Dear Professor

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What is it like, standing invisible in front of a class? Does it hurt your heart knowing every student looks through you with mental ear-plugs? Do you feel like your life is dripping through your clenched fingers like suffocating raindrops?

I would.

Put those drops in a glass. Don't waste them, you only have so many. You're watering the linoleum with your monotony. I would be watering it with tears--tears for time ticking by without kissing a single person's heart. Don't you miss it? Don't you miss that time? It could have been so meaningful. It could have changed lives, thoughts, hearts... Instead, it's tossed to the breeze like wish-less dandelion fluff. Students work on homework or plan their schedules while you speak. Can we call it 'speaking'? It comes off as a mechanical drone, memorized and spewed out every other semester all for a paycheck. I want to cry for you.

Is this the future you wanted? When you were out playing soldier-hero with your neighborhood best friend, did you aspire to be a distant impersonal lecturer? No. No one would desire to be dull and ignored. You had passion at one point. You dug it up with the earthworms before casting your line into your future. Where did it go? You dropped it on the way to the fishing hole. Now you're here with the world's tackle-box and a cemented lawn chair.

But your pond is drying up and you're catching nothing. You need to go back. You need to crawl on your hands and knees until you find that muddy, trodden passion. It's still there. It's crying, waiting to be held and attached to your fishing hook. You'll catch something. I promise. So why aren't you moving? Why aren't you seeing? Why aren't you living?

Oh professor. Pause for a moment. We won't mind the silence...it's much the same as your lecturing. But in this pause, answer my question--internally, externally, written with chalk...I don't care, but answer it. Your soul needs you to. Your passion needs you to. Your dry dwindling future begs you to. Answer it or at least take a precious second to think it.

Are you who you want to be?

Hypothetical Soapbox

Let's pretend that someone gifts me with a bar of soap the size of my Jeep Liberty. I wouldn't ask the brand. I wouldn't ask the scent. I wouldn't even ask how they transported or found such a colossal slab of cleanliness; instead, I would pull out my Victorinox pocket-knife and carve the soap into a sturdy box. Then I would flip that box over in the city square, gather soap chips, and mash them into a reference upon the side of the box: Ephesians 5.

"But among you there must not be... ⁴ ...obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving."



I would coax my inner extrovert to step upon this unique artwork and deliver a speech. This topic is important to her and the soap is passion-scented. She would clear her throat, plant her feet, and say something like this:

I hate crude-joking. I hate obscenity. I hate coarse comments. In fact, "hate" is too tame--loathe would be more appropriate. Detest. Abhor. Despise. Excessive vulgarity makes me angry and physically ill. It drives me to do impulsive things like blog about it, like ditch studying to internally rage about it, like abandon sleep to scratch thoughts on sticky notes.

"Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children ² and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." (Eph. 5:1-2)

I do not feel loved when I'm the recipient of a coarse comment. I do not smell the fragrance of Christ when the topic of humor is something I fight daily to keep out of my thoughts. Our mindset is an hourly battle. Why do we choose to turn our backs on the enemy's sword just for the sake of a forced laugh? What makes crude joking funny? Are we laughing at the comment or the fact it's inappropriate and someone dared to voice it?

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

Oh what an impossible task that remains dear to my heart. I wish, desperately, that I could do this on a consistent basis. Instead, I cherish the few seconds of true, noble, just, pure, lovely, good, virtuous, praiseworthy meditation I manage to squeeze into a single week...if I'm diligent.
It. Is. Hard.
And it's even harder when brothers and sisters (let alone non-family members) engage in active attack against the protective walls I rebuild every morning and afternoon. When I don't join in, I'm a "stick-in-the-mud". If it takes me a second to "get" a joke, I'm viewed as 'innocent'--a word used interchangeably with "ignorant" and "idiot".
No one wants to be innocent these days--it's seen as shameful, pathetic, young, naive, and dumb. Why such an aversion to purifying our hearts and minds? It's the hardest battle anyone could undertake, yet we ridicule those who dare to step out.

John Reuben's song, The Boy vs. the Cynic, contains lyrics that strike the core of a problem in today's mindset:

"Don't mistake innocence for ignorance,
Don't mistake purity for inexperience,
Don't mistake humility for weakness,
I sincerely mean this."

Innocence, purity, and humility are things to gain. They are not three traits that result from lack of knowledge, experience, or strength. They are the bronze, silver, and gold of the spiritual Olympics. All of us want to be champions, so why do we fight so hard to be mediocre?

My inner extrovert could go on, but the soapbox is growing soggy from her foot-stamping. Chances are, this soapbox will join the many others I have in storage, waiting to emerge for another bout of passion. Sometimes I sneak bubbles from each one into my pockets to pop on unsuspecting listeners. They are precious to me and I pray everyone would listen to their messages and inhale their scents with an open mind and heart. May they be the aroma of Christ.

I've never expected myself to change the world, but if I could I think I'd start with this hypothetical soapbox.

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Of Passion

I've never run up a hill with my arms thrown wide in a nun outfit belting in song. Have you?

I have however, run around a bedroom on stage in pajamas...belting in song. The Sound of Music is the one real play ever to receive my secret acting talents upon its memory. I had a prestigious role: VonTrapp daughter, Louisa. Approximately 7 lines in the entire play (not counting songs) and one fluffy pink party gown (the highlight of my acting career). I was fourteen.

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favorite things."

I sang this song (and danced to it, too!), but apart from the "raindrops on roses" (only if they're yellow), the lyrics listed very few of my favorite things. Bright copper kettles remind me of scrubbing for hours. Warm woolen mittens make me want to buy anti-itch cream. But we all like to talk about our favorite things. We all like to share what quickens our hearts, what widens our eyes, what makes us gasp, what makes us smile, what makes us secretly want to throw out our hands and run up a hill in song (okay, maybe not that far).

Everyone has loves and hates. A professor of mine started a semester class with, "Write down two loves and two hates." Then, "Share them with your neighbor." The room exploded with passion--from hatred of celery to the love of waltzing. From loathing fruit-scented candles to joy in a baby's giggle.

We. Have. Passion.

"passion"--n. strong and barely controllable emotion

We have passion from the small to the unfathomable--from pet-peeves to life-long beliefs. It is meant to be shared, like smiles, hugs, and scar-stories. So (accepting that God and His Word are givens and in a different category anyway), here are some of mine.

Small loves:
Yellow Roses
Sunrises
Laughter

Small hates:
Crinkled paper
Black licorice
Darkness

Serious loves:
Unity among people
Communication
Passion

Serious hates:
Arguments
Being fake
Crude humor/sarcasm

I know you have passions--loves and hates. Write them down somewhere--recognize your passions. Why? Because it reminds us how real we are and how much depth we have. It reminds us that there are things we love and cherish, that there are things to cherish--things we want to weave through our lives with thicker strands.

Passion can't be faked.
Passion can grow.
Passion is always beautiful.
Passion is real.

I pray that I act on my passions--that someday I encourage unity, I pursue communication, and I maintain and grow in my passion. And maybe someday I'll stop my arguments, avoid being fake, and preserve clean/wholesome humor.

Passionless Professors

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Dearest professors, where is your passion?

I cannot imagine pursuing a life career without passion. Perhaps I have an extra dose of passion or perhaps my professors only received an Oliver-Twist-serving.


No matter the 'perhaps', passion is lacking in the classrooms of my profession. What must it feel like, waking at 5am only to scrape false motivation off the floorboards and dump it in your day-old coffee on the way to work? What does the heart feel, knowing that 24 hours of life are ticking away with bitterness never to be retrieved?

Nearly all my professors at UCM have tied PhD's to their names with sparkling ribbons. I admire their perseverance. I admire their drive. But in the classroom I only see frowns and pursed lips, I only hear monotone lecturing, I only touch the weight of bland printed powerpoints, and I taste nothing but despair and sympathy toward them.
My PhD-less professors at Biola University inserted a syringe of joy and zeal into my speech-therapy veins. They were miracle-doctors, accomplishing the impossible in Nadine-the-Titanic.





"Even God can't sink this ship!" people said about the mighty Titanic, yet it sank with tragedy.




"Nothing can make me like speech therapy!" I said to my friends, yet now I drool over terms like dysphagia, perseveration, and aphasia.

My undergraduate professors did that. They subjected themselves as tools into the hands of the most skillful Mechanic and He tweaked me into this disco ball of speech-therapy passion. So what is missing in my professors here in Missouri? Why do they seem so incapable of enthusiasm? Why do I want to jump from my seat, snatch the laser pointer from their limp hands, and scream to my classmates, "This is interesting! This is fascinating! They're just not showing it to you!"
These same classes that changed my life in undergrad are leaving my poor graduate classmates (deprived of these topics in undergrad) hanging from the rope of discouragement. How can my speech therapy girls fall in love with a topic that's being presented as if it's a dead bug stuck to the wall?

Now that I look, now that I despair, it's not so hard to see why my undergraduate professors were so much more impacting. The world said they were unqualified because they had no PhD's, but God...God said differently.

Please pray for my professors here at UCM--that their lives find the meaning that they so desperately want. That fulfillment will crawl into their alarm clocks and that early sunrises will turn to joy instead of wake-up calls. So much could be different. So much could be learned...