Should We Enbrace a Metanarrative

 In the year 2024, it seems that individualism has become king. People are focused on being the hero of their own story, so have we moved beyond the metanarrative? To begin, let me define some terms.

First off, a metanarrative is an overarching story. It is putting individual stories together to form one big story. For our context todat, that is the story of us as people. In our context, it is modern Americans. This is the American story of the American dream. A man grows up, gets an education, gets a job, gets married, buys a house and a car, has a family, works hard, retires, and plays golf. That is the steriotypical American story, repeated over and over it becomes the story of the American dream lived by the American middle class. We add the rags to riches stories, the overcomers, throw in a few heroes and we have America. We combine the stories to tell an overarching story.

The purpose of the metanarrative is to give a national identity. It shows and perpetuates an identity and culture. What does American culture look like? We get them from our stories, and the easiest examples are tv sitcoms. They are family based, from Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best to the Simsons, Family Guy, Even South Park has this American family structure. It all revolves around this basic narrative and function.

In the America of 2024, does that narrative still fit? We still see it, and it is repeated. We are still focused on man finding a wife with shows like The Bacholer. We are focused on achieveing the American dream, success in buisness, building wealth, having a family. We have looked at different professions, differet ideas and methods, but the same core idea. Building a family, having a career, being successful, enjoying retirement. Does that metanarrative still fit?

The question we really need to ask ourselves is one of the most elusive questions. What are we hear for? What is the purpose of man? Is this all there is, or is there more? As time passes, many are dropping the metanarrative of America because it does not fit them. It doesn't fit their desires, their lives, what is happening. Is it the story that needs to change to match society, or does society need to move back towards the story? Is there value in that life? Should it be the desire of a young man to be education, obtain a good career, a wife, a family, a home? Should a young lady strive to be a wife, mom, have a career, get involved in the community? Should we be looking for something else.

We, as a culture, need to ask the questions. Even if we can't answer it, it is time we examine the stories that have been told and the story we are telling now. In the current story making people feel a sense of purpose? Are they fulfilled? Are they happy? Are people today in a better place than they were 20 years ago? 40 years ago? For all our advancement, are we in a better place as individuals, families, and communities? Is our country where it should be? If it is, we need to change the stories to reflect it. If it is not we need to change our communities to reflect the stories that bring the best results for all of us.

Is a Hot Dog a Sandwich

 Today, I talked to some students having a conversation about hot dogs. Is it a sandwich? This is a struggle, because hot dogs don't really fit the image of a sandwich. Several groups have weighted in, but I have come to one starting realization. A hot dog is not a sandwich, it is a taco.

That's not really what I want to talk about. Me telling students (who all agreed) that a hot dog is a taco was just an opportunity for me to talk with and invest in students. I try to be real with students, to connect with students, build bridges to students so they know they are cared about. I want the students to know that there are adults who care about them. Sometimes the best way to do this is telling them that a hot dog is a taco.

In life, we pass by people all the time. We pass strangers we might never meet again. We see people that we pass every day or every week. We see clerks at the store, the next door neighbor, the person who works down the hall. Each one of these contacts gives us an opportunity to show care and compassion. We need and should be connecting with people.

In our modern society, people have way too many connections on social media. It is easier to insult post hate on social media. Even on social media, we have the opportunity to show kindness and respect. We can engage with people in a positive way. When you are at the store, at work or school, or on Facebook, seek to be encouraging, uplifting, supporting and kind. We need more of that today than ever!

2024 Theme

It's a new year. New calendar year, as a teacher I also have new school years. So it's 2024. I'm not much into the "new year, new you" stuff, and I don't make resolutions. I make a theme for the year, a place where I need to focus my life. This year, it's "get the stuff done!"

Here are some places I need to get stuff done. I have two published books with little to no marketing done. I have a few things in place, but I haven't done the work. I think my books are helpful and worthwhile. That's why I wrote them. I need to b make sure I'm using them to invest in people. I need to get that done.

I need to get the engine and transmission rebuilt and back in the Mustang. I need to get some work done on it and get it on the road. I've done too little. I always have stuff come up, but that is always going up happen. Time to buckle down and get it done. 

Next this blog. I have neglected it too much. I used to have good readership, but my content shrunk and so did readers 

I need to write things for people to read, so I just need to get it done. Goal right now is twice a week. I think that is realistic with everything I have going on. 

Finally, I need to finish my Masters. I'm getting a 2nd Masters in English. My goal is to have most of it done before school starts next year. I need at least 18 credits to take over a class in the fall. I can't slack off or procrastinate. I need to get it done. 

That is my theme for 2024, feel free to share with me what you are working on! 

Time as Evidence of God

 Today I am going to give you an abstract idea, and I hope I can communicate it clearly. It is often asked if there is proof or evidence of God, and I will submit todat that time itself is an evidence. To really get into this, I want to use an analogy. Imagine a river, a long, narrow, steady moving river. Now picture a boat, floating down that river. The boat travels down the river until the river empties into a lake or the sea. This boat is you, the river is time. We know that you, being the boat has a beginning, a point where you enter the river. The boat sits on the water and the water caries the boat with it. Imagine the water as a mirror of the boat, it makes the trip with it and empties itself in the sea. Where does the water start?

The water, to reach the point where it meets the boat, must have a beginning. There must be a starting place for the journey. It can not be infinite, because if the water always existed, it would be infinitly away from the moment that it meets the boat. In order for a flowing river of water, or time, to reach a point, it has to start. It must have a beginning, otherwise it will always be infinitately in the past.

Time exists and it has flowed to this point, which means it must have a beginning. For time to have a beginning, there must be something that put the time into motion. Now, this does not prove God, but it proves a source. A source for the river, like the melting snow pack that feeds streams into rivers. Logically, for something like time to begin, it would involve more than just an act of physics. Time is not something that can naturally be created or destroyed. It would require a cataylsit of divine proportion to create time itself. Time is movement and for time to be moved, it requires a mover. Thomas Aquinas called this the unmoved mover.

Things Never to Say to a Teacher

As I teacher, I hear my fair share of things that criticize schools, education, and teachers. I won't lie, some of them are valid, and there are things about public education that don't make much sense. I would say, however, the majority of the comments that are made are born of ignorance. People who have no idea what actually happens in a school, how budgets work, where the funds even come from, and the limits on educators. Parents have farmed out their kids and expected schools to raise them. News flash, unless you are my wife (she sometimes reads my blog) I'm not your kid's daddy! Here is my list of things that you should never say to a teacher.

1. School is pointless. I hear this mostly from students who are under the age of 16. They are convinced that they understand how the world operates, and they have it all figured out. They also seem to believe that public school exists to help them get a job. It doesn't. I wrote a blog about that, so to summarize, the public school exists to make good citizens, capable of voting wisely and choosing elected officials that best represent them, their beliefs, and values. Public education exists to empower and protect our democratic republic. These kids don't understand that, but more than that, they have no concept of what that does to a teacher. As teachers, we have poured our life into this profession. To be a teacher, we go to college, get a degree, get our credentials, work to maintain those credentials, and pour our lives into preparing, teaching, and grading all to help shape young people to be good citizens. By saying that school is pointless, you are by extension saying I, my work, and my struggle to do the best at my work has no point. You are calling me pointless by extension. This will not make me happy.

2. They should be teaching ____________ in school. Do you realize how much we have to do at school? If you make this statement, you don't. Like I stated earlier, schools are almost expected to raise your kids. Parents have just given the responsibility to schools. As a parent, your job is to teach your kids. The other issue is the teacher shortage. No one wants to be a teacher anymore, and so there are not enough of us to teach your kids everything they need to know in life. Teachers are not joining the profession as quickly as they are leaving it. We need more teachers. Adding more classes requires more money, which causes property taxes to rise. You can't complain about schools, but then not fund the schools to fix the issues. If you want the problem fixed, you have to put up the funds to fix the issue. The best solution, teach your kids how to be responsible adults. I don't need to teach them how to cook breakfast or change a tire, that is your job. I know you can do it, because I taught my kids, two have graduated High School, one is a senior, so I have skin in the game.

3. You are just in this for the money/the summers off. Ok, first, I have to earn a living. I teach to make money, sure, but there are lots of other things I could do to make money (probably more). This is why people aren't becoming teachers, the money isn't great. Summers off is a perk, but you become really limited in vacation planning. I can't take 2 weeks in the fall or the spring, I am off in the summer. Add too that, the trainings tacked on the beginning and end of the school year, my summer break is only slightly longer than the allowance for most people to have vacation time. You have flexibility, I don't, Now, summers off is a great perk, I won't lie about that, it is very nice. It is not the only reason I became a teacher. If you become a teacher just to get summers off, you won't last very long as a teacher.

4. The last one is the good old "those who can do, those who can't, teach". I have done a lot of things in my life, and you have to know more to teach someone else than you do just to do the job. Teaching a job is significantly harder than just doing a job. You have to know how to do it, then know how to demonstrate or explain how to do it. Add to that many of our students don't really want to know, and we have to find a ways to make the learning fun and engaging so they will actually learn. You have to know the subject, know how to teach, know your students, and balance that all with the expectations that are put on you. In a regular job, you are evaluated on your performance. In teaching, you are evaluated by the performance of others, and you have very little control. If a kid fails a class in today's America, they just say "that teacher doesn't know how to teach". They don't listen or do the work because "it's boring". You have to know how to teach, make it fun all the time, and you still get blamed when a kid doesn't do well.

Now, I'm not saying you can't say these things. This is America, you can say what you want. I just recommend that you don't say them to a teacher. Chances are, it will not be well recieved.

Who Will Go to Hell

 In looking at the question of who is in hell, we can look again at popular culture. Who goes to hell? In the movie Ghost, Hell is for the evil people who have done the most evil things. We see the main character going to Heaven without having any expressed faith or belief in God. If we take a wider look, most of those who go to Heaven are the "good" people. In contrast, only "bad" people go to hell.

Is this true? What is the standard? What is good or bad? The Bible teaches something similar, that good people can earn Heaven and bad people deserve Hell. The bad news is, there are no good people. No one is good. Everyone is bad. Jesus himself said that no one is good except God. Romans tells us that all have sinned. No one does good, no one is righteous. The book of James says that breaking part of the law is enough to condemn you, and one sin is the same as breaking all the laws and commandments. Every single person has sinned and violated God's law. Let's be honest, we sin often. Little lies, lust, envy, boasting, gossip, and cursing can be daily (or hourly) occurrences. It is not that we sometimes sin, we are sinful in the core of our being. We are apart from Christ, we are slaves so sin, sin in the defining characteristic of our lives.

The good news is, we don't have to depend on ourselves to get to Heaven. We are all bad people, and being good (perfect) is required to get into Heaven. To enter God's presence, your sin must be paid for, but you don't have anything in which to pay the penalty. You have a million-dollar fine and not a penny to your name. If we were required to earn our way into Heaven, there would be no hope. We enter Heaven when the price is paid on our behalf by Jesus. Jesus paid for our entrance into Heaven, but trusting Him and making Him the Lord of our lives, we become adopted into God's family. We are allowed to pass the test by using the score that Jesus earned.

Those individuals who accept Jesus, trust Him and follow Him as Lord will enter Heaven. Every other person on earth will be judged by the things they have done. They will be judged on how they have acted and the sins they have committed. All those who are guilty of sin will be sent to Hell. In Hell, each individual will understand they deserve to be in Hell. Those individuals who are cavalier about sin and reject God knowingly will confess that Jesus is Lord and will accept their eternity knowing it is exactly what they deserve. When facing the throne of God, every sinner will confess they are sinners and deserve to be eternally separated from Hell, they will understand the fate that awaits them and know they are completely and totally deserving of eternity in Hell.

God loves us, and He made a way we can avoid this fate. He offers us an opportunity to reject sin and self and trust Christ. If we do, we will praise and rejoice in that day. If we reject Him, we will be rejected and end up in the eternity we deserve.

What is it Like in Hell?

     There are lots of ideas from popular culture, movies, books, games, and TV about what hell is like. Most of the time, it is depicted as being underground in a cave-like area. It is also usually seen as hot, filled with flames or molten lava. Dante further gave imagery of hell with The Inferno as part of his Divine Comedy. Dante imagined hell with 9 levels or circles, each one worse than the one before. Each depth contains worse sinners than those before, well the Devil in the center in ice, with three individuals in his 3 mouths, one being Judas Iscariot. 

    Hell is often portrayed as home to ugly and evil monsters that torment and torture the souls trapped in hell. The concept of eternal punishment extends outside of the Christian tradition, so we find many of these teachings get mixed a merged together. As in the inferno, there are mixings of extreme temperatures from flames to ice. Often, a division is created for those who are very evil and those who aren't as bad. As we have discussed in previous posts, the Devil and demons are often seen as the jailers or rules of hell. How do we know what to believe? The only credible source on what it is like in hell is found in the Bible, so what does the Bible say about hell?

Much of the most compelling descriptions of Hell come from Jesus. Jesus, being part of the Godhead and divine, knows and understands Hell. He was involved in creation, including the creation of Hell. Jesus tells some parables and stories about Hell and gives some powerful descriptors, so the best way to understand is to look at what He said about it.

Jesus tells a story of a rich man and a poor beggar. The rich man goes to "torment" while the poor man goes to "paradise". The rich man looks and sees the poor man in Heaven, and asks for the man to put his finger in water and cool his tongue. The man is told that a great gulf exists and no one can cross over. From this description, Hell exists outside of the realm of the physical, not in a cave or underground. The rich man can see Heaven, but cannot receive any of the benefits. It is unclear if those in Heaven can see into Hell. The rich man is also in physical pain, experiencing thirst, and says he is in anguish in the flames. He asks for his tongue to be cooled, showing the great heat. The man asks for the poor man to be sent back to warn his brothers, not wanting them to experience the suffering of being in Hell. You can read the Parable in Luke 16:19-31.

Jesus spoke of Hell as the place where "the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die". This description is highlighted by one of the words that Jesus often used when referring to Hell. He uses the word Gehenna. This is an actual place in Israel, once called the Valley of Ben-Hinnom. This valley was a place where many terrible things were done, including human and child sacrifice. This valley was cursed and eventually became a place for garbage. There was a fire that was lit and kept burning constantly, this is where the corpses of animals were thrown. Spoiled items, human waste, and other things that were foul smelling would be disposed of by the fire that was kept burning. It was an unpleasant place with foul-smelling smoke. Maggots would feed on those rotten parts not burned in the fire, giving us the idea of the flames and the worm. A disgusting, flaming garbage pile in the location that Jesus used to illustrate Hell and eternal torment.

Finally, Hell is eternal and completely separated from God. In 2 Thessalonians 1:8–9, we read that those in Hell are away from the presence of the Lord. As we discussed in an earlier post, everything that is good comes from God. We know that from James 1:17. In Hell, there is nothing good, no love or peace. There is no friendship or compassion. None of the things that we have on earth are good, even the things we take for granted. There is no rest, so deep breaths, not even the feeling of relief after being on your feet and being able to sit down. All of those good things are gone because everything good comes from God. The punishment for sin will be completely realized and the weight and depth of sin will be experienced in the torment. Individuals will fully comprehend what it means to sin against a holy, perfect, all-powerful God. The individuals who speak freely against God today will confess that Jesus is the Lord of all creation, that God is Holy, and that they are being given the punishment they deserve. This is definitely not a place where you want to spend eternity.