Fame, Fortune, and Reluctant Rock Stars

One of my Christmas gifts from my husband this year was a T-shirt that reads, “I became a teacher for the fame and fortune.”  Without a doubt, the weight of my celebrity is a great burden to bear.  Before the pandemic, people would stop me at the grocery store or dry cleaners clamoring for an autograph.  They’d interrupt my dinner out at a restaurant or accost me in a parking lot just to take a selfie with me.  Some would even camp out at my house hoping to catch a glimpse as I went outside to get the mail. 

It got to where I couldn’t even put gas in my car without someone shouting, “We love your proficiency-based formative assessments!” And forget going to the hair salon.   I got so tired of people interrupting my cut and color to tell me, “Your asynchronous criterion-referenced learning activities have rocked my world.”

Lockdown Lessons

Then came the pandemic lockdown, and my fan club grew even larger.  With schools shuttered and instruction exclusively virtual, many parents learned quickly that good teaching isn’t as easy as it might look.  High quality instruction is equal parts art and science, a fact that many parents learned the hard way as they tried to help little ones learn to recognize sight words and big ones solve differential equations. 

But as days of involuntary homeschooling turned into weeks and then months, it seemed that parents started drinking earlier and earlier each afternoon. And the harder it became for my colleagues and me to find any degree of anonymity among the ever-increasing throngs of worshipful admirers.  Oh, the stress that has caused.

And that’s just the “fame” part.  The “fortune” half of the equation may not be quite as stressful, but it’s far more taxing than I ever imagined.  No pun intended.  It takes a lot of time to continually search for new tax shelters and investment opportunities that are government-insured.  I’ve had to open so many new accounts at different financial institutions because the government will only back my wealth up to a mere $250,000 per account. This takes up way too much of my free time. 

As my t-shirt says, I became a teacher for the fame and fortune, but if I had it to do over again, I’m not sure I would have made the same career choice.  Most people don’t understand what a struggle it is to be so consistently adored and over-compensated.

Reluctant Rock Stars

Maybe that’s why I like this Sunday’s Gospel story so much.  A leper approaches Jesus and says, “If you wish, you can make me clean” (Mark 1: 40).  Jesus feels compassion for him and performs the healing miracle.  But oddly, Jesus swears the man to secrecy.  It’s like he’s almost afraid of his power, perhaps worried that his fame will get out of hand and make it hard for him to live a normal life.  Boy, can I ever relate!

Seriously though, I like thinking of Jesus as a reluctant rock star.  It humanizes him.  It demonstrates vulnerability.  Ironically, I think it’s precisely that vulnerability, that feeling of being exposed, of being open to the possibility of pain, that brings about the healing in this story and in life.  Jesus is described as feeling “pity” for the leper.  “Pity” here means “compassion” or “mercy.”  It means a deep, genuine caring without regard for reciprocation.  Nothing in life makes us more vulnerable than caring about another person.  Nothing opens us to the possibility of pain as love.  But as Jesus demonstrates, it’s in embracing our own vulnerability that we are able to heal – ourselves, each other, our world. 

Ashes and Vulnerability

Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent.  Traditionally, Christians of many stripes have ashes smudged on their foreheads as a minister says, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” What sounds like a colossal downer at first is really a very hopeful message.  To me, it means, “It’s okay to be human.  There’s no need to hide or defend.  Go ahead, embrace your vulnerability.”

Yes, I became a teacher for the fame and fortune.  And yes, I am wealthy beyond measure and revered by the masses.  But Jesus in his reluctant rock star role has taught me that it’s when I embrace my fragility that I become strong.  When I allow myself to be vulnerable, the healing begins.