English Class Sat. 9:05 A.M.
“It All Starts Here”
Everyone’s first blink is our first glimpse of education. Being born under
circumstances we have no control over, we open our eyes to a world of influence, to a
world that measures our self-worth with secular standards.

My grandfather died when my father was just a boy. My dad very rarely spoke
about my grandfather‘s death and his feelings only surfaced during moments when he
was ranting and raving, “My father died when I was 14 and all I did was work my whole
life for other people.”, which he did.
My father got a job at the New Haven Register at the age of 15 and took care of
his mother and twin brother. He met my mother while working at this job a couple of
years later. She received warnings from co-workers about my fathers temper and
continued to see him despite the fact that he pulled a gun on somebody during their first
date. When I was introduced to this fun fact years after enduring a deeply scarred
childhood due to this union, I asked my mother beguiled “Why did you marry dad?”. An
answer I couldn’t wait to hear, she simply replied “There was just something about him,
and if I didn’t I wouldn’t have you 6 kids”. A reply I could do nothing with but swallow,
left me more confused as I continued to pick up the pieces of my life.

Everyone’s actions, every word we speak affects the world and the people in it. If
the lives of my parents didn’t go exactly the same way from their birth to my conception,
I would not be born. If my life didn’t go exactly the same way I wouldn’t be who I am
today. So in other words, everything I suffered, saw, heard, thought, all the mistakes I
made, everything I chose or didn’t choose to do is “me”.
Everyone’s vocation in the world is simply a standpoint in which we are to
interpret what reality and truth really are, based on what we were exposed to over the
course of our lives. Each individual is unique, 2 people growing up in the same
household experiencing the same events can interpret and be influenced by them
differently. My fathers anger encouraged me to never treat anybody like I’ve been treated
but it also made me feel very small and unwanted. I always let my family and friends
treat me poorly, suffering them because they were close to me. With a weak sense of
self-worth I made bad decisions at the mercy of surrounding situations, always reacting
to external factors instead of listening to my heart and acting on it. My brother Eric on
the other hand, was never home. My father’s anger drove him to the streets where he got
caught up in drugs, got into fights, got arrested, and stole from everyone. When it came
to pain and suffering, Eric thought is was “better to give than to receive”. He is now in
jail for the third time serving an eight year sentence.
Families clearly are one of if not the largest influence on us as individuals, not just
in education but every aspect of our lives. As we live in this world of influence, we
interpret it in our own personal way making each of us extremely complex and
distinctively different. Looking through the lens of our own “little world” it is the love
we have in our hearts that determines what we do with what we know. Sometimes we
mean well and just don’t know well enough. Sometimes we just don’t care. Sometimes
we just care about ourselves. The fact is each of us are truly gifts to be given to the
world, gifts only we can give. Understanding how malleable we really are should lead us
to realize that our lives make lasting impressions that affect the world and the people in it
from our individual standpoint.
Naturally, I am a dreamer. My imagination has always been my grounds where my
hopes and dreams for a better world became manifest. Despite all of the voices that have
tried to convince me to settle for less, I continually struggled in my search for true love. I
was around 20 years old and a couple of friends and I went to see the featured film, “The
Passion of the Christ“. I didn’t grow up in a religious family and knew very little about
religion in general. The film is based on the true story of a real historical figure named
Jesus of Nazareth who was brutally tortured and sentenced to death by the religious
leaders of his time. Amongst performing many miracles he taught with authority and
conviction challenging the world’s way of living causing people to have a boiling hatred
for him, passionately confronting them as he welcomed death instead of denying himself.
He had love for everyone and even willed heavenly forgiveness even on his torturers
leaving his life and wisdom as the foundation of some of the largest religious
denominations in the world and declared wise teachings among others. This single man
caused a bigger ripple through history than the Holocaust and eight million people died.
Not knowing where we go when we die, why would this man give his life for his
enemies?

