It is a newer expression, “Read the room.” It suggests that a person should have the sense of where others are emotionally and intellectually, how they view what is said and seen, and more critically, whether they agree or are inclined to wrestle with your words and actions and very presence, to be annoyed or even angered.

Reading the room when I’m not in the room isn’t a skill I often possess. I misunderstand or fail to appreciate the inclination of my audience. However did I manage a classroom? Zoom didn’t exist. Determination to do right, to accept that my understanding, experience, and knowledge might be shared.

In 1976, in my last undergraduate term, I would be student-teaching. I asked Hazel Koenig for a placement that would challenge my “classroom management skills” because I didn’t have any. I was sent to a troubled middle school and it was my great good fortune to work with an Art teacher, Lynn [or Lynne] Gray. On our first day, she told me I would be teaching all but one of her classes, beginning… the second day. I was thrown into the pool. I taught adolescents to make art, to appreciate and notice and trust. For a while Lynne came to each class to observe, and then she stayed away, trusting me to manage. I did. The projects in my classroom were individual and some were collective. Lynne and I even completed projects between my classes and her class of advanced students. We went on a field trip and sang in harmony. I can’t, now, call up how that all happened. I had students who were taller and heavier than I was, and I was very aware of this at the time. I had great faith in art, so perhaps my determination and enthusiasm were key elements to managing those students. I’d like to believe they left my classes having gained. Lynne was a good teacher, and I followed her lead, accepted her advice, did as she suggested. That much I recall.

The current direction of the “leader” of our nation suggests that he might have done well to learn to read the room while guiding a group of adolescents. His “charm” seems based on privilege and power, on a lifetime of assuming people will adore him, will want what he has. He has never been held accountable for his errors, has never learned humility or compassion, self doubt or any level of empathy. He has surrounded himself with sycophants, another concept that I learned late in life. He has lived with it all of his life, takes it for granted, and even now assumes this is only right a proper.

Early in life, by contrast, I found the concept of royalty, that notion that God ordains certain people with an elite status at birth, deeply offensive. It seemed unnatural, even immoral to me.

Some years ago while taking a year-long class on narrative in the Bible, I became deeply interested in translation. The organizers were determined not to discuss translation, and perhaps predictably, that became the most useful and powerful result for me. The scholars who spoke represented many denominations such as Anglican/Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist, but other than what I was raised in, Unitarianism, and Catholicism. We were privileged to hear from the great Jewish translator and academic, Robert Alter.

Through is class I achieved my great epiphany about God’s faithful servant Job in The Book of Job, the longest narrative in the modern Bible. I studied Job in my sophomore year of high school. Job has wife and many children, animals, and wealth. He is faithful to God and to his community, a good man in every way. God addresses evil [the Devil]: Observe my good servant Job. But the Devil responds, “Well, of course he’s devoted to you; look at all you have given him!” Promptly, God begins to remove Job’s fine life—kills his family and animals, removes his wealth. Job’s neighbors are horrified. They come to him. “What did you do?” they demand of Job. And Job has no answer beyond his constant plea, “I remain God’s faithful servant.” Job’s faith remains throughout these trials, which see him lose everything until finally, his health gone, covered in sores, and lying on an ash heap, Job dares question God about his misfortune. In all humility, he asks what he’s done wrong that he must suffer so? And a terrifying messenger appears to Job. How dare Job question when he cannot, can not ever grasp the truth of God’s purpose and will! Terrified but accepting, Job bows his head and remains as he was at the beginning, God’s faithful servant. God turns to the Devil, “There, you see!” He has proven his point and returns everything—family, animals, wealth are given to Job seven-fold for his constancy.

I would have been barely 15 years old when Darlene Sherrick assigned The Book of Job to my Honors Sophomore World History class. My response was outrage. God caused all this suffering to win a bet? The deity who is all-powerful and all-knowing had to prove to the Devil that he was right? All that pointless suffering when he knew all along he was right? I could not accept this. I would read books over the years, seeking justification for this absurdity. Kushner’s When Bad Things Happen to Good People did nothing to stem my fury about Job’s suffering. The injustice offended my morality and sense of justice.

And then, all at once and perhaps thanks to The New Jerusalem Bible, a translation that includes work by J.R.R. Tolkien, I understood the purpose of the story. It is metaphor, not literal tale. We underestimate the power of story when we assume the need for literal truth. At the time The Book of Job was created, there was widespread assumption that life success or failure was evidence of divine judgment. But no, The Book of Job makes clear that we cannot presume to judge based on such superficial evidence. It is not our place. It is not the Devil or God that must learn a lesson from Job’s suffering, it is the reader who must understand the lesson.

Do not presume to judge the worth of a person’s life based on worldly success or wealth, suffering or hardship. It is not our place. Neither is proof of God’s pleasure or displeasure.

Read the room.