Beyond Me

Have I mentioned that I wish I had a small group?

Well, I do. In a way. I miss having that community, and support, and challenge. I miss interesting perspectives about God and life. Recently, it seems that all the small groups I've tried either piss me off or are all like "Jesus loves you. You should pray. God wants us all to be nice to each other." Which is fine . . . But I kinda want something more. I want to really explore the Bible and why we even listen to it . . . or talk about social justice issues related to Christianity . . . or explore feminist theology . . . or talk about Jesus as an educator. Something new. Something different. Something to make me think and pray and act.

I feel closest to God now when I am all by myself. Which is a new experience for me. I feel closest to God when I am thinking about education. When I am exploring how to reach children and how to love children and how to create justice through education. Sometimes I get this huge "I know this is what I have to do." feeling about social justice education. It is like this incredible hand pushing me or something. But I also get this huge feeling of being overwhelmed. Of never being good enough. Like I know no matter how hard I try, I am not gonna reach every person. Parts of me are gonna suck. And I'm scared of being a bad teacher or human being or of not reaching my potential or of being too afraid to make any difference. I'm scared of not loving enough. Of not trying enough. Of not knowing enough. It's all these big feelings. It's kinda complicated.

Tomorrow I begin my internship at Avery High School. I am pretty excited. I am working with a Civics teacher which is awesome, because I think I really want to teach Civics and World History. This semester I am also doing a senior project where I will be desigining a Civics cirriculum that integrates social justice pedagogy. I"m pretty excited about that too. I hope that is the beginning for something great . . . something fun and challenging and meaningful and beyond me.