Confessions of a Sixth-Grade Catechist: Teaching Tom Sawyer

Boys. Of a certain age, namely, 11 or 12 or 13. This seems to be the time of life in which, if you talk to a young man individually, you can discover sparks of humanity, but put a bunch of them in a group, and it's instant stupidity. I took the boy patrol this afternoon at religion class, sitting behind the group in the back row during the group session, and I spend most of that time imploring Jesus's mercy on fallen humanity and wishing we had a dedicated intercessor to be praying the rosary during our class for the softening of hearts and the opening of minds. These guys are almost impervious to reason, civility, and graciousness -- not because they're subhuman, though sometimes you wonder, but because they're boys, of a basically common type. When they band together, it's like they collectively lower each other's IQ. I was remembering, in The Name of the Rose, the Venerable Jorge's fulminations against laughter, because laughter can stem from mockery, and mockery is a way of making oneself impervious to outside influences, including truth.

I know this isn't true of every boy. My brothers weren't like this, and neither was Darwin, and there are a few guys in the class who don't follow the paradigm. I remember noticing this when I taught First Communion class, and coming home to tell Darwin, "I'll tell you why your teachers always liked you, even when you thought class was stupid -- because you didn't act stupid." A boy who can pay attention, be respectful, give the appearance of engagement: he steals a teacher's heart.

But the goal is to find a place in one's heart for every boy, regardless of age-induced idiocy, and so I was meditating today, as I sat behind the fellows: how do we reach these guys? They're basically Tom Sawyer in Sunday School, though perhaps without Tom's animal cunning. The comparison was particularly apropos as we were reading 1 Samuel 17 today, David and Goliath, and I wondered if any of the military glory of the account was striking the guys. Whether they know it or not, they're longing for an authority figure, a hero to worship, some imposing figure to put the fear of God into them and take them out of themselves. Are we providing that in the classroom? Not really; our educational pendulum has swung to the far side of that model, for good and for ill, allowing more leeway for more sensitive learners and for girls, but less for your standard-issue guy. Were we getting through to them with our music videos and our mixed-gender classes? I don't know. I'm realizing more and more these days that everything is the grace of God, that we plant the seed and God makes it grow in his time. Only the Holy Spirit changes hearts. All we can do is present truth, and try to facilitate an openness to the movement of the Spirit. How to facilitate that is a matter of prudential judgment. I hope and pray that we're doing our best for these little punks.

Of course, there's a certain level of savvy in dealing with the guys, too. I had to move over and sit right behind the main group of seven or eight instigators, who were talking amongst themselves, nudging and snickering. The fellow at the end looked aggrieved.

"Why'd you move over?" he demanded. "What'd we do?"

Did I answer, "Gentlemen, let's comport ourselves"? No, of course not. I said, "You're whispering like a bunch of little girls." Instant silence. The Holy Spirit always honors some tactics.

Sixth Grade Catechist Confidential: Genesis 3

Because I like to hear myself talk, I volunteered to give the main presentation of sixth and seventh grade religion classes, the content which we discuss when we break into our small groups. So, here's me recreating last Sunday's session on Genesis 3 from notes and memory:

Part 1, Genesis 3:1-13

Okay, instead of reading this all the way through, I want everyone to find Genesis 3 in your bible -- Genesis, it's right at the beginning, everyone got it? -- and we're going to step through it verse by verse.

Verse 1: the serpent, huh? Who is the serpent? Who does he represent? The devil, right. Remember we talked about how scripture can be read as an allegory? The serpent is an allegory for the devil. And do you know what title the Bible gives to the devil? Satan, yes. Lucifer, yes, that's one. But he's also called the Father of Lies. Remember that as we work through what he says here. Listen to what he says: "Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?" Do you hear that? "Did God really? Are you sure?" He's trying to sow doubt in the minds of Adam and Eve, to make them question God's word. Do they have any reason to question God? Has he ever lied to them?

So what does Eve say? Verses 2 and 3: "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, 'You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die." So tell me: does Eve know what God said? Yeah, pretty clearly. There's no misunderstanding. It's not unclear. She and Adam know exactly what God commanded.

