Freedom Writers

Freedom writers is one of those inspiring movies where one person serves as a catalyst to a great amount of change. It provokes one to place self in the movie and ask which person represents you. Everyone wants to identify with the teacher. I certainly do. (I assume no one wants to identify with the principle...) As I watched I wondered what it takes to be a person like that. For one thing, opposition from the authorities who do not like their boxes broken.

Boxes. In the end it seems that a good teacher breaks social boxes and invites the mind to either participate or threatens it to hide. I want to be a good teacher--one who many hate because I expose what boxes need to be broken. By implication this seems to threaten whatever security is put in the boxes. I understand why Paul wants to die, and why one should rejoice if people persecute you when you are doing good. It means you are on the right track. I also see now that our life is not really our own. Who we are is not an isolated person gaining substance like capitalistic selves. (it can become that). Watching this "Freedom Writers" movie and seeing how much life this teacher sacrifices (as well as having the life example of my professors at Prov (hello if you are reading)) it is beginning to dawn on me that what is done in life is done for others. Who we are is made significant by our interaction with people, and each expertise in life is an agent for transformation. Hard work has merit for self, but that should never eclipse what is also given to others. A dancer can dance a new world in their movement and open the mind of the body to new ineffable and kinesthetic ideas. Good scholarship is not a waste only for good grades and the power of approval, but takes the demands of the mind seriously and gives respect by its careful research. And each of these, each paper, each dance, each interaction, shapes self which touches other.

I think the more I break through the old boxes of Christianity the more I see that I am not ashamed of what it is saying. It seems to be saying that there is more, and that Jesus is the ultimate "unboxer." I am just fed up with the tidy box we have given him that last for two hours every Sunday.