So Much More: Learning to Teach and Teaching to Learn

Copyright © 2014 Karol King.

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All names have been changed in this book to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-6230-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6231-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6229-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014921594

WestBow Press rev. date: 1/19/2015

Contents

Preface

Chapter One: My Chance To Teach

Chapter Two: Were The Overcomers A Cult?

Chapter Three: Stories Of My Childhood

(1) The Influence Of The Church, And

(2) My Family’s Simple Farm Life Of The 1950S

Chapter Four: The Overcomers Bible College

Chapter Five: Our Years In Central America

Chapter Six: Satan’s Council Meeting

Chapter Seven: The Illusion Of Evil: Summary Of Master’s Thesis, Did God Create Evil As An Illusion?, 1996

Preface

This book is a reflection on events and circumstances that I have experienced by living in, and then by leaving, a closed society. I have asked and attempted to answer some of the many questions that are a part of making such momentous changes in one’s life. Because of my distinctive life experiences and the influence that they had on my method of teaching, many of my professors and students have asked me to write a book; so with that in mind, I have written this account to fill in some things that I did not have time to tell the students during the class sessions.

It is also an attempt to share the methods that worked so well for me in the classroom: teach from the heart, respect every single student as a human being, be willing to learn oneself, know the subject matter and be able to communicate it effectively.

In no way is this a complete autobiography, nor is it a history of the religious group into which I was born, but it is an effort to try to explain the reasons that I see life as I do and to share more of my story with my students and with others who may be interested. I will probably always wonder if I have disclosed too much of my own and my family’s lives. I hope I have not. Even more to be desired: I hope the reader is not bored with unnecessary details!

Chapter Six is a story that came to me out of the blue some months after leaving the group. Several years before, I had read C. S. Lewis’s, The Screwtape Letters, and this is my attempt at a holiness version.

Chapter Seven was written about eighteen years ago, and is a part of the final chapter of my theology graduate thesis. It deals with one of the thorniest theological questions we know: theodicy, which according to the definition given in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is the defense of God’s goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil. I have included it here in order to give my readers an idea of concepts and notions that I have thought about during the past several years. It is not a statement of faith.

I was born into a very strict religious group and at the age of thirty-six years, I left the group. Some years later, after obtaining two graduate degrees from Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio, I was invited to teach theology in the Weekend Degree Program to non-traditional students. For fourteen years I taught the class entitled, Theological Foundations, into which I interwove much dialogue and critical thinking. For the first time in their lives, many of these young adults were allowed and encouraged to look critically at the belief systems they had been taught. As we dialogued and opened our hearts and minds to each other, miracles would happen. A large percentage of my students told me that their lives were forever changed by these classes.

I chose to title this book, So Much More, because there is so much more to tell of my life and because there is so much more that I want to learn and to do in this lifetime.

In this book the names of almost all people and places, including my own name and those of my family members, have been changed in order to maintain the privacy of the individuals involved in this account.

From Revelation 12:11 I chose the term Overcomers for the name of the group: And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony….

All scriptural quotations herein are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Chapter One

My Chance to Teach

It was a warm spring evening. Little slivers of light peered around the leaves of the trees that lined the university mall walkway as professors and students from the theology department walked quietly away from an event that had just ended at the student center. Chatting amicably, we walked by twos and threes discussing the lecture we had heard. My companion was the former chair of the department. Suddenly out of his mouth came some of the most unexpected words I had ever heard:

Ellen, how would you like to teach in the theology department? What can I say? The heavens parted, the clouds were lined with gold, and the birds began to sing! I don’t think I could have been more surprised if he had handed me a million dollars in cash right there and then. I was thrilled almost beyond words!

To teach in the university’s theology department—the place, the atmosphere that I had come to respect and love so much over the past several years!? Again to inhabit the classrooms and hallways that had become hallowed ground to me? I was totally unprepared for such a question. I, a simple farm girl with a strict religious upbringing, secluded from the world for most of my life, was now being asked to teach as an adjunct in the theology department? It had never occurred to me that such a thing was possible. I was being asked if I would like to stand where those dedicated, highly educated men and women had stood to teach me and my peers!? In those sacred rooms where my starved and famished intellect had been challenged and fed so well!?

But…but I don’t have a doctoral degree, I hesitantly, but quickly pointed out.

I know, he replied just as quickly.

And…and I’m not Roman Catholic, I added breathlessly.

I know that too, he smiled, and then these words—but you’d make a marvelous teacher!

I still don’t know how he knew that; indeed, it took me a few months for me to allow myself to accept the position, but in January 2000 I stood for the first time in front of a class of about twenty adult students who were attending the Weekend Degree Program and, since the University is a Jesuit institution, were required to take a course known as Foundations of Theology, no matter their declared major.

The students were mainly young adults, who were now in the work force and had decided that it was advantageous, and even necessary, to get a college degree. Many of them had not attended school for several years and were nervous about being back in the classroom. None of them were especially interested in religion or theology, but this was a required course; so there was nothing to do but to hunker down and get through a boring, disagreeable situation as gracefully as possible.

I can still see them during the pre-assignment session the Sunday before the initial class, sitting there dejectedly, their spiral notebooks along with the textbook piled resignedly on the table in front of them. Well, these were accelerated courses and would last only eight weeks; so one way or another, they could probably make it through and go on to something more interesting. That early afternoon session I had handed out the syllabus, briefly gone over the textbook and made the first assignment that was to be written and ready to be read aloud by the next Saturday morning.

I was given a teacher’s assistant to help out with teaching, making copies, and anything else I might need. She was a young nun working on getting her master’s degree in theology. We had not met before the pre-assignment Sunday, and then she walked breezily into the classroom, introduced herself and sat down at the long tables along with the students. What a blessing she turned out to be for me! More about that later.

And now we were in the first real class session. It was 8:30 that cold January Saturday morning. I was standing at the podium, had written a few appropriate quotations on the board and watched anxiously as one student after another took his or her seat in the classroom. Was I up for this? Could I really teach theology to adult students?

I honestly do not remember the first part of that class session. I probably talked about the material in the book or at least about a theological topic. What I do remember, though, was the second half of the class, when the students walked to the front of the room to read their papers. Many of them were uncomfortable about standing in front of the class, but I thought it was a good idea for them to get used to speaking in public; so up they came and shared their thoughts and feelings about what they had read in the first two chapters of the text. Surprisingly, most of them had become interested in the material and in the questions they had chosen to answer at the end of each chapter. As I had hoped they would, some shared their own religious experiences, hopes, fears and doubts. The atmosphere began to change from one of misgiving and nervousness to real interest and participation.

And then a beautiful young woman student came to the front of the classroom. Her face was glowing. She was truly inspired and read and told us an amazing story of how God had worked in her life and answered prayer for her at a time when she needed it most. The atmosphere became electric. The energy level was like a strong, rising current. I felt it. The students felt it. I cannot explain how or what exactly happened, but from that moment on, I felt as though I were borne on eagles’ wings—not only on that day, but virtually every day after for the fourteen years that I taught that class.

Most of the time during each academic year I taught the two eight-week courses each fall and then again in the spring. Many, many students came and went, but almost without exception, each one was touched and changed by being a part of that class. I would tell them during pre-assignment session that they would learn most of the academic material from the textbook. They were required to read it in its entirety and to write reflection papers on each chapter. These papers were to be presented orally during the following class session and then of course handed in to me at the end of class. We also had open-book quizzes at the beginning of each class.

I told them that they would learn more from each other than they did from me, and it was true. I was merely a door-opener and a guide to allow them into a place inside themselves where they were able to explore and find answers to questions that they had had all their lives, but until then had not sought or found a safe place in which to bring them to light. I never felt that I was as academic as were my own professors in years earlier, but I did encourage my students to quit being afraid, to open up to the inner knowledge that we all have inside our hearts, and to truly listen with their hearts and minds to what their peers were sharing.

I never tired of watching the transformation from the uncertainty and anxiety of pre-assignment Sunday, as the students sat apprehensively watching me make preparations to start the session, to the very last Saturday morning class, when we had all bonded and become like family. They did not want the course to end! It was amusing how I had almost literally to push them out of the classroom to end that course. In those nine weeks, they had changed from fragile, wilted little plants to a thriving garden of fully blossoming and even fruit-bearing plants.

I remember that one student said to me, Ellen, you made magic for us every Saturday morning, and we don’t want it to end! Many students told me that taking the class had been a life-transforming experience, and that they would never see or live life the same way again. High praise indeed! Many also told me that because of my own openness and because I had told them my own unique life experience during the pre-assignment session, they felt safe and able to share on a level that they never had before.

They learned about faith—human and religious, how we learn to trust ourselves and each other, about other world religions—the commonalities, as well as the differences—that define our cultures and backgrounds, and the theology that has become the background for many of our ideas about God, ethics and the big questions we face in life. They loved the new information and perspectives they learned from the textbook. But, I think most of all, they had absorbed my suggestions about dialogue, how to open up, to share their own life experiences, and again, to truly listen with their hearts to their peers, some of whom had had extremely different experiences and beliefs from others in the classroom.

And now for Sr. Karen, the young nun, who was my assistant. The demographics of my classroom were often that the students south of the River were mainly Protestant, whereas the ones that came from the city north of the River were often Catholic. That phenomenon was fertile ground on which to plant the seeds of dialogue, and Sister Karen was very helpful with this. At some point during a class period in each session in which she was my assistant, I would start a conversation with her like this:

The problem that we Protestants have with Catholicism is that Catholics worship idols, I would say, looking somewhat accusingly at Sister Karen.

She would look straight back and me and rather vehemently respond: No we don’t! (She was a really good sport!)

Yes, you do, I would respond right back. You have those statues which you worship in your churches.

No, we don’t, she would insist. Those are icons—statutes of the saints. We do not worship or pray to them.

Without question, at that point, we both had the undivided attention of the students. They had not expected a Protestant/Catholic brawl right there in the classroom. What was going to happen? Were the professor and her assistant going to come to blows in front of their very eyes?

And then I would state the key argument of the discussion: "But, that is what I was taught—that Catholics worship idols, they worship Mary and believe that the Pope is infallible," I would continue.

Well, with all due respect, Ms. Ellen, you were taught incorrectly. We do not worship idols or Mary, Sister Karen would declare. As to the infallibility of the Pope, Protestants need to be educated as to what that really means, and at that point she would go into a brief explanation of some Catholic beliefs.

It was not that I was trying to teach the rightness or wrongness of either the Protestant or Catholic beliefs, but I was trying to point out the fact that much of what we believe has been taught us by our parents, teachers, preachers and priests, who themselves many times know very little of another religion’s or denomination’s beliefs. They are either misinformed themselves or have often never studied or inquired outside of their own group. Misinformation is unfortunate, but mistreatment, judgment, condemnation and the exclusion of our fellow humans based on misinformation is exceedingly sad. Unfortunately, it is easy to dismiss out of hand and to denounce people and belief systems that we know virtually nothing about.

Again, I am not now, nor was I in class, trying to persuade people to change their beliefs or to quit their faith. I was simply asking them to honestly look at themselves and know what they believed and why. I had had to do that myself, and I found that too often we are either too fearful or too lazy to make the effort to do that. I wanted to be an agent of change in that regard.

I was always concerned that the class might not be a real academic theology course—that it would become known as a therapy session where everyone could vent his or her frustrations about the controlling parents who made them go to church when they were children, or about how the nuns had rapped their little knuckles and made them learn their catechisms and taught them unbearable guilt over childish and later, adult, transgressions. I do believe the writing assignments and the quizzes and tests were of high quality. But what fulfilled me the most was the level of dialogue that we were able to achieve in nearly every course. Sooner or later a moment would come in which we—students and teacher—were able to see inside another person’s soul, see the humanness, the darkness, the light, the reality of his or her life experience, and at that moment—oh yes, we saw God!

One incident especially stands out. A gentleman in his fifties, I would guess, spoke up one day and said, Well, God has told me that abortion is wrong! Then he proceeded to tell a touching story about how his son had gotten a girl pregnant. The young people had decided to abort the child, but this man and his wife had prayed, and God had told them to save the child and raise it themselves. He was fulfilling that commitment at that very moment, and, I believe, at great cost to him and his wife. Raising a child is never an easy task, but in your fifties, and one that was not by your own choice…? Wide-eyed, we all sat listening to his story, sympathizing with the situation and admiring his courage and dedication to God’s call to him.

He finished his story, another student spoke briefly, and then a young woman sitting near the aisle spoke up quietly and said, "Well, I had an abortion." The room became so still that one could hear the proverbial pin drop. She proceeded to tell a story that was so touching there was hardly a dry eye among us when the story was finished. Wow! We had truly heard something—a story so poignant, so real, so sad and painful, and yet, something that she had chosen to share with us. For those few moments we had become one with her, perhaps, in a manner of speaking, one with God?

And the magic did not end there. It was break time; so I dismissed the class for ten minutes and was looking down at my papers on the podium, when I became aware of two people speaking together in the aisle just ahead of me. I looked up; it was the man whom God had told that abortion was wrong and the young woman who had had an abortion. I could not hear what they were saying,