gat

The second characteristic of Christ’s discipline was commitment. Following Jesus wasn’t easy.
You had to drop everything else and there was no chance of getting rich. You had to love what
you were doing; only love could induce you to walk across deserts, sleep in the wilderness, hang
out with shady characters, and suffer scorn from all the established folks.
The third characteristic of Christ’s model of discipleship was self-awareness and independence.
Christ’s disciples weren’t stooges. They had to think for themselves and draw their own
conclusions from the shared experience. Christ didn’t give many lectures or handouts. He mostly
taught by his own practice, and through parables open to interpretation. Orin, my coach,
personally doubts Christ ever intended to start an institutional religion because institutions
invariably corrupt ideas unless kept small. They regiment thinking and tend toward military forms
of discipline. I don’t think he’s right about Christ’s intention, but it’s hard to disagree about
institutional pathology.
Finally, Christ’s model of discipline requires a master to follow—one who has himself or herself
submitted to discipline and still practices it. The way Orin puts it is this: Christ didn’t say, "You
guys stay here in the desert and fast for a month. I’ll be over at the Ramada. You can find me in
the bar if you need help." He didn’t begin his own public life until he was almost a rabbi, one fully
versed in his tradition.
One way out of the fix we’re in with schools would be a return to discipleship in education.
During early adolescence, students without a clear sense of calling might have a series of
apprenticeships and mentorships which mostly involve self-education. Our students have pressing
needs to be alone with themselves, wrestling against obstacles, both internal demons and external
barricades to self-direction.
As it is, we currently drown students in low-level busy work, shoving them together in forced
associations which teach them to hate other people, not love them. We subject them to the
filthiest, most pornographic regimens of constant surveillance and ranking so they never
experience the solitude and reflection necessary to become a whole man or woman. You are
perfectly at liberty to believe these foolish practices evolved accidentally or through bad
judgment, and I will defend your right to believe that right up to the minute the men with nets
come to take you away.
1 The occasion was a Spirituality in Education conference at the Naropa Institute, Boulder, Colorado, in 1997. The
gathering, at which I was asked to speak, was non-sectarian.
2 The reader is expressly cautioned not to infer that I mean to imply Buddhism is either hedonistic or with- out
moral foundation.
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