Archive for the 'Cheryl Woelk' Category

Holding on, five times a day

Published on March 8, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Reflect­ing these weeks on “hold­ing on and let­ting go” as part of Lenten devo­tion­als, I notice yet again my urge to con­trol everything.

Even in writ­ing about choos­ing a per­sonal focus for Lent, my jour­nal records my unwill­ing­ness to let go — all of my Lent ideas involve hold­ing on, work­ing harder, try­ing again, push­ing and forc­ing myself to do what I think is good. Hold­ing on to every­thing with tight fists. There may be times for this kind of tenac­ity. After re-reading my brain­stormed list, though, I real­ize the most impor­tant thing I could con­cen­trate on this Lent is let­ting go.

Now I’m prac­tic­ing. I’m let­ting go of expec­ta­tions of per­fec­tion in my work and study. I’m let­ting go of judge­ment of myself when I don’t exer­cise and eat as well as I know I should. I’m let­ting go of try­ing to fix every­thing and of tak­ing on respon­si­bil­i­ties that are not really mine. I’m let­ting go of legal­ism, per­fec­tion­ism, and crit­i­cism, and begin­ning to see what remains that I need to hold on to.

A friend shared his expe­ri­ence of how he holds on. As a Mus­lim, he fol­lows the tra­di­tion of pray­ing five times a day. These moments become daily mark­ers of time and space for the essen­tial. A reminder of what he needs to let go and what he needs to hold on to. Hear­ing his expe­ri­ence, I rec­og­nize a need for  these reminders myself.

One step fur­ther. In addi­tion to prac­tic­ing let­ting go, I’ve started to stop at moments through­out the day (thanks to the mul­ti­ple alarms on my phone to alert me!) to remem­ber and pray. Every­thing else seems to slide into place and I feel cen­tred again. I remind myself too, like my friend says, that it’s not about legal­ism. If I miss a time, I “jump up” to the next, know­ing that I am free in God these moments are a gift, not an obligation.

Lent moves on another week and I keep try­ing to hold on, let go, and con­tinue the journey.

A Collective Work of Art

Published on February 2, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , , .

One of my edu­ca­tion assign­ments involved iden­ti­fy­ing a metaphor for edu­ca­tion and the jour­ney of teacher. Below is my response. Read­ing it again, I’d like to empha­sis even more that the work of art is a col­lec­tive effort — co-artists with learn­ers and the learn­ing com­mu­nity. I also rec­og­nize par­al­lels to other areas of min­istry and ser­vice. It’s not so much about the skills and tools as the Spirit.

Edu­ca­tion requires an artist’s touch. In my jour­ney as a teacher I have come to see learn­ing as a work of art cre­ated by the learn­ing com­mu­nity. A suc­cess­ful artist pos­sesses a com­bi­na­tion of a love of the art, tools and tech­niques, exten­sive expe­ri­ence in mix­ing colours and paint­ing, and oppor­tu­ni­ties to share ideas together with other artists. I expe­ri­ence a sim­i­lar jour­ney as a teacher. While I began with a love of the art of learn­ing, I con­tinue to acquire strate­gies for teach­ing, expe­ri­ence in cre­at­ing learn­ing envi­ron­ments, and shar­ing through dia­logue with other edu­ca­tors.
Palette

The artist’s palette as a per­sonal sym­bol reminds me of the art and sci­ence of teach­ing. Artists pre­pare a vari­ety of colours on their palettes, based on their vision for the work. They know about the sci­ence of art, includ­ing what results would likely occur when mix­ing colours, the effect of pro­por­tion and line, and the tex­tures of dif­fer­ent strokes. They can pre­pare the appro­pri­ate brushes, can­vas, and paints. Yet no artist can pre­dict the exact out­come. It takes a cer­tain sense and spirit to respond to the can­vas. In the same way, the learn­ing com­mu­nity cre­ates the learn­ing expe­ri­ence together. While the teacher-artist may have skills to decide when to use which instruc­tional strate­gies, the stu­dents, other teach­ers, and the school envi­ron­ment also shape the learn­ing expe­ri­ence. Despite the best les­son plans, the vision that the teacher-artist had in mind may turn out very dif­fer­ently. The teacher’s role con­tributes to the learn­ing expe­ri­ence as a work of art, high­lights points of beauty, and iden­ti­fies areas that “work.” As the colours, shapes, and ideas flow into one, the learn­ing expe­ri­ence becomes a beau­ti­ful piece of art.