But let's take a step back. What should Eve have said to the serpent, when he showed up and started trying to mess with her head? She could have ignored him, right. She could have told him to go away. The Bible says, "Resist the devil and he will flee." He will flee! I want to you remember that, when you're feeling tempted. You can make the devil flee by resisting him, by standing firm.

Verse 4 and 5: More lies! The serpent is mixing a little truth in with his lies to make them stronger. Who can tell me what's true? "Your eyes will be opened", yes. Do they know what is good and evil after they eat the fruit? They do. But does that make them like God? No, because they don't have the power to always do the good. And God doesn't just know good and evil. God IS the Good. Adam and Eve can't become like God by only knowing good and evil because they can't become the Good.

Verse 6: So tell me about the tree. "Good for food"? "Pleasing to the eye"? "Desirable for gaining wisdom"? Are these bad things? Is it bad to eat good food? Of course not! Is is bad for something to look nice? No! What about gaining wisdom? That's a good thing, right? But they're temporal goods. Are they more important than obeying God? God who created the tree, and created Adam and Eve, and knows what's best for each of them? Is it worth taking these good things against God's command?

Why did God even put the tree in the garden in the first place? Is it because he wanted to tempt them with something nice they couldn't have, because he's mean? Think about your house. Do your parents have any nice things that you're not allowed to touch? Some crazy piece of china that your grandmother left, and it sits in the living room, and you've been told not to touch it? Why do your parents torment you like that? Oh, they don't do it to be cruel? Maybe it's because it's beautiful, and they'd like everyone to see it. Maybe it's because they trust you not to break it because they've asked you not to touch it? Or do your parents keep medicine in the house? What would happen if the baby swallowed all the medicine? It could be pretty bad. Does that mean that no one should be allowed to keep medicine in the house? And Adam and Eve aren't babies. They can understand what God is asking them: Do not touch. Do not eat. Your parents tell you these things all the time, and expect you to obey, and you aren't even adults. So it is unreasonable of God to ask it of Adam and Eve?

What next? "So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it." Wait, where's Adam? Standing RIGHT NEXT TO HER? Does he stop her? Does he say, "Wait a minute, honey, let's talk?" Does he punch out the snake? Not much. He's heard the whole thing. Does he know what God said? Yes, because he just heard Eve tell the snake! So, who brought sin into the world? Is it all the woman's fault? Yeah, they deserve equal blame, don't they?

Verse 7: "Then the eyes of both of them were opened" -- well, there's the bit of truth the serpent mixed in -- "and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves." Well, how'd that work out for them? Are they happy now that they're "like gods"? Do they feel fulfilled? Was it all they hoped it would be? How do they feel? Yes, guilty. Ashamed. Embarrassed. Oh my gosh, we're naked! It's awkward and appalling, and I don't see the snake doing any of the work to help them out.

Verse 8 and 9: When does God visit them? Imagine a perfect summer evening when the breeze has just started, and everything is cool and still and peaceful. That's a little piece of heaven, right? And that's when God comes. Why? Is he lonely? No, God can't be lonely. He doesn't need anything to complete him. He comes because he loves his creation. He loves Adam and Eve and wants to share this perfect day with them. Are they excited to see him? Not so much. They hide. What does God do? He calls out to them. Does he know where they are? Does he know what they've done? Of course! He's God! But he wants them to respond to him, to come out because they love him.

Verse 10: What's the lie in what Adam says? "I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself." Is he naked? No! He just made himself a loincloth in verse 7! It's like someone saying, "Oh, I can't come to the door, I'm in the shower," when he's sitting on the couch scrolling through his phone. It sounds like he knows he's done wrong, doesn't it?

Verse 11 and 12: Does God throw a lightning bolt at Adam's head? Does he punish him immediately? No, but he tells him exactly what he's done. And what does Adam say? "I disobeyed you, and I'm so sorry. Will you forgive me?" He has a good opening for that, doesn't he? No, he passes the blame. "This woman" -- he can't even say her name! -- "whom you put here with me" -- now who is he trying to blame? Yes, God! -- "she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Real nice showing, Adam. Good way to take responsibility and be a man.

