me what that means. Help me understand that. Now that he is taking responsibility for teaching another, things are getting better. He is very quick on alot of things and does not need me, but our tendency often times is to want all the answers handed to us.
I had 2 other students, but one dropped math and the other dropped me. The one who dropped math was excited very excited and said she understood...Well I only showed her how to do it and never had her show me how to do it. Problem was the next test I wasn't there. Maybe that is why Jesus asked the disciples feed all those people. He did it then he asked them to do it. I did not help her at all. She may have gone into that test with a false sense of confidence and got destroyed. I actually saw her teacher prior to her taking the test and told her teacher that I thought she would do well. Her teacher did not think she would do well. I think that sometimes we defend our weekness. We act like we understand or say we do when we really don't. We really think we do, but the proof always comes sooner or later. We have to learn to be alright with being wrong. Letting our weekness be seen. My student that I beat my head on the table with sees my weekness as a tutor, but then she allows for her strengths to help me where I am weak and we both get better.
The other gal dropped me, because I could not help her in a way that she could understand, so she found someone who could! Awesome! Her math teacher started tutoring her personally. Someone with specific knowledge of what she was going through. I was bummed at first, but I can't help everyone, and if I try I may just do more damage than good. If I had shamelessly promoted myself to her as exactly what she needed or told her that her failure was her fault I might have gotten myself off the hook. But, then I would be self decieved and she would be up shit creek. My buddy told me that when you look into another person (especially serious relationships) they are like a mirror. A mirror that is really good at seeing all of your flaws. Way better at seeing your weekness than you are or want anyone to be. It is at that time that we either choose to break the mirror (attack them) or accept what we see. I am not saying accept what you see and give up, but bang your head on the table allow yourself to be weak, ask for help, cry out to God, do whatever it is you do, and let yourself recieve help. Take the gift and let your thanks be what you do with the gift.
All this said it is a mirror to my life and how God is teaching me.
When I first got to Paris I wanted everyone to know about Jesus. And I treated everyone the same. As I have learned in tutoring that has not worked well for me or others.
I am going to end this blog with part of a story by Author Peter Hiett. It is a good story, but it might be a little much to take in in one sitting or take in at all. So now you know. It is also just a piece so if you really like it--go to his website www.lomcc.org and search for Altars to the unknown God. This story excites me about the stories of others...Doug Horch said to me one time that our purpose as christians is to interpret the broken dreams of a people made in God's image. I can't do that if I never take the time to know anyone elses story/dreams. And as much as I have tried to keep my wife from having bad dreams about me and waking up angry at me for something I haven't even done...I don't giver her her dreams. But, when we get up we talk about them....together.
According to Diogenis Laertius (a third century Greek historian) and some references to Plato, Aristotle, and others, a great plague fell like a curse upon the city of Athens sometime along about 600 B.C. Horrified at the devastation, the council on Mars Hll sent a man named Nicias on a desperate journey to the Pythian oracle where a pagan priestess informed Nicias that Athens was being punished for the sins of her former king. The oracle did not know the name of the god that was punishing Athens, but the priestess told Nicias that there was a man on the island of Crete who would know how to make atonement to this god. The man's name was Epimenides.
A short time later, Nicias and Epimenides walked into Athens. Like Paul (the apostle), Epimenides must have been shocked at the idols. People said, "there are more gods in Athens than men." One morning epimenides gathered the council on Mars Hill. He had instructed several to bring a flock of sheep or lambs. It appears that Epimenides addressed the council with something like the following proposition, "Athenians you have already sacrificed to every god you know. So I propose that there is at least one god you don't know. And that this god is great enough and good enough to forgive your crimes and stop this plague if you'd only seek his favor."
And so Epimenides commanded servants to release the lambs prayin, "Unknown god, choose your atonement." Wherever a lamb laid down on the grass rather than feeding on the grass, Epimenides instructed artisans to build an altar, and there they sacrificed that lamb as an atonemnt to the unknown god. As they did that, the plague began to lift.
Ancient Authors wrote of these altars to the unknown god scattered throughout Athens. Obviously, many fell into disrepair, but sometime over the the ensuing 600 years, one of these altars was maintained and preserved apparently with the hope that one day the unkown god would be revealed and that if and when he was revealed, the Athenians would remember that he was no stranger to their city but that with lamb's blood once before, he had redeemed them from a curse.
In the third century AD, Diogenes recorded the legend but implied that gods (plural) were appeased. More ancient sources speak of altars to one unknown god. The most reliable of these ancient sources wrote 200 years before Diogenes. His name was Luke. He wrote Acts. Six Hundred years late, Paul (the apolstle) has a paroxysm.(The word paroxysm means a sudden outburst of emotion or action, it is also the name of a canadian death metal band) Paul dialogues. Then Paul preaches. Acts 17... So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. (I think that's a compliment) For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, "to the unknown god" (the unknown "Theos"). What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God (the "Theos," uncreated creator) who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man (one blood) every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for "In him we live and move and have our bieng" (Paul is not quoting the bible, he's quoting Epimenides. And now the words of Epimenides are the Bible---Word of God); as even some of your own poets have said, "For we are indeed his offspring." (And now Paul quotes the Greek poet, Aratus, who says, "We... we (Jew and Greek) are his offspring.") Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, and image formed b the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."
AMAZING! Paul's anger turns to dialugue, which truns to Gospel preached, based on the conviction that God had somehow arrived in Athens long before Paul. Indeed, God Himself was somehow responsible for that altar on Mars Hill.
Indeed, God Himself was somehow responsible for an altar in every human heart for every heart was made to seek after Him in the hope of finding him. And so now Paul simply had to find the altar and fill in the blank saying, "What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. His name is Jesus." (G.K. chesterton said, "The man who knocks on the brothel door is looking for God." He doesn't know it, but the idol will fail. She won't satisfy his longing. He's looking for communion with God.) It gives me chills, and yet lots of Bible types say Paul blew it on Mars Hill that, in fact, Luke records this as a bad example for surely God wasn't working in Athens like that.....
Somehow in all cultures and all time, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Truth, the Light, the Word...He makes men and women seek. He whispers into their souls, "Before the morning stars sang together, I loved you. Seek me. Long for me. Hope in me---your Maker."
Paul did more than just tell people who jesus was and what he did. He definately listned....heard.....understood.
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