No Dual Citizenship

Published on January 30, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

pasport1Last week Greg Boyd spoke at Park View Men­non­ite Church in Har­rison­burg, about his book The Myth of a Chris­t­ian Nation. His main idea was that there is the king­dom of the world, and the king­dom of God and that they are dif­fer­ent. You can tell because the king­dom of God on earth looks like Jesus. So if you ever want to know if some­thing world king­dom or God king­dom, just check whether it looks like Jesus or not.

The Anabap­tist tra­di­tion has cen­tred on this fairly closely, his­tor­i­cally. Boyd urged the Men­non­ites in the audi­ence to keep this voice strong, while at the same time chal­leng­ing to be flex­i­ble and open on every­thing else that is not about God’s king­dom. A chal­lenge, to say the least.

He empha­sized how God’s king­dom is inclu­sive, rad­i­cally inclu­sive, so much that the Matthews (tax col­lec­tors) and Simons (zealots who “some­times assas­si­nated tax col­lec­tors”) could fol­low Jesus together in the same group of dis­ci­ples, dia­logu­ing, inter­act­ing, and focus­ing on liv­ing the God’s king­dom –kind of life.

As fol­low­ers of Jesus, we can have dif­fer­ent opin­ions and view­points on pol­i­tics and the way the world should go, but ulti­mately we are gath­ered together as one in the king­dom of God, which takes pri­or­ity over all other issues.

So this is my cit­i­zen­ship. I need to remem­ber this and not be con­fused while liv­ing in a ‘for­eign’ king­dom of this world. I was reminded that while I can dia­logue and chal­lenge and engage the world king­dom, my iden­tity and pri­mary alle­giance lies in God’s king­dom. If I choose to fol­low Jesus, I give up my cit­i­zen­ship to the world. There is no dual cit­i­zen­ship here.

Truth and Lies…

Published on January 20, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

InventionI watched “The Inven­tion of Lying” the other night. Despite the trite descrip­tions of “the man in the sky” and the obvi­ous Moses-mocking with pizza boxes in either hand, the movie prompted some inter­est­ing thoughts on the nar­ra­tives humans tell our­selves and the role that those nar­ra­tives play.

The main char­ac­ter, Mark, lives in an alter­nate real­ity where peo­ple can only speak the truth in full, com­plete with embar­rass­ing an d hurt­ful details. One day, he dis­cov­ers that he can speak some­thing that “is not” while at the bank. He starts out by using this new abil­ity for his ben­e­fit, but soon real­izes that some­times speak­ing what is not can bring hope, hap­pi­ness, and encour­age­ment to oth­ers, includ­ing telling his sui­ci­dal neigh­bour that “every­thing is going to be alright.”

In his book “Help­ing,” Edgar H. Schein describes the cul­tural norms and social lan­guage Helpingwe fol­low in help­ing one another, includ­ing sto­ries, roles, and nar­ra­tives as depicted in the film. In fact, he uses the term “the­atre” as a metaphor for the pat­terns of human inter­ac­tion that we depend upon to keep func­tion­ing socially. Mark’s use of these nar­ra­tives even in his world that usu­ally doesn’t fol­low them pushes him up in social sta­tus and admi­ra­tion of oth­ers. Aware­ness of these nar­ra­tives and their emo­tional impact can empower us to help and be helped and to avoid caus­ing hurt through our help­ing attempts.

I’m reminded of the pas­sage in Eph­esians describ­ing unity in the body of Christ, and the growth of fol­low­ers of Christ, “speak­ing the truth in love” along the way. This requires an inves­ti­ga­tion of the nar­ra­tives we use and to what extent they con­sti­tute “truth” while at the same time “in love.” Words of encour­age­ment, affir­ma­tion, and hope do not nec­es­sar­ily stem from what “is not” but from the truth framed in Christ-like love for others.

By the end of the film, Mark real­izes that lying holds no appeal when with some­one he loves. Instead, he learns to look for the affirm­ing truths in oth­ers and to speak those in place of truths that hurt. Not bad for a sim­ple comedy.

Space Discoveries

Published on January 13, 2010 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , .

As the new year begins, I find myself reflect­ing on the year that has passed and plan­ning for the year to come. Like many peo­ple, I’m sure. Set­ting goals and res­o­lu­tions, renew­ing com­mit­ments and promis­ing to change usu­ally come to mind.

Recently, though, I’ve been think­ing about my need for space. Prompted by a study of Barry Hart’s “Peace­build­ing Wheel” in rela­tion­ship to peace edu­ca­tion in a class last year, the con­cept of phys­i­cal, emo­tional, and rela­tional space con­tin­ues to come to my attention.

I know that I need phys­i­cal space. I real­ized the extent of my claus­tro­pho­bia in Korea on the packed 11pm under­ground trains where my breath­ing was inter­rupted by the push of peo­ple against me. What does it mean, though, to have emo­tional and rela­tional space? How does that relate to time?

In the last year, I expe­ri­enced the loss of a good friend. Through the grief process, I’m start­ing to under­stand the need for emo­tional space. While I rarely give myself the free­dom to just feel what I feel, I see the neg­a­tive impacts this lack of space has on me and the peo­ple close to me. When I do give myself space to grief, to lis­ten to my feel­ings and how my body is telling me it needs me to lis­ten, I come to a sense of release and renewal. If I have emo­tional space, the griev­ing process can con­tinue in healthy and life-giving ways.

The rela­tional con­cept of space cre­ates a place for friend­ships and con­nec­tions to be nur­tured. When I have my to-do list and I am so busy check­ing off on thing and the next, being pro­duc­tive, I more than likely will miss the nuances of my spouse’s facial expres­sions and for­get to ask how his day has gone. I tend to rush out of the stu­dent lounge after say­ing hi to a few from my class to get back to my office and “get things done” rather than sit together with hon­esty and pres­ence. Rela­tional space draws me into the lives of oth­ers, and makes their sto­ries my own. It cre­ates the oppor­tu­nity for authen­tic encounters.

So per­haps this year my res­o­lu­tion is not doing some­thing new, but let­ting go and cre­at­ing space. I seek to focus less on doing and more on being. In some ways, it’s eas­ier to resolve to add more com­mit­ments and promises to my sched­ule than to hon­estly reflect in space which may frighten and threaten me with its empti­ness. I find it more dif­fi­cult to stop, release, and be present. I sense, though, that Hart’s “Peace­build­ing Wheel” has some­thing that I’m miss­ing as one who seeks to cre­ate peace. This year, I’d like to dis­cover some space.

“Live” a Merry Christmas!

Published on December 26, 2009 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , .

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I noticed my fam­ily talks about “hav­ing” Christ­mas. We’ll have our fam­ily Christ­mas on the 24th, then go to my grand­par­ents to have Christ­mas on the 27th, and have Christ­mas with the other side on New Year’s. Yet when we sit down to “have” Christ­mas, what does it mean? We open gifts, eat lots of choco­late, read the story in Luke, sing a carol or so. It’s nice. Its nice to “have” Christmas.

I won­der, though, what is the main point? Is it exchang­ing gifts and eat­ing lots of food? Even pop­u­lar cul­ture is start­ing to real­ize this is not the cen­tre of Christ­mas. Is it spend­ing time with fam­ily? Soci­ety would cer­tainly iden­tify that as a “rea­son for the sea­son.” Is it that Jesus was born? Churches and pop­u­lar Chris­tian­ity might empha­sis this. Yet that gets com­pli­cated. The scrip­tures don’t talk so much about that Jesus was born, as about how Jesus lived.

What about if the point of Christ­mas is to remem­ber to live as Jesus lived, with the out­casts of soci­ety, the weak and oppressed, serv­ing oth­ers, not rely­ing on mate­r­ial goods for secu­rity, and using love instead of weapons even in the face of death. This is a fright­en­ing image of Christ­mas, risky, and filled with fac­ing dark­ness. It’s not the kind of Christ­mas most peo­ple would like to “have.”

Per­haps this can become part of the Chris­t­ian tra­di­tion, though. Remem­ber with Jesus’ birth, with fam­ily gath­er­ings and gift exchanges, how Jesus lived. Per­haps then we can shape our tra­di­tions and gifts to his model, car­ing for the least, giv­ing not just to loved ones but even to ene­mies. Maybe then we’ll talk not about “hav­ing” Christ­mas, but coura­geously  “liv­ing” Christ­mas, empow­ered by the spirit to walk in the way of the one whose birth we celebrate.

A Mysterious Appearance…

Published on December 11, 2009 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , .

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The snow came Sat­ur­day with thick fast falling flakes fill­ing the crevices and hol­lows first then set­tling in, pil­ing in, tree boughs dip­ping under the weight of millions.

Some­one appeared out­side our door, smil­ing mys­te­ri­ously.… and has already gone.

A glimpse of a North­ern home.

Humans and their Needs

Published on November 27, 2009 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , , .

yourNeedsWhat do you need most in your life? What would you do to make sure that need is met? Would you con­tinue to go after your need even if you thought it might cause conflict?

Recently, I’ve been think­ing about human needs. In my edu­ca­tion class, we recalled Maslow’s hier­ar­chy of needs, which sug­gests that human’s require cer­tain needs met before oth­ers. For exam­ple, basic phys­i­cal needs such as food and safety come before needs esteem and self-actualization. In edu­ca­tional set­tings, this the­ory often sup­ports pro­grams such as pro­vid­ing break­fast at school for chil­dren to meet basic needs.

While these pro­grams may be help­ful, my Con­flict Analy­sis class dis­cussed an alter­na­tive per­spec­tive which divides needs into mate­r­ial, social, and cul­tural cat­e­gories. In actu­al­ity, basic human needs do not lie at the root of most con­flicts, but rather issues of iden­tity and secu­rity. Peo­ple may even give up basic needs in order to achieve a sense of secu­rity or to main­tain their cul­tural identity.

I won­der about human needs as I see the work of the church. Out of a desire to fol­low Jesus’ teach­ings of car­ing for neigh­bours, it seems the church has been quick to respond to phys­i­cal and basic needs, such as send­ing aid and engag­ing in devel­op­ment work. More dif­fi­cult, though, is response to needs of iden­tity and secu­rity. Car­ing for our neigh­bours in rela­tion to these needs more closely con­nects with active peacebuilding.

Next time a con­flict arises, I’ll  try think­ing about needs. My needs, oth­ers’ needs — how our needs can con­nect. Per­haps we can find ways of car­ing for one another even when our inter­ests conflict.

Giving Thanks?

Published on November 24, 2009 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , , .

thanksgiving

This week the U.S. cel­e­brates thanks­giv­ing . For the first time, I real­ized just how big this hol­i­day has become, and the inter­est­ing, and some­times con­fus­ing, con­nec­tions to the Christ­mas “hol­i­day” sea­son (which is which “holiday”?).

At the uni­ver­sity, staff and local stu­dents made sure that all inter­na­tional stu­dents received an invi­ta­tion to spend the hol­i­days with a fam­ily. A kind ges­ture and a cross-cultural expe­ri­ence. Even as a Cana­dian, I find the cul­tural dif­fer­ences fas­ci­nat­ing while I enjoy the famil­iar stuff­ing and cran­berry sauce.

After read­ing an arti­cle shared by a U.S. Amer­i­can class­mate, though, I dis­cov­ered that one of the rea­sons the pil­grims were giv­ing thanks to God was for the defeat of the Native Amer­i­cans who had been “threat­en­ing” the set­tlers. George Wash­ing­ton made it a hol­i­day in mem­ory of the early set­tlers and it has only got­ten big­ger since.

I won­der about this from a Chris­t­ian per­spec­tive. While the peo­ple at the time thought that this was God’s pro­vi­sion for them, the mass geno­cide of a peo­ple is not really some­thing I want to cel­e­brate. I doubt too, that many peo­ple would be so enthu­si­as­tic to read Washington’s procla­ma­tion if they remem­bered the con­text in which it was created.

While I want to respect the cul­ture and tra­di­tions of the place that I am in, I also feel a desire to call atten­tion to the dark side of the turkey holiday’s his­tory, just as I explore the his­to­ries of Canada (thanks­giv­ing became a hol­i­day due to the lob­by­ing of Protes­tant clergy in Ontario?). How to do this in a spirit of unity, sen­si­tiv­ity and curi­ousity, rather than judg­ment or crit­i­cism, is my home­work for the break and beyond.

A Long Autumn Joy

Published on November 20, 2009 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , , .

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Autumn con­tin­ues in Har­rison­burg, with the trees still leisurely loos­ing their leaves.

Although many have let go and spread bare branches to the sky, some have waited until the last moment to blaze into fiery colour, draw all atten­tion toward the mass of red, orange, pur­ple and yel­low before releas­ing the flakes of gold to float away in the cool­ing fall air.

Ah, praise to the Creator.