On the edge of wisdom
28/07/14 05:05
I frequently comment, somewhat tongue-in-cheek that when I was 25 years old I was at the height of my brilliance and that it has been all down hill since then. I think I was quite intelligent at 25. I was equipped with quite a bit of knowledge and I had proven my academic capabilities. But I was also somewhere near the height of my arrogance in those days. I was full of myself. The piece of the line that is the least true is the bit about it being all downhill since. That part definitely is not true. It does get a laugh from some folks, and it does address a fear that I have on this side of sixty of loosing my mental abilities, but it really isn’t true.
I was only 20 when I officiated at my first funeral. I hadn’t even left for seminary yet. I was serving as licensed pulpit supply for a small congregation. I was just beginning to hone my skills as a preacher and worship planner. I hadn’t even read the funeral service that is in the book of worship, and we had a different book in those days. When I met with the widower, he was four times my age. The woman who dies was similarly in her eighties. They lived alone in a small house and I didn’t really know them. I didn’t even know who to learn much personal information in a short session to plan the funeral. I don’t remember much about the funeral. I somehow got through it. The ministries of the congregation, shown partially through an abundant dinner and plenty of food taken to the home of the grieving widower, were far more important and valuable than the words I read at the service.
I wasn’t completely naive about death and loss. My maternal grandparents were no longer living. My paternal grandfather had died not long before. My oldest sister had been killed nearly three years before. I had attended funerals for others in our church. I had a short list of things that I didn’t like about the funerals I had attended for others. But it wouldn’t be at all fair to say that I had developed a theology of death or a philosophy about the administration of funerals.
But that was before I went to seminary. The culture and atmosphere of seminary was exhilarating for me. Daily we were challenged by our teachers to read ideas that were new to us. Some of our texts were so complicated that we had to discuss them with each other just to get a basic understanding of what had been written. I was surrounded by people who were on a similar academic journey and we formed a close community of study and concern. We followed roughly the same schedule. We were reading the same books. We ate and slept and drempt theology. And I enjoyed it immensely.
The culture of theological education has shifted significantly since those days. Our seminary was a residential program. The seminary had dormitories for single students and apartments for married students. It ran a dining hall. It even had a lab school for students who had children. It was expected that the pursuit of a theological education was a full-time venture and that you would attend worship and convocations and other events at the seminary. The seminary was not just the source of our academic education, but also of our social life and cultural events. We were immersed in learning. These days the same seminary has a single building and a schedule that is set up to provide education for commuter students. The majority of the student body lives in other locations and commutes into the city for classes three days a week.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both styles of learning and teaching and I am in no place to offer an evaluation. Such an evaluation would be meaningless because the culture has shifted. It is no longer practical in today’s world to insist on the style of education that we obtained.
But we were, for a few brief years, academically brilliant. We were reading and comprehending what we were reading. We were immersed in the world of ideas and contributing our ideas to the body of thought. Our professors were at the top of their games in a culture of excellence and a climate of continuing research and education. We were especially adept at theory and logic and the rational behind the practice of ministry.
We were also living in a bubble. Except for internships, which were somewhat artificial settings of ministry, we were isolated from the day to day life of congregations. Sunday worship we went to the congregations where we were interning and we imagined ourselves as the senior ministers and thought about how we might handle the text differently and what we might say. Despite attending weekly services in area churches, our own worship life was centered in the seminary’s worship services, held during the week.
I’ve been thinking about seminary days because we are looking forward to a visit, in August, from a a seminary classmate. We were close in school and have remained close since, despite serving on different continents. We have such great memories of late night discussions and conversations that shaped our theologies and world views. But we can’t help but recognize that we are different people today. We didn’t have children when we were seminary students. We are grandparents today. They had children in those days and now have lived through the trial of the illness and death of a daughter. All of us have gone through the death of parents, and I have lost a brother.
It isn’t just that we have all turned grey and the males have lost most of our hair. We have gone through life experiences that have shaped us as human beings and given us resources for ministry. We will still talk into the night, though perhaps not as late as was the case in our seminary days. We will still feel the stirring of passion over theology and the world of ideas. But I suspect that our conversations will also be tempered by a bid more appreciation for silence and thoughtfulness.
