Cracked Paint and Expectations

Could you imagine being on a roller coaster for three years? A roller coaster with sheer drops, sharp turns, breath-stealing speed and heart stopping...stops? Well, that would be seminary to me, for the last three years. And, as with most roller coasters, it was over before I knew it. With that being said, I thought that I'd document my few thoughts on it.

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Cracked Paint
My school - I have to admit - was not aesthetically captivating. The light was absent in some places, the steps were sometimes steeper than they should have been, in some places the paint had taken breaks and left the wall. No impressive carpets or towering statues, alcoves and niches, looming library shelves and still air filled with studious shuffles and rifling of books. Definitely not endless corridors and rooms, or great design, whether of the baroque or classical or modern variety.

That lack of visual sophistication was one of the first blows to my expectations. A crack in a wall was a crack in the ribs of my presumption - education should be beautiful, but not visually...or should it?

I feel like schools trade on outward beauty, on how they look and not always what they teach; they trade semblance for substance.

Knowing the Times (Not the Newspaper)
In our generation it might be true that the education systems are more and more geared to tell us what to think rather than how to think. A class on the practice of logic is much rarer than, say, a class on the relativity of logic. Where the practice of scientific method might have been taught, today we might be taught the triumph (or failure) of the method. In our time we are more likely to be told the truth the culture believes rather than the tools to find the truth.

Finding the truth is unacceptable (and presumptuous!) since everything is relative.
Nevertheless, the truth is that everything is relative.
Therein the idea of total relativity explodes.

In our time, then, we are more likely to be taught what to think than how to think.

Using Time Well
The beauty of the school I attended for my Masters was that their main aim was to make more Scripture-saturated people. And really, to be more precise, better readers. Not, mind you, to read certain conclusions, but at least to get to a conclusion. They did not want us to run toward their goals, but at least learn to run.

For me, the most important objective of my schooling in masters was, in large part, set by one event.

The principal in the first chapel service where he made a very incisive comment. It's still now in my memory as fresh as then, so I'll recount it:
"Sometimes you'll hear someone make a very thoughtful comment, something so insightful. Then you'll think, 'wow, I wonder what book they read' or 'I have to ask them which video they watched' when the reality is, they're probably with the Lord more than you are."

It really was about using the time well, and what constitutes well-spent time. In seminary - as in life - time is a commodity badly spent. 

Expectations

At school I realized that I had expectations - expectations of what schooling might look like, but I never anticipated that I would have aesthetic expectations. I suppose it's easy, living in the age of social media, to become enamoured (bound) to all things visuals. But, as Tolkien memorably said in Lord of the Rings (is any thought ever complete without such references?): 

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost."

So then, sometimes it's about correcting the odd and oddly present expectations that we find in ourselves, and to take each day as it comes. 

So take each day as they come, cracked and beaten, but beautiful nonetheless. 

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Hope that this was encouraging, or thought-provoking, or both!

Til the next time friends.