Lessons in Prodigal, Part I

I am a quitter; I give up quite easily.  I don't like to fight, whether it's a battle with the vaccumn or a battle of the wills.  One of the first things I remember quitting is the piano.  My brother started playing, and he was amazingly talented-naturally so.  I had to work.  Hard.  Since I would never play like he did (by ear), I stopped.  In college, however, the depth of my weak spirit became much clearer; I hadn't seen it quite so vividly before.

When I started college I was in the Honors program.  To remain in the Honors program you had to "successfully complete" one honors class a semester (or eight total) chosen from several options in many different areas.  There were benefits to being in the program, as well as many other opportunities outside of class or even outside of the country.  I don't remember taking any honors classes after my first semester...I just quit.  It seemed too hard.  And I gave up, just like that.

My second year I took a Public Speaking course.  It was, I believe, a choice among several in order to fulfill a particular core requirement (Humanities, maybe?); it made sense since I wanted to teach.  The assignments started out simple-introduce someone else in the class after an interview; a how-to speech.  The first one must have gone fine, because I don't remember it.  The second one I also don't remember.  In fact, it is the not remembering AT ALL what I was supposed to say as I stood before that class that made it one of the worst moments of my life.  I froze.  I wanted to cry.  I wanted to die.  I felt so humiliated and angry.  I left the classroom, from that spot in front of the blackboard, and never went back (I'm not sure how I got my bag).  I may have said something like,"I'm sorry," but then I left the room. 

Later I went to the instructor's office and told him that I couldn't return, I couldn't face those students again.  I requested that he give me a failing grade, but said I would take the class again another semester (at my college if you had a failing grade and took the class over, the failing grade would be factored out of your GPA for the previous semester and only count in the semester where the grade was a passing one; it would remain on the transcript).  He said okay (I must have seemed very desperate; there was no talking me out of it). 

It may have been a bad thing, I don't know.  Recently, Mike and I were talking about that experience and relating it to some other things that are going on right now.  When I talked about how I left the class and felt as though I couldn't go back he said, kindly, "You shouldn't have done that...you should have gone back and faced the class."  He is probably right, but I couldn't have.  He went on to say,"Some time you are going to have to face the class.

During the last semester before student teaching (I was an English major, a Spanish major, and also pursued Teacher Certification, which had as many credits as a major, but wasn't one) I took my final methods course, learning how to teach high school English.   I loved it!  My professor was also my advisor and one of the people I most admired in the world.  I thought he was so smart, he was a wonderful teacher, and I loved everything he had to share with us. 

Over the couse of the entire semester we had an assignment; we were to work on a three week lesson plan, covering one unit in a literature class.  We had to create a full, 15-day lesson plan as well as turn in our philosophy of education, and any resources we would use to teach the lessons.  I'm sure I didn't begin right away, but shortly after the semester began I headed to the library and tried to come up with something.  I looked through teaching resources, I reread my notes from class, I stared at the many people who moved among the shelves of books.  For weeks I remained idealess.  I remember feeling very frustrated and stuck one night late in the semester; I was sitting with Mike in my floor, and I practically threw his laptop across the room in anger that I had nothing.  And I gave up.  I went to the professor the morning it was due to tell him I had no lesson plan to turn in.  I had no good reason for showing up empty-handed...no sickness, no family emergency.  Just fear, but of what?  It was 30% of our final grade. 

I also backed out of student teaching, and a couple of years later I dropped out of seminary.   

I studied a semester in Spain, but there was no getting out of Valencia once I arrived...so I was forced to stick that one out.

Remembering these experiences, as well as contemplating others that are not mentioned, leaves me in a strange place.  Part of me wants to laugh.  What a silly girl I am!  Part of me wants to shake my finger.  "Can't you be responsible?" I want to say.  "You ought to follow through, finish what you start!"  Part of me is sad, because the weight of all the times that there was no finishing is heavy; it is a burden, one I have placed upon myself. 

The word "prodigal" is before me these days...one of the first things many think of when they hear this word is the story Jesus told to many listeners, including the Pharisees, a story about a father and his two sons.  The younger of the sons leaves home, wastes his inheritance on wild living, and returns home hoping to be a servant in his father's house.  The other son is obedient but hard-hearted.  The father loves both.

If you look up "prodigal" you will find that one meaning is "characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure," or "wastefully or recklessly extravagant."  I think of how often I have given up, quit, abandoned something, and it seems to me to be wasteful.  I have been wasteful and reckless where I could have been fruitful.  I have considered giving up to be acceptable, and have done so extravagantly.  This is humbling.  This is convicting. 

But as we all know (or could find out in Luke chapter 15) the story does not end with the recklessness of the younger son...