Picture This: My Spirituality Part III

Every teacher carries a number of tools in his or her toolbox for helping students to learn their curriculum. One of my favorite is the "Gallery Walk." 

According to Starting Point, a "Gallery Walk is a discussion technique that gets students out of their chairs and into a mode of active engagement. The advantage of the method is its flexibility and the variety of benefits for students and instructor alike. A Gallery Walk with pieces of paper on tables, or with posted chart paper. It can be scheduled for fifteen minutes (a "Gallery Run") or for several class periods. For students it's a chance to share thoughts in a more intimate, supportive setting rather than a larger, anonymous class. For instructors, it's a chance to gauge the depth of student understanding of particular concepts and to challenge misconceptions."

For me, it's a unique, interesting and relevant way for students to discuss the relationship between Sports and Spirituality. I use the images that my seniors have chosen in their final project. I do not require that they include an athletic endeavor, though many do. 

As an introductory exercise for a new class (which began in January), I had them take a Gallery Walk through the photos you will see below. Take your own walk through them; I have included quotes that from class readings, articles, discussions and more to illuminate the relationship between  Sports and Spirituality. 

How do you picture your spirituality? What image might you choose? Would it be captured in an athletic endeavor? Might you find it at a game? on the golf course?! Enjoy.
Former depictions!
Picture This: My Spirituality Part II
Picture This: My Spirituality Part I

Too often in our culture, we are asked to separate the physical, the mental and the spiritual—as if our bodies and consciousness could be artificially split into pieces. —Dr. Michael Tino

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. —Apostle's Creed

On the seventh day God completed the work he had been doing; he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation….so God could play golf! —Genesis 2:2-3

Harmony, balance, and rhythm. They’re the three things that stay with you your whole life. Without them civilization is out of whack. And that’s why an oarsman, when he goes out in life, he can fight it, he can handle life. That’s what he gets from rowing. ― Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

Spirituality is living with the tensions of your beliefs. —Larry Gillick, SJ

Most high school athletes today have weight lifting as an important component of their training.
Those who lift know the importance of tension; the muscle ought to be broken down to be strengthened.
Joe's spirituality is captured in these two photos from the SI weight room

What a Christian theology of spirituality means is that our relationship with God is as certain as our need for air.  —Tim Muldoon

Sport expresses this energy through the athletes and the fans who support the teams. The games and competitions showcase some of the most powerful and artful ways in which gifted human beings can use and experience this energy. In sport, athletes can experience the manifestation of the Creator’s energy most powerfully and intelligently by showing how they can overcome other players who share the same capacity.
—Martin Siegel

Coach Steve Kerr has four tenets which he models his coaching around.
Here are four agreements a student found to be important.

We are SI. The 2016 Bruce Mahoney Game

The Good, The Bad and The Catholic....

My friend Matt posted on my wall what at first glance appears to be an innocuous yet provocative question. In my posting "Senior Privilege, It's All Mine," I made the claim that “the greatest senior privilege at the Prep isn’t one they (seniors) are privy to—it’s mine, for I get to teach them.” His response: The question is - as time passes do you remember the bad students or the good students more? I hope my answer is obvious—I remember the good ones. What might not be however is that my response is also unequivocally Catholic.

I would be lying if I told you I forget the bad students. A fair number have crawled under my skin—their arguments and attitudes have left my mind racing at night. I question their motives and worry about their futures. Yet, I also believe if at least one student isn’t giving me a run for the money then something is wrong. “The nature of the teen” is to challenge authority and push the limits. When true signs of adolescent behavior are remiss, I begin to wonder what’s in the Kool-Aid. To some degree, I want them to question what’s in it, even if it’s with an eye roll or after a deadline.

That being said, I remember and cherish the good students. I am sure parents thank God for that one son or daughter who gives them a whole lot less grief than the others. I’ve been teaching for 10 years now and can say with confidence how much I appreciate good kids. These students manifest and verify, LeBron James’ Nike campaign: “We are all witnesses.” Virtue speaks for itself. The impact that one person can make is not to be underestimated. Class discussions could have taken a different and dark direction without their input or positive presence.

The winter edition of Genesis, the alumni magazine of St. Ignatius College Prep includes an article I wrote about one such example. Tommy Kilgore, “TK” was enrolled in my yearlong course, Foundations of Ethics: Morality and Justice. One of my proudest moments was when he won prestigious Fox Award. This honors the student, "who has displayed mastery of subject matter, contributed to the growth of faith in their classmates, and has shown by their actions that the subject matter has gone beyond understanding to heart."

Tommy continually made connections between literature, American history, and our curriculum. I don’t know that he was overtly religious and yet, I cannot tell you how many world events I learned about through his petitionary prayer. Students lead prayer and ask for intentions. TK would pray “for the victims of the earthquake in Pakistan,” I would listen and think to myself, I didn’t know there was an earthquake in Pakistan. Or he would pray for the success of the penny wars—a student-driven fundraiser. It’s not often that a 17-year old male who was a member of the 1000 lb. club (bench, squat and deadlift) is calling to his peers to prayer in this way.

As the article, The Legacy of the J.B. Murphy Award, 3000 Miles From Home (page 37) affirms, at linebacker Tommy earned the SI football team’s highest award. The defensive line coach of the football team tells one of my favorite stories about Tommy. Coach Frechette, the very definition and visual representation of “alpha male” had to tell TK not to hit so hard in practice. He actually needed him to save that energy and strength for game day; beating up on your own teammates is problematic. This is a rare problem coaches have.

Tommy isn’t the only good student I remember, far from it. But his goodness extended so far that I know for a fact it neutralized some challenging interactions I had with one particularly “bad” student. No wonder we say certain folks are “salt of the earth.” Their goodness, more than likely, does the same.

And recognizing the goodness in all people is a characteristic of being Catholic. Thomas Groome writes Catholicism insists that the human person is essentially good, ever more graced than sinful. Oh indeed, we are capable of dreadful sin and destruction, but this is not what first defines us. God has implanted a "natural law" within our hearts that enables people to know and choose what is good, a capacity enhanced by Jesus' dying and rising for us. And though we always need God's help, grace empowers us and we are responsible to live for the kingdom, to do God's will "on earth as it is in heaven."

The positive understanding of the person affirms “that all people reflect the image and likeness of God is also the basis of Catholic teachings on the dignity of every person.” Believe you me, there are some students that challenge me to see and believe this but with enough time and grace, I have found their goodness is eventually revealed. It may take the help of the great ones like Tommy Kilgore or a lot of petitionary prayers, but as scripture says, “seek and ye shall find.”

Thank you, TK and countless others who over the year have made the classroom sacred space, holy ground for every one of us—the good, the bad and the ugly…and Catholic.

Photo Credits
Brett Cde Baca, Gabe Manzanares & Tommy Kilgore (thanks to Darren Cde Baca)
We Are All Witnesses
Coach Frechette: School Lineback (thanks to Naj)
One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic