Clues To Life – Education

Related to our life’s objectives is the understanding (interpretation) of education.  For this there are key words/concepts to consider: read, communicate, questions, answers, wisdom, growth, values, truth and applications.  We need to decide what kind of life-education to explore.  There are Christians (perhaps unofficial) who do not seek Christian education, or seeking it, do not commit to live by it.  There is hypocrisy possible in every context of life.  Living by truth is as important, as learning truth.  God holds us to what we know.  Violating truth invites banishment.  At the same time, we need to know there is humane hypocrisy.  In common grace it is possible to live well, follow God’s laws as they are found in nature for the good life.  If there were no God I am grateful that I have lived believing that there is.  As a young fellow in high school I was already into debilitating habits.  The Christian congregation to which I became attached was firm about habits/entertainments like drinking and smoking, entertainments like Hollywood films and most public stage shows, entertainments like dancing – all were frowned upon.  That pattern was helpful to me in life formation.  Had I continued in the direction I was going, I would certainly have reduced life quality.  The current acceptance by Christians of some former distractions seems odd to me, in that so many films of yesteryear were far less suggestive than those now accepted, reviewed in publications, and less commendatory than what we formerly avoided.  Many persons in entertainment fields got their start singing in church, and now have helper groups dedicated to assisting them to recover from the distortions of the their lives as celebrities making money, and abandoning Christian contexts helpful to healthy experience.  As I write this the world is taken by the news of the contradictions in the death of a high-profile entertainer, a former choir singer, taken by death from drugs and distractions.

We are physically mature before we are spiritually and mentally mature.  This is perceived by many counselors who are trying to do something about the conduct of collegians in fraternities and sororities.  Some of these persons, closing in on adulthood, violate what they are learning.  A part of learning and that which makes it major in our lives is the application of education to self and to others, for their benefit.  We know that it works in the physical realm, which includes our occupations.  Does it reach our personal lives?  What touches personal conduct, beliefs, and reaching out toward the mystery of life which begs for improvement in beliefs, values, and whatever it is that we define as spiritual in our lives.  Education without a value system is to find cleverness, perhaps materialism, some refinement, but we may feel not worth the effort when all is done, and we meet the end of life.  Reading our greatest literature, we find a kind of regret, or remorse, or even confusion or wonder about what the human performance is really worth. 

The truly educated are seeking a life worth living.  Education is first of all for the person.  It is for my mind, my body, my ideals, my health, my meaning for mortal life.  Those who destroy their lives, perhaps in drugs, never really grew up, except physically.  That is never enough.  Friends who remain after tragic deaths, including children of the deceased, often make up stories about them, find a place in some heaven for them (make them something they may not have been) perhaps to comfort the family and public interest.

Education to application never ends. We graduate to begin.  Ninety plus years of age, and I am still learning, about myself, about society, about the world, about the meaning of growth in understanding to wisdom, and that includes the meaning of God to life and experience.  Experience never seems enough, but it is much better than formerly for me, because of growth.  They say economies will not sustain prosperity unless they grow.   Growth is not only in quantity.  What if we discovered how to grow the economy in the quality of it, the sharing and creativity?  One finds the best education when it changes the person to what we might call goodness, and if a Christian, to righteousness as drawn from the holiness of God.  Jesus chose Mary and Joseph, and grew up in an ordinary but devout home, in a remote village, and became a teacher.  That is enough for me to extol the benefits of education and service – for life.