The Weather and Digestion

A Sunday morning, in the choir room, after a typical hello, Deborah said to me, “You look mighty chipper today. What’s up?”

“It’s Sunday. I’m excited and glad to be here. God is good!” I proclaimed. “And,” I added with a little-girl grin, “my hair looks good today.” I knew that because I’d just checked myself in the mirror in the robing room.

Which was true? Did I look happy because I was filled with a sense of purpose, desiring to worship, delighting in being in the family of God? Or did my countenance shine because I was on time, feeling strong, cappuccino in hand, pleased with the thermostat setting?

I often think about a statement C.S. Lewis made in discussing moods. It’s in the first “Faith” chapter in Mere Christianity. He’s actually talking about the need for faith in the face of our changing moods, but I’m applying his point to when our mood is up, not down.

This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is
why Faith is such a necessary virtue; unless you teach your moods ‘where they get
off’, you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just
a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and
the state of its digestion.

It’s the “weather and the state of its digestion” part that I’ve never forgotten, realizing that when I’m content, joyful, grateful, even worshipful, it might just be that life has simply been going my way. I’m afraid that is often the case. It’s only when the “lines (that) have fallen in pleasant places” are moved, am I given the opportunity to see if the joy holds.

Perspectives from ESL Students

I’m privileged to teach English to a classroom full of perspective. They come from Mexico, Tibet, Korea, Brazil, Taiwan, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Colombia. There’s a nurse, a dentist, a teacher, a systems engineer, a monk, graduates with degrees in economics, business, accounting, and chemistry.

Last week, in light of our economic crisis, I wrote on the board:

If America falls,

and told the students to talk about this at their tables, indicating they could apply any meaning they wanted to the word falls. (I then hastily changed America to the U.S. in deference to my South and Central American students who have taught me with a little exasperation seeping out that they’re from America, too.)

Here are some of their responses:

1. The economy of the world will go down. Most countries depend on the U.S. (They ALL said this.)
2. People all over the world will lose their confidence.
3. Maybe more people will go to church or depend on the power of religion.
4. American culture will still exist such as fast food, Hollywood, and Starbucks. (Ouch!)
5. It is very horrible to think the U.S. will fall one day.
6. A good thing is maybe the U.S. could learn humility before other countries and understand other countries’ hard situations.
7. The U.S. is the world’s police, so war will increase. North Korea will invade South Korea. China will invade Taiwan.
8. Teenagers around the world might begin to be influenced by other cultures, not just the U.S.
9. If U.S. falls, then all countries fall. U.S. become not number one in the world.
10. Overseas businesses shut down, homelessness, orphans, crime, murder.
11. Decrease in research for health care because most is done in the U.S.

I am humbled and honored to be among these students who haltingly but bravely express themselves in a second language. They add so much to my life, to my understanding of the world and even this current crisis. I’m sobered to realize they feel the effects even before I do. (A month ago the Korean exchange rate was 1000 to 1; the day after the stock market plunge, it was 1300 to 1.) Imagine that happening to your buying power overnight.