With all of this in mind, how are we really supposed to measure ourselves and
each other? In a world where we are struggling to grasp equality, how do you size up in
the world of measurement? The truth is we are all measured in comparison to what each
individual believes to be important. What we individually believe to be important is
based on what we are exposed to in this world of influence. Looking through the lens of
our own “little world”, our experiences influence our judgment considering what we let
ourselves be convinced to be important. I’m sure we all have heard about the war
between good and evil. What if I told you that the battlegrounds for this war is in each of
our hearts? We are all born into circumstances where we can’t control what the voices of
influence are. The influences these voices bring are the foundation of each individual’s
life considering which voices we choose to listen and act on.
“If parents are neglectful temporarily or permanently for whatever reason, it’s
certainly sad, but their unlucky children must fend for themselves or slip through the
cracks.” (Linda Barry Sanctuary of School) Growing up I always felt like I was just
somebody’s problem. My father would come home from work infuriated and yell at
everyone “I wish I never had any kids, your all worthless pieces of crap!” Whenever I
saw him he was angry, you could sense the resentment even when he was silent. My
siblings and I would be in the living room and my dad would come in, take the remote
and sit in his chair. Everyone would sit down and not say a word, getting up one by one
in two minute intervals eventually leaving my father alone. This would get him thinking
we were ungrateful because we never paid any attention to him, when in fact we were
scared for our lives limiting contact to minimize the chances for physical and verbal
abuse. Sometimes he would call us into the living room and he would lecture us. “When
you get a job, save your money so you can buy nice things. Never have any kids and
never get married.” Is this advice that I should take to heart just because my own father
said it? It clearly states what he values, but if that’s what he wanted why did he have any
kids? If children ignore their parents or get poor advice from their parents, where is their
next chance to encounter a positive influence?
School wasn’t much of a challenge, the teachers practically tell you how to get the
answers; all you really had to do was listen. I always received good grades, but going to
college now I realize I remember very little. I used to think to myself “How am I going to
use this in real life?” This was the question that nobody had an answer for, at least an
answer that was good enough. School didn’t seem nearly as important as trying to help
the people I care about. People always asked me, “What are you going to do when you
grow up? Are you going to go to college?” My father always complained about working
and never really having much so I barely thought about college. I had no idea about what
I wanted to be, but I did know that I did want to help people from the inside out. What I
remember most is how certain people especially my teachers treated me like a person;
how Mrs. Edmonds used to do an impression of the fireman played by Jim Carrey in “In
Living Color”; how Mrs. McDonough helped my family when a fire forced us to move
losing almost everything. These people put footprints in my heart because they were
people who cared. When my own father made me feel like I didn’t exist or punished me
when he did it was great to see someone act out of the goodness of their heart towards
someone they barely knew.

Our job should be to help the kid when he tells us that he can’t find a way to get
the right answer. Let’s get rid of all this nonsense of grades, exams, marks. We don’t
know now, and we will never know, how to measure what another person knows or
understands. Throw it all out, and let the child learn what every educated person must
someday learn, how to measure his own understanding, how to know what he knows or
does not know. Children want, more than they want anything else, and even after years of
miseducation, to make sense of the world, themselves, and other human beings. Let them get at this job, with our help if they ask for it, in the way that makes sense to them.”
(School is Bad for Children by John Holt) What this teacher is saying is that the school
system is focused on getting children to reach their academic standards. Each child is
measured according to this standard and this standard is measured by grades. Teachers
are told to teach with intent to help the students reach these standards knowing that
grades don’t accurately reflect what the student is actually learning. In fact, the students
are being told that the grades are what matter most. They are being taught that making
mistakes is wrong and not making the grade means you’re not good enough. In other
words, the students are being taught to measure up to external standards which are
somebody’s interpretation of what they believe to be important. As human beings, we are
born with different opportunities, we are born with innate characteristics, and possess our
own interests. We can imagine infinite space and infinite happiness indicating each
Individual’s potential in a world where possibilities are endless. When each person is so
unique, why are the students measured in comparison to one set standard?
“…having freedom, being authentic, putting yourself on the line, and defining
your own success. Take freedom.” (School’s Out by Daniel H. Pink) When we act out of
our true selves these things come naturally. This is what true freedom is, freedom to be
ourselves. Opposed to what many people may think, freedom is not just being able to do
what you want. Everyone has free-will which means we are free to choose but how many
people are actually free to make the choices to achieve their full potential? Living with
an angry father that worked nights and slept all day was like prison. Whenever my father
was awake my siblings and I would walk around with our hands by our side, our heads
down, and not say a word. There was no use for reason because he was always right and everybody else was wrong. The slightest thing could send him into an outrage that
included a wave of punches and kicks followed by a wave of cruel insults. This certainly
wasn’t an environment that encouraged freedom of expression or even freedom of
thought, ultimately crippling our growth. A single thought of worry, laziness, lack of
confidence, pride, high expectations, anger, hatred, even a lie can place a barrier on an
open mind effecting the choices we make. A man who grew up without a father in the
midst of making a family can stumble across the worldly notion that men are supposed to
be strictly providers. He’s told that showing emotion is a sign of weakness and if he
wants his kids to survive in this harsh world he’s going to have to set an example and
teach his kids how to be tough just like him. If he decides to take this to heart
disregarding his own feelings he’s actually replacing a part of himself with a standard
that is telling him who to be. This sounds very similar to how a school standard may
cause a student to be anxious, afraid, or pressured to make the grade instead of being
eager to learn the skill. Anything that suppresses an individuals authenticity is an attack
on thier freedom and compromises their integrity. Racism, discrimination, prejudice,
even all the wars of the world are the product of a hardened heart and/or a blind mind’s
eye.
Living in a world that tries everything possible to get us to be anyone else all we
can really do is be ourselves. With our tremendous capacities for good and evil staring us
in the face, we need to realize that evil prevails when we let ourselves be convinced that
each and every single good deed is not making a significant difference. Anybody that has
ever experienced heartache knows that the people closest to us hurt us the most so what
are we supposed to think about everyone else? Why would you endure suffering when there doesn’t seem to be anything positive coming from it? Looking back at the life of
Jesus, he knew that his life helped many but he also knew that his death by crucifixion
could potentially help everyone. Fear of death, fear of pain and torture, not even a
genuine plea from anyone could convince him otherwise. He placed himself below
everyone proving that unconditional love encourages authentic expression through
freedom of an open mind in search for goodness and truth. He never pressured anyone to
believe his teachings, he simply encourages everyone to listen and test the truth because
the truth will always reprove itself. He challenges everyone to love and endure even our
enemies allowing everything to bring out the best in us, not the worst. Underneath the
worst possible evil a human heart can conjure is the potential to do good, so no matter
who we are, where we are, what we have done, and/or what we have been through we
can truly face ourselves and say “It all starts here”.

