When I was in high school, I was required to take a speech class. I was a senior back in 1984, but not one who wanted to speak in front of people. I began the class with a sense of terrible dread. I was not a social success and spent most of my lunch hours eating a bag lunch in an empty classroom or going down the street to the Parker House Cafe lunch counter for the greasy offering of the day--anything but walking into a lunch room where I would have to sit alone.
The teacher, Mrs. Nash, gave us slips of paper on which to write what we hoped to learn in her class that semester. In a particularly hostile moment, I wrote, "Nothing."
But something curious happened. We were eased into our public speaking with short extemporaneous talks of a minute on a random topic pulled from a grab bag. Seeing the largely lame job kids were doing, I suddenly found it a challenge. The other students would get up and say random things. I remember the word "candle" as one of the terms everyone had to talk about for a minute. Kids would say things like, "Uh, bright, uh, flame, um, birthday party..." and so forth.
It seemed to me that what was lacking was any kind of extended thought on these terms, so I tried to use the term in some sort of meaningful way, however it came across. "Candle. How much our life is like a candle! It flickers briefly, and then it is extinguished. Yet the brief light of our lives can serve as a light to others in a very dark world..." And so on.
These attempts did not meet with approval from my student peers. I remember one red-headed kid named Mike openly laughing at me. Smirks abounded. "Oh yeah, look at her. Thinks she's smart." Being a moron, or imitating one, always provided more social currency than doing well in class.
Rather than discourage me, the smirks drove me to do something else. At the back of the classroom sat Mrs. Nash, the young teacher I was really growing to like. Rather than smirking at me, her eyes were bright and encouraging while watching me. I started to look at her face, rather than at my peers. I stopped getting the shakes up front, I stopped worrying about the class, I started enjoying it. Thoroughly.
I can't tell you what learning to look at the face of the teacher meant to me as a student. It also provided me with a lifelong spiritual lesson. Naysayers, mockers, nasty, angry people will never completely be eradicated from our lives. I remember, with painful clarity, the blowback just one radio show could reap, or one blog post on the news blog I published for several years. Satire sites with similar titles showed up in ridicule, I had my head photoshopped onto other bodies for entertainment by my opponents, lies published routinely, mischaracterizations of what I wrote, all of it just part of sharing views in public. Before the internet, I used to get hate mail, including death threats and hardcore porn (the FBI caught the guy.) Yes, over two decades in Christian radio and writing were good training for personal sneers and jeers.
But the serious subject matter that dominated the things I wrote and spoke about were rooted in my firm belief that God's Word is reliable and true, and that it has something to say about every area of life. This is how I was able to stay the course in the face oef a lot of opposition. I also was able to utilize the lesson I had learned so many years before in speech class--t0 look at the face of the Teacher--the Lord Jesus Christ--not at the faces of people. Proverbs 29:25 says, "The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe."
When I get my eyes off the Teacher, I get afraid, I second guess myself, I worry about my reputation. When my eyes are on the Teacher, I know I am on firm ground. I can live and create confidently, I can write in strong faith and in good cheer.
As our culture continues to spin out of control, it's something for Christians to remember, I think. Eyes on the Teacher!
P.S. I want to thank Mrs. Wendy Nash for her profound influence on me in the brief semester that I had her as a teacher. It's a testimony to the impact one good teacher can have. She wrote a note to me near the end of the year, just before I graduated from high school. She said that she hoped God would use my writing and speaking some day in service to Him. She also said I had a nice smile and should use it more. To this shy, uncertain girl of 17, her words meant the world. Thank God for sensitive, kind and professional teachers. I was able to connect with Mrs. Nash on an alumni FB page a few months ago, and I was pleased to let her know this.
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