{"id":300,"date":"2012-01-10T03:49:34","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T03:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/?p=300"},"modified":"2011-12-28T18:53:49","modified_gmt":"2011-12-28T18:53:49","slug":"be-afraid-be-very-afraid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/01\/be-afraid-be-very-afraid.html","title":{"rendered":"Be Afraid&#8230;Be Very Afraid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/files\/2011\/12\/paddle.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-301\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/295\/2011\/12\/paddle-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>John Steele was my first principal. Broad-shouldered and tall, he was the kind of man you might see in football pads on Sunday afternoon, not one walking the hallways of an elementary school. To go with his massive frame, he had a thunderous voice and a tight little Zorro-style moustache. Long, curly black locks flowing down his back completed the intimidating package. Every day on bus duty, standing there on the sidewalk, he looked out across his world like some kind of god straddling Mount Olympus, ready to call down fire from heaven. And to a tiny first grader, he might as well have been a god, because holy smokes could he bring the fire.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">See, it was rumored, though never truly confirmed nor contradicted, that John Steele possessed in his office an electric paddle. The story goes that he plugged it into the wall, let it warm up, and then summarily attached it to the seat of your britches. We all knew there was some kind of hellacious torture device behind his office door. What else could squeeze tears and wails from the eyes and mouths of the school\u2019s most wayward little boys? But no one spoke openly about the matter. Sort of like those living in Harry Potter\u2019s world afraid to say the name of Lord Voldemort, John Steele\u2019s paddle was the instrument of punishment too terrifying to be named.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">John Steele fit my elementary image and idea of God. In my imagination God was a tall, dark brooding figure with a deep baritone voice. Twisting the end of his moustache with one hand and twirling his paddle with the other, he watched over his world like an aloof school master on playground duty. Don\u2019t play too long or too rough. It\u2019s sure to draw his irritated attention. Don\u2019t break the rules. He\u2019s liable to break his paddle over your backside. And certainly don\u2019t enjoy yourself or appear too happy. A smile on your face will be grounds enough for being dragged away for a beating.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Honestly, I don\u2019t know who manufactured this idea of God and planted it in my mind. My parents, my own fears, my pastor\u2019s sermons: I suppose all of these conspired together to give God this image. It\u2019s taken me most of my adult life to shake it off. But now, I no longer believe that God is a bully. I don\u2019t believe God is irrepressibly angry. I don\u2019t think God is peering out of heaven waiting to thump us on the head with a big stick. I used to think this way, and worse, but not anymore. The infuriated-mad-as-hell-and-I\u2019m-not-going-to-take-it-anymore God of my childhood just doesn\u2019t match up with the God revealed to us in Jesus the Christ. Here was a man who, yes, could feel the passion and fire of anger.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">But he never directed this anger at \u201csinners.\u201d No, his ire was reserved, ironically enough, for the arrogance of the clergy, the church crowd, and the religious. This God revealed to us in Jesus is a gracious, barrier-breaking, party-inviting, sin-forgiving lover of men and women. This God doesn\u2019t throw the unrighteous out on their ear. He invites them to the banquet table. This God doesn\u2019t lock the door on his broken, prodigal children. He restores their place and dignity in the family. This isn\u2019t a God clutching white-knuckled and angrily to a wooden paddle. This is a vulnerable God whose open hands were nailed to a wooden cross.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">My image of John Steele was wrong. In adulthood I have found him to be wonderfully normal. He has hobbies, friends, a wife and family (I even baptized his nephew \u2013 weird, huh?).\u00a0 And I discovered that he doesn\u2019t eat kindergarteners for breakfast, and his paddle was never electrified. Refreshingly, he is someone you would love to have over to watch the game with and have a beer. To get to know my once intimidating principal I only had to get past my fears and suspicions. All those times he watched over us in the hallways and the cafeteria and the playground, his intention was never to punish or harm us. Rather, he had our best interests at heart. He actually loved \u2013 and still loves \u2013 the children under his care. In the end that\u2019s not so hard to believe about principals or about God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Steele was my first principal. Broad-shouldered and tall, he was the kind of man you might see in football pads on Sunday afternoon, not one walking the hallways of an elementary school. To go with his massive frame, he had a thunderous voice and a tight little Zorro-style moustache. Long, curly black locks flowing&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":441,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,15,12],"tags":[54,55,53,56],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fearanxiety","category-god","category-grace","tag-fear","tag-paddle","tag-principals","tag-school"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Be Afraid...Be Very Afraid - Leaving Salem<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2012\/01\/be-afraid-be-very-afraid.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Be Afraid...Be Very Afraid - Leaving Salem\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Steele was my first principal. Broad-shouldered and tall, he was the kind of man you might see in football pads on Sunday afternoon, not one walking the hallways of an elementary school. To go with his massive frame, he had a thunderous voice and a tight little Zorro-style moustache. 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