I want to make a few things clear before I continue, first is that the first
chapter was an essay and my response to the question, ‘What is education?’ I intend to share my personal experience because I want to show you what has lead me to question God and his existence. I didn’t mention God directly because I believe to answer this
question honestly we must truly ask ourselves, ‘Is their a God?’, simply because this would change everything. Can you ask yourself that question honestly? The reason I ask is because, secondly, when it comes to God we enter the realm of the known and the
unknown, the seen and the unseen, and life and death. The subject of God is so
broad and so wondrous that when you think about God you can’t help but think big.
It’s so broad in fact that God is not understood and what we do understand is only what God has told us. To explain further, I can only imagine how many ways people would describe God so I want to make clear that when I mention God I am referring to a sole loving creator of all creation. If theirs a God who created all things then it’s easy to say
that he is at the center of all existence and is the only true source of life, love, peace,
wisdom, knowledge, and truth. That is why I wanted to make it clear that we all live in
a world of influence and possess the ability to choose. If God created man with the
ability to choose for ourselves then it only makes sense that God would hide himself in order to limit himself to being a source of influence. If God wanted to reveal his truth about
his loving intentions towards his creation then it should be obvious in his message.
Unfortunately that message is still only a message to be chosen or denied. The reason is
because he wants us to search for him and test his ways so we can see that doing things
our own way is the reason the world is in the condition it is today, so we can see that he
does know best, that he does love us, and is the almighty God. Now, I want to
take you back to when I saw the ‘Passion of the Christ’, after one of my friends asked me what I thought. Not really sure what to think I said, “I don’t know whether to be proud of what Jesus did, or whether to be angry at what they did to him.” Looking back, I can say that what I meant was that Jesus was clearly an example of the best of humanity while the
Pharisees and his torturers were examples of the worst. Why he would lay down his life for his enemies was one of the first questions I asked myself and it was because of something I did a lot as a child. I walked around with my heart on my sleeve, quick to trust, quick to turn the other cheek, and quick to give to even those who wished to do me harm. I would describe myself as a little boy who walked around with his heart in his hand
giving it to everyone who crossed his path. You can imagine how many ways that heart was treated, but above all of that, and even though it was painful at times, it showed who
really cared. In the same way but on a much greater scale, if you picture God as that little
boy, Jesus was the heart he gave to everyone revealing that humanity has rejected him and his ways.Thinking about what Jesus did and all the questions people have about God, I can imagine how many people let those questions or their observations convince them
that God isn’t real. How many people have encountered someone claiming to be a
Christian and saw something they didn’t like and instantly thought, ’Well, if that’s what a Christian is I want no part of it?’ I remember the first time I ever asked my father
about God, he screamed, “God?! If there was a God then why does he allow all of these bad things to happen? Theirs no God!” I learned real fast that trying to explain my
experience and my beliefs was extremely difficult to put into words. When I didn’t have the
answer I was met with a smile and a look that basically said, “You see, God isn’t
real!” I' ve heard people scoff at the bible, “Where did it come from? Did it just fall from the sky? No! It was written by men!” Yes, mere men, but men under the influence of the holy
spirit. The influence of God is the inspiration of the bible, the bible is the God’s
written word of salvation for all who believe in him, and Jesus is God’s written word lived
by pinnacle example. But…to save us from what? Well, when Christians call Jesus our
saviour it means that we believe that Jesus is the only person to have ever truly
conquered this world of influence. I know many people have a problem with the authority of
command in the bible. We are told to obey God’s commandments, to serve God’s will,
and to imitate Jesus. I know that people may think that if a billion people imitated
Jesus then you would get a billion Jesus’, but imitating someone who has conquered this
world of influence means we will actually be free from all oppression, suppression, and
corruption reaching the pinnacle of our individuality. If Jesus is our God given example
of the highest freedom then the Pharisees and his torturers are clearly an example of
that freedom’s opposition. The Bible’s creation story in the Garden of Eden
actually shed’s light on the witness of this opposition when the snake who symbolizes the Devil influenced Eve with a lie implying that if they did eat the apple from the tree
of knowledge of good and evil then they would become like God. When Adam and Eve were presented with the proposal, whether the Devil is personified or not, they truly
