Today I marked one of those transitional days pointing to meaning in mortality. I was a participant of the year end commencement ceremonies of the University, (a college, when I served there) where I was president for seventeen years. Nearly three decades have intervened since that seventeen years ministry. I concluded today serving as the Chancellor of the institution, ending with the retirement of the second person following me as president. Many long-time friends were present. We did the usual things, accomplished during traditional ceremonies for colleges. Student achievements were felt and the accomplishments from families, parents and siblings overcame the Sun’s insisting hot and free energy upon us. One of the Master’s degree students was a family project. I met him across the country more than twenty years earlier, and urged him to get out of an unsatisfactory environment, also to enter our college. (My eldest son was his high school teacher at the time.) He did so, and went on to serve as a minister and leader. After my tenure, he returned to complete an advanced degree. My heart warmed today for him and his family. He is now a trustee of the University. Also, there were professors I had recruited, now retiring with the president. There were trustees, one retiring, who came on board when I was the lead person on campus. The story can be continued and embellished upwards – with warmth. And, I have many such stories. It is a day of gratification. (In this fresh editing, I am in my tenth decade of life remembering these experiences as God’s gift to me in obedience to divine plan.)
Why do students go to college? Why should they? Why would parents want them to gain the experience? The motivating factor, if one follows the news, appears to be that to have an advanced degree means that the person will make many dollars more than the person without advanced formal education. The public often misses the difference between training and education. To go to school for profit, is to go for training. But, that is not the primary motive for education. Education is to make us well-furnished persons for the art of living, thinking and personal/social problem solving. It may make us healthier persons. We ought to be thinkers. Training is for professional skills. Educated persons are more likely objective about where they belong, so to use emotions in proper perspective. Meaning becomes important, so as not to be unleashed. Education ought to put money, status, and the like in a balanced concept of values.
Despite my age, I was recently invited to speak in a city where I had not spoken before. I found out why. When I arrived there the host told me that thirty years earlier he had changed his mind fully after I had spoken in a church he attended. I had spoken on the formation of the life of Jesus from the text, Luke 2:52. It not only changed his view of higher education’s purpose with students, but how to rear a child, his own. He learned that day to nurture his son as Jesus was nurtured, and that it had worked for him and he was grateful. Formal education evolved for us, but has been partly corrupted, as much else has been corrupted, with the siren song of wealth. (William Foxwell Albright, the eminent archaeologist, and I once talked about the historical issue and agreed on it.) Jesus was a teacher, and gave disciples the essence of its meaning from life experience. He gave attention to increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Education should engage to the cultivation of intellect (wisdom), body (stature), soul (favor with God), and relationship/citizenship (favor with man). It was in this fourfold approach to education that Jesus emerged to the natural world. It cannot be improved upon. It is a pattern that we should consciously engage for ourselves and our children. One small verse offers the outline for the nurturing of children in any age or culture. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020