Well, there has been a lot going on in my life--isn't that always the excuse?
I told myself that I could take a couple days off to get my rock group, Rage Against Age, out of the basement where we had been messing around on weekends, out in public. You can click on the link above or visit www.RageAgainstAgeBand.com for the details.
It took me a couple of months to help us transition from a weekend hobby to a serious gigging band. By the time we had a couple of new members, mastered a 4-hour set list and played our first three gigs, I was further distracted by the chance to teach World Religions as an adjunct professor at a Harper College in a Chicago suburb.I hadn't taught an introductory world religion course in a community college since 1999, so I needed a little more time to get my notes together. For the last two terms, I have been teaching four sections (about 110 students) and have found it hard to get back to blogging.
My daughter, Abigail, has since gone back to school and will finish her BA in Business Operations Management at Northern Illinois University-Dekalb in two months (May 2011). Her son, Aiden, is now 3 1/2 and frequently comes into the Loop in downtown Chicago to spend the weekend with his grandparents "Peff" and "Jegi." We moved downtown from Naperville last July after Pegi started a new job at a downtown hospital.
Aiden takes his turn on the drums at a practice.
Being back in the classroom for the last year has been a wonderful experience. Of course, I miss the income that working at AT&T provided, and part-time employment as an adjunct is a budget-buster in this damaged economy. Nevertheless, I love working with community college students. Most of them are young enough that they are still looking forward to a meaningful future. However, since they are in a two-year institution, they don't seem to suffer from "know-it-all-itus" as do many in four-year universities.Since my course is an elective, I get students, who for the most part, are still seeking answers and have not hardened their hearts with regard to issues of universal truth, ultimate reality, the divine or religion in general. Most of them know that they don't know. That affords me the opportunity to help them begin a lifelong quest. I couldn't be happier in this role--well, maybe making a bit more money would help!
Full-time positions in education are few and far between, especially when it comes to religious studies. I can't teach at a confessional institution because they require adherence to dogma. If there is one thing I have learned in my 61 years, it is that I cannot survive in an environment that limits the pursuit of understanding and circumscribes personal growth to a set of written principles.
Of course, secular philosophy departments are suspicious of anyone who accepts the possibility of knowledge outside the rational sciences. I get the impression that secular schools would prefer atheists teach on matters of faith. Of course, that makes about as much sense as having lawyers teach medicine. Lawyers may be able to describe the medical arts, but I would not want a lawyer diagnosing my condition or doing open-heart surgery. For matters of the heart, I would prefer someone who has some experience! The same applies for religious matters of the heart--what we call "faith." Philosophers may describe faith, but are inept teaching it if they doubt its legitimacy. How can you teach something having never experienced it?
To quote one of my favorite itinerant middle-eastern rabbis, ". . . We speak that which we know, and bear witness of that which we have seen . . . " (John 3:11 ASV). In this passage, Jesus refers to himself as a teacher of matters of faith. He says, that a teacher must draw on personal knowledge and direct personal experience.
Now, this doesn't mean that a college professor absolutely has to have direct experience and personal experience with each faith tradition in order to lecture. However, it does lend support to my argument that it is extremely difficult to teach concerning faith in any religious tradition if you doubt the legitimacy of the experience of its adherents.
Although I do not expect to find "the truth" personally, it is that quest for universal truth and my personal commitment to live according to my own understanding that has allowed me to experience "faith." And, having experienced faith on many occasions, I can empathize with "others" of different faiths. I can put myself in their shoes and understand at a deep level what it means to be a person of faith and how commitment to that faith works out in life. That is the foundation from which I teach Primal Religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and other religious experiences. If I didn't have direct experience of faith, what would I be able to teach beyond the basic facts of each tradition? People don't live by religious facts--they live by faith.
And so, we return to the May, 1984 when I was living out my faith as a Jew who for a couple of decades was exploring "faith" from a Christian perspective on "The Tobacco Road" in Wedza, Zimbabwe.
Next: The Long-delayed Tobacco Road
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