Verse 13: Does God yell at Eve? No, it's just like with Adam. He gives her an opening to explain herself. How does she do? "The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it." Did the serpent trick Eve? Hm. She knew exactly what God commanded. She ate the fruit because she wanted to. And like Adam, she passes up her chance to take responsibility and apologize. Good job with knowing good and evil, guys, if you can't do what is good!

Part 2, Genesis 3:13-24

Does God ask the serpent to explain himself? He doesn't have to -- the angels and devils already have the knowledge of what's right. He knows the serpent has acted out of sheer malice. The serpent hasn't stepped up to defend Adam or Eve, has he? He's glad to see them get into trouble!

God's words to the serpent: should we only read them literally? We can -- serpents slither in the dust, and people don't like them much. But let's read them in a different sense. How does Satan operate? By trying to drag us down into the dust and mire of sin. And when we sin, we feel like Adam and Eve did: like we're crawling on our bellies, wallowing in the dirt. That's where Satan is. God isn't just condemning; he's describing.

Who do you think is the woman who is against the serpent? Yes, Mary. And who is her offspring? Jesus! God is making a promise of redemption, and he's telling how it will come about. If a snake is going to strike at a heel, and the heel is about to crush it, where is the heel going to land? Right in the snake's mouth, right? What happens when a heel goes into the snake's mouth? You have to know that if you put your foot in a snake's mouth, you're going to suffer. As Jesus crushes the snake, the snake's fangs go right through his foot and pierce it all the way through. And he knows that will happen, but he crushes the snake anyway, and what happens? The snake is defeated.

What happens after sin? Creation becomes hard and painful. Finding food isn't easy any more. It's become hard work now, raising up new life from the ground. God tells the woman that bearing children will hurt, and this is very true, and you should all go home and thank your mother. But are children a punishment? No! Children are a good, wonderful thing! Did God create anything after man and woman? No, he told them to be fruitful and multiply. Now man and woman are co-creators with God -- co-creators because it is God who chooses when to give life through their actions. Did your parents create your soul? No. God did, and he works through the actions of the man and the woman to bring new life into the world. And every life is unique. Where is your soul before you're born? No, it's not waiting up in heaven. When does a human receive a soul? When he or she is born? No. When he's old enough to talk? When her heart starts beating? No! God creates a unique soul at the very moment a baby is conceived through the actions of his or her parents. Souls don't just float around in heaven. And God doesn't recycle souls either. You don't go from being Cleopatra to being Napoleon to being someone living in Delaware, Ohio. Your soul is unique, created especially for you, to reveal one more facet of God's love. And every soul exists to love and be loved, even when a person can't do anything else. A baby exists to love and be loved, although it can't do anything useful. We used to live with my husband's grandmother, who was 93. At the end of her life, she couldn't do much. Was she useless? No, she existed to be loved, and to help us to learn to love more. And who do our lives belong to? Ourselves? No. They belong to God, and to each other, so that we can love. Have you heard about this lady in Oregon who wants to kill herself because she's dying of cancer and she doesn't want to suffer any more? Does her life belong to her to end when she pleases? No. She didn't make herself. She exists because she is good, and she is to be loved. My husband's grandmother existed to be loved. A baby exists to be loved. We exist only in God, who is Love itself.

And what does God do, now that Adam and Eve have sinned? Does he cut them off forever? Well, first he gives them better clothes, even though they only need clothes because they sinned. Then he moves to protect them again. What good is living forever, if it means living in sin? Do you get banished from a room after you've broken something your parents told you not to touch? You've shown yourself untrustworthy, even though your parents still love you. Same here: God puts them out of the garden and puts a cherubim to guard it. Do you think you could find the tree of life, if you were like Indiana Jones and you followed all the clues in the Bible and fought off the cherubim? Maybe. Who knows? But there's a better, surer way to eternal life, and it's through Jesus who gave his life to bring us back to his Father.

