LALSD Ceasar Shavez I'm So High Screwel

From Fall 2017 Archives

Report from the field (ultra short-version):

So I taught my class today in LA. LAUSD. A high school. A college class at a high school. In a million years, I did not think I would be teaching high schoolers College. In LA. In a million years. It is as far as the east is from the west , the vision I had for myself.

Their assignment was to interview someone on the questions of God and life after death. Whatever side their interviewee had, they were to take the opposite side.

At Cesar Chavez High Screwel, which I write, Ceasar Shavez I'm so High (LALSD) (on the board (and they laugh), in the City of LOST Angeles, I called on first a few, then on everyone, to share their experience. And it took the entire class for them to share their experiences.

And it hit me about half way, that in the mouth of Satan himself, we were having this conversation about God and life after death. At public expense. In the City of Lost Angeles.

And the stories they recounted, one after one, were stories of heartbreaking incoherence. Incoherence on an Olympic medal level of competition, if there were such a sport. And what I noticed, and what I pointed out (to their now hearty agreement), was people are totally lost on how to talk, or think, about God.

And in the last 10 minutes I lectured on the Ontological Argument. And they were primed for that.

I said, do you get the impression that people just don't know what they think about these things? About the most important things? They said yes.

What if.

What if, I said, there was a tradition.

If "tradition" rubs you the wrong way, then switch it for, "body of knowledge", that you could have access to?

Go on, they said.

That ... made sense of these fundamental and unavoidable issues?

I let them hang for a full minute.

Philosophy has been dealing with this stuff for over 2000 years. It's all available to you. And the taxpayers are funding it.

Are you interested?

And they said yes. Even the black male who talked the longest who normally sleeps during class. (He'd interviewed his Gramma, who is really worried about him -- and she is very Biblically literate, holy cow he is lucky).

I felt the Lord's hand on me today. And I hardly did anything but listen.

Text and Photo Copyright Lucas J. Mather, 2017
All Rights Reserved
Text Originally published to Facebook on Mon 13 Nov 2017 at 6:49 pm; Photo originally published to Facebook on Wed 15 Nov 2017 at 1:38 pm