Only two years ago, I wrote my most energetic piece on this blog. It began with a summary of the summer, and concluded with the anticipation and arrival of my seminary education. I will not rehash the whole post (It was written Sept. 2012 titled "My Soul Sings") but I hope that you can take the time to read where I was then, before you go further in to this post. The anticipation I had then has since grown into thankfulness in most every way save for the ability knowledge can lend to the birth of half true fictions I write in my own mind.
I began this final year with a raggedness. The summer was full of classes both as a student and a teacher. Thanks to friends who know how to do road trips and come out to see their cooped up monk I can say that I did not lose my summer to unmemorable classroom landscapes. The difficulty was not the work nor the learning. The raggedness came from the whole point of this education. Before beginning this formal degree I had already learned the importance of identifying and assessing intentions and the formation of deepening habits. Education is most definitely not benign. To go with this I have recently been reminded that knowledge is sociologically held (meaning groups of people determine their character through shared habits). Language, verbally and kinetically communicate the depth and nature of our shared knowledge. I blog, because the agreement indirectly stated by my generation is that this medium is maybe the best way to share insights without too much academic distance (I'm not good at this). The group of a local church has its own habits and implied agreements about knowledge. My raggedness comes from the realization that the group I have been working within is not the same group I had perceived it to be.
The group asks that any who desire to lead it be knowledgable. Any good group will strive to have its teachers actually knowledgable. The danger in this is that the teacher will interact with knowledge beyond the group's dogma, agreed tenets of orthodox knowledge that we use to maintain the group. I will try to be less vague. I do not limit my reading to the local group's shelves. Actually, I have read very little of the group's shelves, because most of it is just a sad reiteration of an idea that was stated more boldly centuries earlier. So, off I went weekly to march off to the fountains of knowledge not realizing that as I was marching I was leaving the domain of my small group. Curiosity, the energy behind academic and faithful research, is a gift given to the few who dare to ask questions. Curiosity is the first habit learned as one embarks on education. If you are not curious you will settle at the first nice worldview you come about on any given topic.
Imagine it this way. Three people are at the Grand Canyon. The first comes to the rim and says "Wow! I will build my ranch here" (I have to admit I would love to have a ranch on the rim...) This one immediately begins work on his building and incorporates that first view he had into the design of his home. He will always "have" this view. The second man sees the same view and decides to investigate a little more, I mean that first guy is already building and frankly he was kind of annoying with his sureness. So this second man spends a few months exploring the immediate region. He makes and breaks camp occasionally and at the end has a short list of great spots. He picks one to build on, but will still visit the old campsites for weekends and even use the opportunity to teach others how to explore productively. Finally, there is the third man. He's young like the others and just as amazed by the view as the others. His amazement impresses the image of the canyon deep into his mind. He never forgets that first view, and it is from this memory that his curiosity propels him to go down, around, up, out, and maybe beyond the canyon. He's "irresponsible" for never setting himself to the practical issues at hand, seriously who can tolerate a life of unsettledness. Look at this third one, he does not even think of build a house let alone make much of a camp! He's too curios to spend much time seeing to his own preferences. He strikes out into a wild canyon. He spends his time trying to scramble up rocks just to get another view. He gets lost. The other two see no purpose to his wandering, they say he is aimless and eventually, if he does not die out there, he'll be back thankful they had built these sturdy homes.
I am going to come back to this story.
The education we pursue is not solely to our own benefit. No education worth the pain and investment is just a checklist we need to fulfill in order to get a job. Curiosity is not invested in asking the question "Is this practical?" It is much too busy asking "What the heck is that?!" and "Does it fit with this other thing I have seen?!"
Coming near the end of my time in seminary I realize that my learning is again beginning. A chapter may again be completed, but the story continues as long as we welcome the opportunity to ask questions with boldness.
Back to the story, admitting I have lived as all three men.
Years pass and the first two men stay in touch. They do not know what has become of the third man. We know that he has been all over the place. He had more than his fair share of encounters with rattlesnakes, and mountain goats. He wears the tooth of a mountain lion he nearly lost to. His boots are long forgotten, and blueness of his shirt has faded to a grey streakiness. His stories of the canyon are many. He knowns how smell moves in the wind and uses this to advantage. He had nearly died a few times. He swam in the river below and even saw the life cycle of fish down there. He wears the canyon dust all over. For the memory of his friends he is moved to go back to them. He goes back to that first spot on the rim, scrambling up heedless of the now well tramped trail made by others. He comes to the unfamiliar clearing and sees his two companions eating lunch together and laughing about something. He hails them and they don't recognize him. Who is this that smells and wears rags? What's that around that neck. He must be....oh that's him. Wow he's changed. Meanwhile our wanderer realizes he's changed in the eyes of his friend. The question is now they recognize him will they welcome him to their table? Time in the canyon is not benign.
On a personal level I am beginning to understand this outline to be a bit of my story. I am coming closer to a settled place and I do not exactly fit in. This was the place that sent me out with the promise of reception after I decided to come back in. I cannot complete this story at the moment, because I'm not sure if my dusty self is welcome in the cleanness of my companions' settlement. Frankly I begin to wonder if I even want to be there, because the welcome was not as I expected. It's awkward these days. I hate triumphal speech these days. It seems to only drive me closer to a sense of defeat. Go ahead an wave your banners I do not want to be there to see them. I'd rather go back down into the canyons among the pine groves and raging rivers of a history you've left unexplored, untried, and untold.
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