Sixth Grade Catechist Confidential

I did not want to teach religion this year. I did not want to put my kids in the religion program. I did not want my Sundays eaten by afternoon classes, nor did I want to sacrifice my ability to leave town for a weekend for the course of the school year. And of course God had other plans. Never in my life have I received such a clear series of signs as I was constantly sent about being a catechist, to the extent that ignoring them would have moved past the level of spiritual culpability into spiritual blindness. Finally, I thought I would put the idea to the final test by running it past Darwin, who would also have to shoulder some of the burden of interrupted family time on Sundays, and who might be annoyed by my blocking out our weekend days, and who would have to watch the baby while I was gone.

"Oh yeah," he said mildly. "It sounds like they really need people."

Well.

So I went down to the office and volunteered, and I ended up in the middle school session with my two oldest. Our parish uses The EDGE program, and I am a small group discussion leader for 7-10 sixth graders (none of whom are my sixth grader) out of a group of perhaps 60 kids. The EDGE seems solid enough, and it's fairly scripted, so that I can look over the next week's lesson plan and have a good feel for how the class will run. We meet in the gym, a big impersonal space, but our small groups manage an almost intimate feel by tucking in next to a wall and sitting in a circle.

"These kids have so many questions," I was told in training. "Just listen, take their questions, and answer them as best you can, or look up the answers and get back to them. We want to make sure they know they can find answers to their questions here."

Hm. In my experience, sixth graders do not have a lot of questions. My group doesn't even know that they're supposed to have questions. They do not want to be put on the spot. It is a challenge to get anyone to speak, with one or two chatty exceptions. These kids desperately want to be told something. So I ask the prescribed discussion questions, and I get very short, very basic answers, and I redirect the child who has a breadth but not a depth of discussion, and I talk. The Socratic method isn't working much here. Here's what works: I tell them what I want them to know. And they listen, and -- what I did not expect going in -- they don't challenge me. They don't press me to explain myself. They soak it in, and they believe me. I feel daunted by this power, and I pray that I always say the right thing.

Our first class was on Revelation, and why we need it. After the "Proclaim" (the group teaching), we break into our discussion groups, and after a little introductory icebreaker, I start with the first question.

"Why did God give us the Scriptures?" I ask. My two chatty ones give answers that are serviceable enough (willingness to talk, I realize, is only an indicator of personality, not of greater knowledge), but then there is painful silence. Kids look at the ground, at their icebreaker papers, at their Bibles.

"Is anyone here an artist? Or a writer? Who likes creating things?" A few hands go up. "When you draw something, does it tell everything about you? When you look at a painting, or read a book, or watch a movie, do you learn everything about the person who created it? Are you suddenly an expert on that person's life?" Heads shake no. "When you read The Fault in our Stars," I said, turning to a girl whose icebreaker slip listed that as her favorite book, "do you know everything about John Green?" (Thank God for the WSJ profile of John Green several weeks ago.) "You can tell some things about him, can't you? By reading the book, you can discover some of his ideas about life? What sorts of ideas did he talk about in the book? The idea of life after death, and how the soul lives on?" (Oh please, WSJ profile, don't have led me wrong about the plot.)

My student seemed unused to having to draw ideas out of a text, but she was a fan of the book and articulated how the themes had resonated with her.

"So, in reading The Fault in our Stars, you can learn lots of important things about the author -- what he thinks about life, and death, and how we should face them. But does the book tell you everything about him? Can you learn everything there is to know about John Green by reading his book? Or does he have to reveal some things to you?"

The group thought that he might need to reveal some things.

"When we look at creation, we can see that it expresses a lot about God. But it can't tell us everything about him. No creation can tell everything about its creator. We need God to tell us some things directly, through revelation. And He does that two ways, through scripture and through the Tradition of the Church."

More silence, but at least heads were up now.

Next question: "How is God like our "secret admirer"? (This was an avenue of discussion I thought wasn't very fruitful, but since in the talk God had been called not just an admirer, but a "secret stalker", I better get a better message out there.)

