A Lill Perspective

Since moving to Saskatchewan over a year and a half ago, I’ve been confronted with Christianity more than I have in a long time, maybe even ever.

Growing up, contrary to what maybe a lot of other people experienced, I had a wonderful religious upbringing (if you can call it that). I grew up as an Anglican that attended a really wonderful parish, and I was probably the only 7 year old that asked my parents if I could go to church, which they happily obliged to probably equally surprised that they didn’t have to force me. They didn’t even really go with me, mostly they just dropped me off and picked me up when church was finished, and I usually had a great time. I didn’t know it then, but the Anglican church in Nova Scotia, and maybe more specifically my parish, seemed to be pretty progressive in the 1990’s. I had fantastic women  role models and they played a huge role in my church (my minister went on to become the current Bishop), I never heard anyone speaking badly, or asking me to think badly about same sex relationships, and people were kind and generous. The people I saw on Sunday were warm people that genuinely made church a great place to go to. Sure, I’m sure there was politics going on that I wasn’t aware of, but even as I got older, and even now, it’s a place I feel like I could go back to with open arms waiting for me. It was not a hell fearing, God punishing church  guilting  people into giving a percentage of their wage and donating it to the church. In fact I didn’t know those kinds of churches existed until a friend of mine took me to her church when I was in my early teens, and I knew that I felt uncomfortable even at that age, something didn’t sit right with me. While I never really talked about homosexuality with my parents or parish, I just knew in the back of my mind that it was something to accept in other people, it didn’t even occur to me until I sat in that church that people could feel otherwise. I always knew there was differences between denominations, but it really wasn’t until then that I really began to understand how deep those differences could be.

Anyways, I digress, I had a positive religious upbringing where I didn’t feel like beliefs were forced upon me, nor did I feel like my beliefs were preachy or pushed upon others. I was probably most heavily involved in church related activities when I was in my teens. I attended a Liberal Arts Roman Catholic University that I loved (although I didn’t choose it because of its’ religious affiliation), and ironically, during that time, I became less religiously involved. Not because of any reason really, except that I got busy, I moved to New Brunswick and the Anglican church there is surprisingly different, and I never had much interest, so I just stopped being involved. Over the years, my feelings towards religion has changed, but it was never because of my direct experiences with it, in fact I still find a lot of solace just by sitting in a church pew, I’m still awestruck by the beauty of churches, even if I feel conflicted about them.

But this post isn’t about my religious beliefs. It’s about Saskatchewan.

I first came into contact with Public Catholic School Boards when I moved to Ontario to obtain my teaching degree. I don’t know if this is surprising or not, especially now living more and more west than where I initially came from, but the Maritimes don’t have a Public Catholic School Board. In fact when I first heard they existed I was…surprised, and really uncomfortable with the idea. In fact school and religion were very separate all throughout my public school years in Nova Scotia, and in hindsight I think that’s extremely important. However, I’m wondering now, what happened in the Maritimes to separate church and state that didn’t happen in other provinces?

Anyways, when I was checking off the boxes of where I wanted to teach in Ontario the options were

-Public

-Private

-Catholic

For personal and ideological reasons I only chose Public, and it’s not something I gave much more thought to. Many other teachers that I went to school with in Ontario spoke very highly about the Catholic School System, and I believe them, I believe they had wonderful experiences with wonderful educators and that they could readily defend them. When I moved to Saskatchewan, I once again discovered that  Public Catholic Schools were alive and present, and again I made a conscious decision not to teach there. But you can’t get away from Christianity here. Not that I’m trying to “get away from it”, but it’s never been so blatantly apart of my everyday life as it has been here, it seems to be everywhere I go. What’s also strange about Saskatchewan is the people that have brought up Christianity with me have done it in a very passive and friendly way in the assumption that I too shared in their beliefs, and that it was just common knowledge that most people felt that way. It was never hit me over the head, preachy, but it did catch me off guard because most conversations I have ever walked into was always under the assumption that people may and probably do believe in very different things than I do, and that it’s not always a good idea to bring up religion (or politics for that matter) with people you’re meeting for the first time because it may not end well.

Religiously speaking, negative conversations hasn’t happened to me yet here in Saskatchewan, but I do feel infiltrated with a lot of talk about Jesus and the daily role he plays in my life. Now, obviously you can take or leave it, but the awkwardness really comes into play when you’re working with children.

Kids are amazing and really fun to work with. I have the privilege of  tutoring kids during the evening, and I teach anywhere from 1-3 kids per hour and sometimes we get into some really insightful and lovely conversations. Many kids here are taught to love Jesus a lot, and they do, and Jesus would blush at all the great things that are said about him at my table. Even if they’re not in the Catholic School System, they’re still most likely talking about Jesus a lot at home, and while I think that’s great, it can make for some intense conversations at my table. Parents pay a lot for their kids to come spend an hour with me, ideally, you would want your child to return to you telling you about all the great writing they did, or how to write a nice paragraph, or tell me the definition of  word I made them look up. Hopefully, that’s what is being said, but on some occasions I worry. I’m an English teacher, and my job is to teach your child lessons about how to express themselves and learn about the world around them, somewhere in there, I may also talk to them about how to be a good and kind person to others, how to be more responsible, and how they should develop a love for reading. Something I didn’t think I’d be talking about is how much Jesus loves our table, and the things he has and is going to do for our world. One quote I heard that pretty much broke my heart because it was so touching was”

“My mom told me that God doesn’t make mistakes. That God created us all to be different so that we could love each other and learn to accept each other. So people with Special Needs are perfect just the way they are, and we should love and accept them”.

Whoa. I mean, that’s some heavy stuff from a seven year old. Also, I’m a huge sap for inclusion, and religious or not, I’m obviously in huge support of accepting everyone, and I love it when kids tell me that stuff early on, it makes me hopeful for the future they’ll be living in. However, I also want to be an honest person, and something that’s really awkward to tell a child with shining eyes, looking up at you, telling you about their love for Jesus, is that not everyone believes in this same great guy that they do.

I mean I only have an hour to cover a lot of stuff, and the belief or non belief in Christianity is not one of them, but I also want kids to be able to have an open dialogue with me and to slowly learn about the world.

Last week on Thursday night the day before Good Friday, one of my students and I were gushing about how great “The Half Blood Prince” was when suddenly he asked:

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Sleeping in, like, yeah, sleeping in like it’s my job”

“Are you going to eat meat?”

“Well..um, I don’t know, but, yes, probably”

“But it’s Good Friday, people aren’t supposed to eat meat”

Ummmmm. So yeah, just like that. Religion snuck up on me again. I gently told him that different families have different ways of experiencing Good Friday and that not everyone even celebrates it (although celebrate seems like an awful word to use to describe Good Friday). Anyways, we’re chatting, and things are going well until another student at my table asks:

“So when is the second coming of Christ exactly?”

Whoa.           Whoa.            Whoa.

I mean I had to laugh (internally of course), this conversation was getting way more intense than I could have ever imagined, but there he was looking at me expectantly, and although I was flattered that he would think I personally would know the answer, the only thing I could answer was:

“I really don’t know”.

That answer, surprisingly, seemed to satisfy him, and the other student I was previously was talking to, and they resumed working. I then breathe a huge sigh of relief that I have dodged another bullet and wonder how much longer before I get hit. My biggest fear is that one of these kids will go back to their parents telling them about our conversation and something like this will be said:

“So, Lill says that the second coming of Christ is not going to happen”

or

“So, Lill thinks people should eat meat on Good Friday”

Now, neither of these things I have ever said, nor would I say, but it’s easy to see how those things could be misconstrued. Now imagine that I taught in a Catholic School and had to teach Christian Ethics (which I didn’t even know existed until recently) and had to give students answers on things like The Afterlife, punishment for sins, and I can’t even think of what else. It’s enough to make me need to breathe into a paper bag.

These conversations are mostly with elementary aged school children, and when (it’s a lot less frequent) it happens with my High School students, the conversations are less of a statement and more of a discussion. Obviously, I’m sure there are other teachers in other places besides Saskatchewan grappling with the same issues that I am, and I’d be curious to their approaches, but here I am, struggling with religion and education even though I’ve done my darnedest to avoid it.

Apparently I can’t, and in the meantime, I’m learning some pretty amazing conversational redirecting techniques that I think will serve me well in other aspects of my life. Lord knows I’ll need it.