This post is part of a series on those who inspired me to go into education, generally, and into theological education, specifically. It is my hope to elucidate the inspiring themes and visions that shape my understanding of teaching today.
When I started this journey through education, I did so in the spirit of Frederick Buechner’s understanding of memoir as the “universal particular.” In the first of his memoirs, The Sacred Journey, Buechner notes, “The story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all” (Buechner 1982, 6). This led a later biographer to describe Buechner’s approach as the universal particular: “Truly telling our human experiences make particular stories universal because, as the old saying puts it, what goes deepest to the heart goes widest to the world” (Munroe 2019, 10).
In that hope, I examine my seventh grade year. It stands out as one of the most formative years of my life, because there are those rare educators who have such an impact on our lives that we can almost describe our lives as pre- and post-their tenure. Mrs. Threewitts was one such teacher. Her small classroom, covered with posters of American history, had windows that faced to the north of the school, with the mighty Massanutten mountain in view. The room located a seventh-grade student in the midst of history (both American and geological).
I remember sitting in her class watching Sergeant York (1941). An Appalachian pacifist, Alvin York, finds himself drafted into World War I, forcing him to reconcile his pacifist beliefs with the realities of war. (York would go on to become one of the most decorated and celebrated heroes of the war.) In the film, Gary Cooper portrays the questioning and anguished York. Walter Brennan plays the charismatic Pastor Rosier Pile who leads York to the Lord and away from his menacing ways. A late-night ride finds York on horseback being struck by lightning. Pile helps York reconcile the frightful event with the purpose to which God is calling him. A call which entails York leaving behind his violent ways for the peaceful ways of God.
Then comes the news, trickling over the mountain ridge, about the entrance of the United States into World War I. Soon after, news of the draft crests the mountaintop. The anguished York confides to his pastor, “I ain’t a-goin’ to war. War’s killin’, and the book’s [the Bible’s] agin’ killin’! So war is agin’ the book!”
Through a series of conversations and great anguish, York enters boot camp where he meets Major Buxton (played by Stanley Ridges). Below is an excerpt of one of their several conversations in which York wrestles aloud with his conscience:
Alvin: You see, I believe in the Bible, and I'm a believin' that this here life we're living is something the Lord done give us, and we got to be a-living it as best we can — and I'm figuring that killing other folks is no part of what he was intending us to be a-doing here.
Major Buxton: York, what do you suppose Boone was looking for when he went out into the wilderness?
Alvin: Well, I never thought much on it.
Major Buxton: Was he looking for new lands?
Alvin: Might be.
Major Buxton: Maybe, maybe for something more, something that a man just can't see with his eyes or hold in his hands. Something that some men don't even know they have until they've lost it.
Alvin: Yes, sir?
Major Buxton: To be free. Now that's quite a word, "Freedom" — I think that's what he wanted. I think that's what sent Boone into your Tennessee country.
Alvin: That… that what this here book's about? [pointing down at a book on American history]
Major Buxton: Yep. That's the story of a whole people's struggle for freedom, from the very beginning until now — for we're still struggling. It's quite a story York, how they all got together and set up a government, whereby all men were pledged to defend the rights of each man, and each man to defend the rights of all men. We call that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
York ends up reconciling his beliefs with his interpretation of Jesus’ words to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Mt. 22:21, KJV). We can discuss his interpretation and justification for war another day.
But in Mrs. Threewitts’ class, films like Sgt. York, the myriad of history posters hanging around the room, and the innumerable narrative vignettes from American history, invited us into discussions of patriotism which were a world apart from the nationalism that has marked our most recent national rhetoric. While York’s story is one of abandoning pacifism, it has come to serve as a corrective to the incorrect usage of the word “patriotism.” Nationalism worships nation, because it sees national identity as the preeminent identity of a people. It makes the gospel civil religion and god becomes the nation-state.
The patriotism that Mrs. Threewitts taught us reminds me of an editorial by Rodney Clapp in a 2011 issue of The Christian Century:
We owe our country of origin patriotism. But not just any kind of patriotism. The term patriot drives from the Latin word for father, pater. The proper patriot realizes and expresses gratitude to her fatherland. Just as our biological mothers and fathers gift us with life and nurture, so too does the country of our origin gift and nurture us—giving us a language to speak and stories to tell and songs to sing. And just as we don't choose our parents, neither do we choose our country of origin.
The patriotism of Mrs. Threewitts involved an appreciation for the complexity of the American story, a chronicle of our fatherland. Through the good and bad of our history, we recognized that the stories being shared were our own. The power of this approach had a great impact on us as we explored indigenous stories, confronted the stain of racism, and celebrated the ideals that American history calls us to aspire toward. More than anything else, she taught me the beauty of history as narrative. In many ways, my commitment to being an historian (who became a historical theologian) began in her class. This love of history has me suspended in the story of the country in which I’m blessed to live and the kingdom of God to which my life must ultimately testify.
Mrs. Threewitts’ kind, chatty, winsome posture marked her as one of the first educators whose pedagogy was more story-telling than lecture. We were encouraged to locate our lives in the narratives presented. While I had no words for it then, it was probably one of my earliest recollected moments of being invited into the universal particular.
Now it’s your turn. Who was your favorite seventh grade teacher and what was their impact on your journey? Leave a comment below or, if on Facebook, in the thread.