considered the disobedience to God and committed to it by eating the apple. Everything that Jesus symbolizes is exactly what God had given Adam and Eve but they choose to reject it. I can understand the criticism of this creation story being a real historical and
factual event but it is more important to realize that this story shows a critical fact about the human condition. In my weakness I have always felt like I had to explain why I ask myself these questions refusing to let just anything take place of the truth. My father at his worst and most esperate hour of need screamed, "Do you know that i've come this close to killing all of you! This close!" At the age of 10 that was something to hear but what i saw in my father's eyes wasn't a murderer. There wasn't much i could make of it then,but now i can say that what i saw was fear, rage, disappointment, and a desperate cry for help. I walked away went outside looked at the sky and said to myself, "There's something more to this world.", and nothings been ale to convince me otherwise ever since. So as i was introduced to Jesus I was already trying to follow his instructions to 'love thy neighbor' and to 'turn the ther cheek', but it was and still is not easy. Holding out my heart i would find myself getting thrown out under the bus because very simply people can be extremely cruel. Ask yourself, if I had an opportunity to take advantage of someone, to kick someone when their down, and/or point someone in the wrong direction, would I? When the bible refers to man as sinners it means that each and every one of us has made and will make decisions that will destroy ourselves, each other, and God's efforts to give us he best he has to offer. All of us are born with infinite possibilities but if we don't search, believe, and grasp he truth whe we hear it then the only other option is to accept a lie. Living in this world of meaurment we know that we know that society does a great job of convincing us that success, fame, money, and sex are really what's important. Our pride causes us to compare ourselves to each other so we place value on what we do and do not have instead of emphasizing on quality of life. Praying has always been difficult for me because after living with my father calling me worthless for 20 years i didn't hear a loving God i heard my father. I struggled with the doubt and the unbelief towards God's unconditional love and became extremely guilty due to my failed efforts to imitate Jesus. Instead of trusting him I was convinced to doubt myself and what i had to offer so I became paralyzed, confused, and scared because i wanted to believe but couldn't. I was stuck comparing myself to the man God intends me to be instead of letting him love me as i am right now and accepting what he wanted to give me. Alot of people have told me, "Matt, you need more confidence!", but i would always ask myself, "Confidence grounded in what?" Living under my parents roof always made them feel like the can tell me what to believe but i have been looked down on by too many people with a false sense of confidence to make the same mistake and build my life on such a fragile foundation. I was always amazed at how people look at you like a fool when you mention God, with such confidence and conviction they laugh. People always told me that i was living in a dream world and that i needed a dose of reality but my experiences were always there to look back on. I would get so angry because these people laugh at something i believe can not only help the people i care about but every single person on this planet. A message that says all the weaknesses the world makes you feel worthless for having is exactly what God intends to use to give us a more abundant life. A message that commands us to love and laugh because we are the only people who can let our joy be taken from us. A message that's worth fighting for.

Thank You for posting your testimony. It is a blessing to read. I'm glad God has revealed himself and kept you through the experience you describe.
The world may laugh but at the same time it holds truths that aren't true. The absence of God is not a better existence. The very rocks cry out. Witness Africa and China and America. As God is more and more pushed out, all we come to understand is we need him more and more.

Thanks again for posting. It was a very encouraging read.


God Bless


tt1106

Thanks for posting this Stranzua! You're right in that not only do we have a corrupt nature, but have to contend with a world system that cruelly defines us, demeans and exploits us all in various ways till the light of truth falls on us, we learn to walk in obedience, then begin the step out into the freedom that's there. You've given a nice account for the hope that's within you, so to speak, and you have a light shining in the darkness. I pray that light will shine on those around you, and God will bless this.:pray:

Hi Matt,

Your testimony brought tears to my eyes, and I feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to read it. My heart-ached for you as I read what you and your siblings had to go through as children. I am thankful that we serve such a Mighty God who can heal the deepest of wounds which have bled through time. A Savior who can take all the scars and collected memories of abuse, and turn it around for our good and for His glory.

Thank you for sharing. :hug: