Monday, April 21, 2008

Theory

This is a mixture of thoughts that I believe are somehow related. I'm not exactly sure how yet, but I am almost certain there is a connection here...I don't know if it makes sense outside my head or not.
I think people have become ignorant in such a way that they believe themselves to be ignorant. They have this idea of a "professional" in their heads, the idea that titles themselves bring authority, knowledge. They entrust "real" education to an establishment, a school, rather than teaching the Truth at home. Parents have become passive. They had rather pass off as much responsibility as possible because society has suggested to them thay they know nothing about the great big world of science and politics, dinosaurs, and social security and that they should simply leave these things to the "experts." After all, the real bulk, the really impoortant, success-making, value-giving information is taught in universtities, right? The wisdom of this world is what will bring children "success." Everything you need in order to succeed in life, to become a citizen of the world, to pass into the realm of functioning adults, that all is taught at universities, right? Thatt comes with a degree. And without consciously thinking it, they say to themselves. We don't know anything. We aren't capable of teaching you the really important things because we don't know them ourselves. So we will send you away to school to become wise and educated. They no longer take action to instill values, life lessons, passion, heritage, a sense identity, but rather pass off that job to the state. Which is horrifyingly reminiscent of that Brave New World we all fear in which all intimacy, sense of tradition, pide, culture, family, heritage is lost. And maybe our move toward this brave new culture is why so many of us American kids can't figure out who the heck we are...no one will tell us, especially not our families. They feel that somehow this would be limiting us, so instead they tell us we can be whatever we want. But that isn't who we are. Whether we admit it or not, we all have an identity, a God, a family, a bloodline, and we not only have one, we need it. Without it, we are lost in a great big universe, directionless, with a million different directions before us and no man is an island...we are all part of the human organism, a little bit of each of us comes from behind us in our parents and a little bit of us goes after us into our children. We all have our history living in our own bodies. It is a part of the core of our being. It's there, and it only hurts us to ignore it. And I think a lot of parents don't know themselves. They don't know the hope to which they have been called, and this is the reason they can't teach it to their children. But they are capable. Real wisdom and real knowledge are found in knowing the living God. Righteousness, holiness, redemption...these are wisdom, intelligence, scholarship. The wisdom of the world is foolishness. The weak things of this world will shame the wise. The one who knows love, who knows the power of grace, who searches out the mystery of Jesus Christ and teaches this to his children, he is the one who possesses true intelligence, true scholarship, and he can attain it without the recognition of an earthly establishment.

1 Corinthians 1:20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

1 Corinthians 1:30 Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.

No comments: