Education and Character: Learning to See Clearly, part 2

In part 1 of this series, I quoted C.S. Lewis’ essay, “Meditation in a Toolshed,” which illustrated the different between looking AT something and looking ALONG it to its source. There is flexibility and discernment required here. In some sense, it is the difference between objective and subjective seeing, or the difference between analysis and philosophy.

To understand anything–any subject in the natural world–fully,  we ask not only “What is it?” but “What can I infer from it?” and “Where did it come from?” and “What is its purpose?”

Education and Character: Learning to See Clearly (part 1)

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen.

Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

–C.S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry?”(1945)

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My years are beginning to show. I am facing the fact that I can no longer read most print without a pair of reading glasses. A cloudiness in my right eye suggests something more ominous, but I’m ignoring that for the moment.

Unlike the floaters I see in the air, which only appear when I stare at a blank surface, I am seeing connecting threads between many different things I’ve been reading in a variety of rich sources lately. Most of these ideas boil down to truths about learning, about character and about perspective, how we look at the world and how that looking affects us.