Tap Dancing the Orthodox Way

tap-shoes1When I first came to Boston several decades ago, I was a newly minted college grad sent on a mission to enlighten the world with my presumed wisdom. In fact, one of the ways I hoped to make my living teaching others with something I thought I knew well was through tap dancing. Growing up in a podunk town in the Midwest, I nevertheless somehow managed to receive instruction in the modern art and rose to a level I felt was proficient enough to make me a teacher. Do not presume to be teachers, my brethren, for the man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. Continue reading →

The Word on the White Board

From foreverdigital on flickr.com

“Mr. Friar, what does paradox mean?” In my many years of teaching, I have fielded a variety of questions from students with a relative thirst for knowledge. Some ask with a genuine desire to know; others out of an attempt to trick the teacher into an interesting but irrelevant tangent from the lesson at hand. But I sensed that today’s query into the meaning of a difficult theological word was coming from a need deeper than idle curiosity or a mere thirst to know. And as the day progressed and my second assignment as a 5th grade substitute for a local Catholic elementary school concluded, the need of this particular student for meaning was revealed. Continue reading →