A few quasi-answers. "Do you think God is like a stalker? Human stalkers are creepy, aren't they? But why isn't God creepy? Well, a human stalker doesn't truly know the person he's stalking -- or she! A human stalker creates an imaginary person out of a real person, and wants a real person to be just like the imaginary person in his or her head. But God knows everything about us, more than we know about ourselves -- we're the creation, remember? -- and so He doesn't stalk us, He constantly draws us to Himself through His love. And one way He does that is through His revelation to us in the Scriptures."

And so on. "What does it mean that God wants to be in relationship with us? Well, one thing it means is that God is a person. Who has a pet?" Several dogs, a guinea pig, a fish, some cats. "Do you love your pets? Sure. But can you have a relationship with your dog? Can he reveal his mind to you? You know him from the outside -- there's no way you can exchange ideas with him. Only a person can be in a relationship. And God is a person, and He can be known. He's not remote from us, or something we can never touch. He wants to be known -- that's why He reveals himself! That's why He came to us as one of us, as a human. That's why Jesus became incarnate. Where do we hear that word, incarnate? In the creed, right? Do you know what it means? It comes from the Latin word for meat. Anyone ever eat carnitas?" (This is Ohio, so of course not.) "It's just meat. God, a pure spirit, became meat, flesh, like us, because only a human can atone for human sins but only God can fully wipe out offenses against Himself."

This past week, I did have a question from someone, a "gotcha" question: "Is God male or female?"

"God is a spirit," I said. "He doesn't have a body."

"But you said, 'he'."

"Of course, because when God became human, He revealed Himself as a man."

"So God is a man?"

"He's a spirit. He contains everything within Himself. As a human, He's a man. But God is love. Is love male or female?"

Everyone shook their heads no.

"Is Justice male or female? Is Joy male or female? God IS love. He IS Joy. He's pure existence. He contains male and female within Himself because everything that exists exists in Him, through His will."

"Then why can't he make everyone be good? Why doesn't he show himself to people all the time instead of letting people do bad stuff if he loves us?"

"You mean," I said, "What if God came down to earth, and showed Himself to people in person, and they crucified Him? God gives us free will, and people are free to accept or reject Him even when they can see Him in person."

"Yeah, but...," said the student. "I mean, God could make us be good and keep bad things from happening."

"Well, if my husband gave me a love potion every morning, and then asked me to cook and sweep the stairs and give him a kiss, and I said, "Oh yes, dear!", would that really be love?"

"No!" said the group.

"God wants us to choose Him freely. He doesn't turn us into robots who are programmed to love and obey Him. But He does show himself to us. He did it today, in the Eucharist. He shows Himself to us in the Scriptures. He shows Himself to us through every act of love, because He IS love and all love participates in Him."

My same questioner wanted to know about how Jesus could be God if he was God's son and God created him.

"Ah," I said. "What do we say in the creed? Created by the Father? No, we say 'Begotten of the Father'. The Father generates the Son, but they've always existed. Think of fire and heat. What comes first, the fire or the heat?"

"The fire," said one.

"Both at the same time," said someone else.

"Yes, both at once, and yet the fire generates the heat, doesn't it? It doesn't create the heat, it generates it."

Then we discussed the Trinity. "Here," I said, drawing a triangle. "Here are three points on the triangle. They're all equal, right? But this point isn't that point, even though they're equal. And this point isn't either of those two. But the triangle is one. Having three points doesn't make it three separate triangles."

"But so, if you have the fire and the heat, then the fire definitely comes first and so the Son comes after the Father..."

"But you're thinking as humans think," I said. "Our minds are trapped in time, and we want to think in terms of before and after. But God is outside of time. He contains time within himself, just as He contains all things in Himself, but time has no power over him. Every time is now to God. So the Father generates the Son, but not in time."

"Wow, this is making my head hurt!" said one of the guys.

"Good!" I said. "It should make your head hurt. The greatest saints and the most intelligent people on earth have wrestled with these ideas. Welcome to the club."

My interlocutor was still chatty and wanted to carry the point about fire coming before heat.

"What came first, the chicken or the egg?" I demanded.

There was a moment of silence, and then a confused and circular explanation among several people. I turned to the girl next to me and said confidentially, "I did that on purpose." And she smiled, a real smile full of humor and understanding and the promise of adult engagement.