I don't know if you've heard, but now that I'm almost a MASTER at something, I've got all sorts of opinions about things. Politics and health care are only the tip of the iceberg. I've got something to say about EVERYTHING, being educated and all that.
Bagel flavors. Recycled paper. The iPad. Tennis shoe brands, laundry and wet versus dry cereal. I have an opinion about it all!
And I've come to see recently that having an opinion and being a teacher don't exactly go hand in hand. That, essentially, I have to teach our youth how to have an opinion and to think for themselves without instilling on them what those opinions should be...A.K.A. the RIGHT way to think.
And it's hard. It's extremely hard. You don't realize how different the way you feel about things is from the person next door...the parents of your best friends...even the mail guy has opinions about stuff and if you're not careful you could find yourself elbows deep in your Capital One Bills and Pizza Coupons, telling him that NO, it's not in your opinion that only the elderly and mentally ill should receive benefits at a decent price to get that heart transplant they need so desperately.
It also worries me though, that my own opinions were not built by myself, but maybe my own parents, just like everyone else's ideals were. They can't help it. They're parents. It's one of the few perks about the job, besides having a warm basement to live in when you get older...pushing your political opinions and ideals on your children is a RIGHT.
And it's not just with that. My mom and I were driving in the car the other day, on our way home from the grocery store or something like that, when she told me the most fascinating story I had ever heard about her father, the grandfather I never got a chance to meet because he passed away so young.
It turns out my mother's parents were both married and had children with other spouses...aunts and uncles existing somewhere of mine that I don't know which, trust me, is something that freaks me out all together and we'll discuss that some other day. My grandfather was extremely religious....belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church with his own family and when he began having an affair with a married woman, one that he divorced his own wife for and started a new family with (hence the creation of my mother! Ta-Da! Nice work gramps) he was expelled.
That's right. Expelled from the church. Thrown out on his butt, like in old stories. Though, now that I think about it, those old stories really aren't from so long ago. And like any normal guy, he was bitter about it. He had been a faithful member for so long, for so many years! He had grown up with these people, devoted several aspects of his life to them and their rules and their expectations and just like that, with one wrong move (albeit, a kind of big one) he was disowned.
Understandably, my mother explained, my grandfather had a huge problem with organized religion from that point on and while his own children took themselves to church and had their first communions all on their own, he simply refused to be part of any of it. Sure, he supported them and still believed in the possibility of God himself. It was just that he had come to realize that perhaps, if there is a God, he's the only one who can really determine who should be punished and who shouldn't. And if he ended up happily married to that same woman for several years, with four additional children and a passion for each of them that really can't be contained to a simple blog posting...what is there to punish anyway?
It was this story (that is probably a bit too heavy for the internet and for that, I'm sorry) that has founded every way my mother has raised us. That everybody is equal. That everyone deserves their own part of religion. That if there is a God, he loves us all despite the mistakes we make and that is up to us and him to decide if these are mistakes at all.
This isn't about religion, I promise and really, if you disagree with what's written above, I don't blame you. You were raised differently. Your parents had different ideals. You don't believe in God or you hate organized religion because of those stupid songs or you're such a devout Catholic, reading this blog is your biggest sin of the week. And that's ok.
It's just helped me to see...and maybe to wonder as well...what opinions are my own? What things will I give my own children...what stories from my own life shape my personal politics and the rights and wrongs of how I see the world? How much of who I am today is because of a decision my grandfather made that pissed off the Russian Catholics sixty years ago? And how much of it is me?
And how much will I give to others?
Perhaps I haven't Mastered anything at all.
Perhaps I've just begun the true process of learning.
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