Did I Suck As A Teacher?

Good morning…

This Monday was different. I was asked to teach a three-part series on the Enneagram for the St. Clare’s Guild of women at the Cathedral of St. Philips in February, March, and April. Monday was our first class, so I put the unfamiliar church address in Waze to gather with an unknown number of mostly unfamiliar people.

I was out of my comfort zone. I usually teach small groups of about fifteen women, women I get to know really well. I usually teach in the comfort of our own home, with yummy smelling candles, comfy couches, and lots of cozy blankets. I usually teach from a Spirit-inspired book we read together, discussing chapter by chapter, week by week, for a whole semester. Teaching in this intimate, weekly way is totally my jam. Unfamiliar church. Unknown number of women. Mostly unfamiliar people. This is not my jam.

But, I have taught the Enneagram several times before ….and… the book we are reading in our weekly at-home groups is Marilyn Vancil’s Self to Lose, Self to Gain: Using the Enneagram to Uncover Your True God-gifted Self …and… I had just come off an Enneagram training weekend at Ignatius House Retreat Center …and… I had spent hours preparing my heart and a packet of colorful information for each participant …so… I thought, “God, You and I can do this thing,” as I pulled up to the Cathedral in the driving rain.

I greeted the women as they arrived, a few old friends but mostly new. Snacks were yummy and red wine was a treat. But very quickly, God changed things up. At the last minute, the Spirit spurred me to grab from my car a bag of beads left over from crafting with inner city kids and nine large spools of different colored tulle I had just found at Goodwill. We placed these items in the center of the circle of about thirty chairs. After our beginning prayer, each person picked a bead from a handwoven bowl and, passing around the spools of tulle with scissors, we followed my on-the-spot, nebulous instruction, “Take as much as you need.”

The bead was to represent the seed of our True Self. The layers of colorful tulle symbolized the self-made layers we put on to protect ourselves from the dangers of our wounding world. Then I read this wisdom from Self to Lose, Self to Find.

“As a seed forms from the mother plant, an outer coat grows around the tiny embryo to cover it until it germinates… This covering is called a seed coat… In favorable conditions – like fertile soil, enough water, and the right temperature – the outer seed coat will soften, open up, and make room for a sprout to emerge and grow into a plant. The seed coat serves the important role of protecting the seed so it will survive and have a chance to be fruitful. However, it is not the real seed. It will fall away when it’s no longer needed and will turn into compost that provides nutrients for the growing plant… Applying this illustration to our lives, the seed coat represents the strategies we adopt early in our childhood to protect our tender hearts… This ‘seed coat’ becomes the false self, the Adapted Self… it is not the God-created self… it’s what we need to shed in order for our Authentic Self to emerge.” (14)

Taking our seed bead and our layers of tulle, we each made a one-of-a-kind creation. Then we broke up into groups of two or three and introduced ourselves, explaining how we each relate to the concept of the “seed coat” and “our unique seed of God,” the false self and the true self, the Adapted Self and the Authentic Self. This began God’s fresh teaching on the Enneagram.