against resentment.
In small group last week, our token social worker talked about how easy it is to fall susceptible to resentment towards the people that you're trying to serve.. usually because they don't cooperate, if not make it more difficult for you to help them.
The idealist goes into the teaching field with these lofty notions that he/she is going in to help the poor, desolate, helpless children of the inner city who want to do better, but whose circumstances and family situations prevent them from doing so. Let me tell you - these students might be poor, but they don't appear to be with the way they carry the bling, rock out on their colorful I-Pods and Sidekicks, and sport it with the LeBrons and Air Nikes. They are real, live, people, not to be clumped together and idealized as faceless victims of the systems of poverty and education. Some can be annoying, some can make you laugh, and some of them just straight-up piss you off.
I'm having issues with the ones that piss me off...
All I know is that it's certainly easier to "love" people that you don't interact with regularly. Maybe that's why people sometimes gravitate towards serving the orphans of Africa, rather than those of their home church - because they subconsciously envision it easier to serve the fictional than the very real humans that they've put up with for so long. And probably for myself, I entered into this field with a similar mentality.. you disregard the reality of interacting with actual human beings, but upon realizing that reality, you're left quickly disillusioned and bitter because this was definitely not what you signed up for.
I love most of my students.. Perhaps, the vast majority of them, I have an affinity for to at least some level. But there are some - the most difficult, the most malicious - that I absolutely deplore being in the same room with. These are allegedly the ones we're here to inspire, the ones that need the most attention, the ones that I have the most difficult time loving because I don't know how to deal with difficult people.
It's hard to be right with God when you harbor these feelings in your heart.
3 comments:
"Maybe that's why people sometimes gravitate towards serving the orphans of Africa, rather than those of their home church - because they subconsiously envision it easier to serve the fictional than the very real humans that they've put up with for so long."
good food for thoughts, I wonder that about myself
Nice.
I think being kind to strangers and being kind to people you know are opposite things. Kindness to strangers has a sense of apathy to it; it's very selfish but has the appearance of charity. Real kindness IMHO will always have that forceful tough love aspect, and the skill is how tactful you can be (hence gentleness).
Hmm I have a lot of respect for you... you seem to really be learning a lot but it also sounds really hard. Hang in there Joyce... Summer vacation is upon us, no? =D
you are spot on with "All I know is that it's certainly easier to "love" people that you don't interact with regularly." Idealism & reality clashing... sometimes it's not so fun. I would say keep in mind the big picture, that you live and work for continual restoration - both within and around you - and that final/true RESToration has not yet come, but will
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