Perhaps we are moving toward the edge of wisdom. And wisdom may be a gift as worthy of sharing with the church as was our brilliance.
I was only 20 when I officiated at my first funeral. I hadn’t even left for seminary yet. I was serving as licensed pulpit supply for a small congregation. I was just beginning to hone my skills as a preacher and worship planner. I hadn’t even read the funeral service that is in the book of worship, and we had a different book in those days. When I met with the widower, he was four times my age. The woman who dies was similarly in her eighties. They lived alone in a small house and I didn’t really know them. I didn’t even know who to learn much personal information in a short session to plan the funeral. I don’t remember much about the funeral. I somehow got through it. The ministries of the congregation, shown partially through an abundant dinner and plenty of food taken to the home of the grieving widower, were far more important and valuable than the words I read at the service.
I wasn’t completely naive about death and loss. My maternal grandparents were no longer living. My paternal grandfather had died not long before. My oldest sister had been killed nearly three years before. I had attended funerals for others in our church. I had a short list of things that I didn’t like about the funerals I had attended for others. But it wouldn’t be at all fair to say that I had developed a theology of death or a philosophy about the administration of funerals.
But that was before I went to seminary. The culture and atmosphere of seminary was exhilarating for me. Daily we were challenged by our teachers to read ideas that were new to us. Some of our texts were so complicated that we had to discuss them with each other just to get a basic understanding of what had been written. I was surrounded by people who were on a similar academic journey and we formed a close community of study and concern. We followed roughly the same schedule. We were reading the same books. We ate and slept and drempt theology. And I enjoyed it immensely.
The culture of theological education has shifted significantly since those days. Our seminary was a residential program. The seminary had dormitories for single students and apartments for married students. It ran a dining hall. It even had a lab school for students who had children. It was expected that the pursuit of a theological education was a full-time venture and that you would attend worship and convocations and other events at the seminary. The seminary was not just the source of our academic education, but also of our social life and cultural events. We were immersed in learning. These days the same seminary has a single building and a schedule that is set up to provide education for commuter students. The majority of the student body lives in other locations and commutes into the city for classes three days a week.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both styles of learning and teaching and I am in no place to offer an evaluation. Such an evaluation would be meaningless because the culture has shifted. It is no longer practical in today’s world to insist on the style of education that we obtained.
But we were, for a few brief years, academically brilliant. We were reading and comprehending what we were reading. We were immersed in the world of ideas and contributing our ideas to the body of thought. Our professors were at the top of their games in a culture of excellence and a climate of continuing research and education. We were especially adept at theory and logic and the rational behind the practice of ministry.
We were also living in a bubble. Except for internships, which were somewhat artificial settings of ministry, we were isolated from the day to day life of congregations. Sunday worship we went to the congregations where we were interning and we imagined ourselves as the senior ministers and thought about how we might handle the text differently and what we might say. Despite attending weekly services in area churches, our own worship life was centered in the seminary’s worship services, held during the week.
I’ve been thinking about seminary days because we are looking forward to a visit, in August, from a a seminary classmate. We were close in school and have remained close since, despite serving on different continents. We have such great memories of late night discussions and conversations that shaped our theologies and world views. But we can’t help but recognize that we are different people today. We didn’t have children when we were seminary students. We are grandparents today. They had children in those days and now have lived through the trial of the illness and death of a daughter. All of us have gone through the death of parents, and I have lost a brother.
It isn’t just that we have all turned grey and the males have lost most of our hair. We have gone through life experiences that have shaped us as human beings and given us resources for ministry. We will still talk into the night, though perhaps not as late as was the case in our seminary days. We will still feel the stirring of passion over theology and the world of ideas. But I suspect that our conversations will also be tempered by a bid more appreciation for silence and thoughtfulness.
Perhaps we are moving toward the edge of wisdom. And wisdom may be a gift as worthy of sharing with the church as was our brilliance.