“Sing to the LORD
with thanksgiving;
make music to our God on the harp.” Psalm 147:7
“She
talks only to some of the kids in the class,” one of my students once told me,
criticizing another prof. “There’s like
five people she calls on—that’s it.”
I’ve got sympathy
for that prof. Basically, each day in
class I teach to eyes—some eyes, the eyes that seem bottomless as you’re going
on and on about Thoreau or whoever, eyes that seek knowledge, eyes that listen,
that care.
Some eyes
are glazed. Some glance up at the clock or don’t come up from the book in front
of them; some are vacant, dreamy, watching something a galaxy away. A
protective teacher voice in me tells me not to look at those eyes. It’s less
spite than a simple defense because vacant eyes appear to say they really don’t
care.
At a big
lecture this week, a whole crowd of students got restless. Some whispered, but
mostly they just fidgeted, audibly. It was annoying and even embarrassing. I
was in an Elijah mood, ready to call in the bears.
But then
my ethnic heritage is unforgivably Northern European. I grew up in Lake
Woebegone, where fathers show their love by telling their kids to weed the
garden and long-lost brothers shake hands to avoid the discomfort of having to
touch someone else. That my classroom
might be full of reticence is somehow understandable.
An old
friend, a musician, once told me he always felt edgy about doing concerts at
the college where I teach—all those white kids from the cold reaches of the
Upper Midwest, kids who simply don’t know how to respond emotionally. At the
most inopportune time, he said, they’ll clap, because applause is the only
legitimate emotional response they know.
On the other hand, playing for Pentecostals, he said, is a treat because
they know how to give back, with their eyes, their hearts, their voices and
whispers. When they’re thrilled, they give you their prayers.
But then
I hail from the ice box myself. Years ago, I didn’t give a prof my eyes, mostly
because I hadn’t read the material. If I looked down, I figured he or she would
look right past me. I was never a leader in class. Mostly, I judged those who
were as kiss-ups. I’m need forgiveness.
The heart
of David’s command in verse seven is a call to sing, to give the Lord, our
liberator, your eyes, your attention, your thanksgiving, your blessed praise,
simply to respond. Some people do it as if by nature, but then there are
others, others who haven’t read their assignments.
And there
are some who simply don’t find it easy. I remember the time, my wife, an only
child, faced the arduous task of coaxing her mother into comprehensive care. Her
mother doesn’t want to leave her apartment in the Home, to leave her husband of
nearly 60 years. She’d rather die. Who
can blame her?
Neither
my wife nor her mother or father felt like singing just then. Their eyes were
down. Their song was lament, not praise. None of them, nor me, felt like leading
the class.
We rest
in the promise that God almighty is bigger than the teacher in me. That’s our
comfort. We want to believe—and we do—that He knows, that he watches those
whose eyes are a world away, that He touches the untouchables. He loves even those who don’t give him their
eyes, who can’t. He’s the master teacher.
Early
winter’s dreary gray is especially oppressive this morning, but I rest in his
care. That’s enough to make me break
into applause, inappropriately.
So I’m
not. This is my song.
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