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.

Toxic Knowledge: How to control an unwieldy weapon

This is NOT Lucy…not that she wouldn’t try this, however…

Daily, even hourly, I hear my granddaughter exclaim, “I can do it! Let ME do it!” At which point I can anticipate hearing a howl or shriek of frustration at least 50% of the time, because in her zeal to do whatever it is she knows how to do, she has acted rashly and dropped, spilled or broken something, or she’s fallen down and hurt herself.

In Lucy’s case it is empirically true that “a little learning is a dang’rous thing.” But in her case it’s because knowledge is imperfect, and accompanied by impulsivity and lack of finesse. How is learning dangerous for adults?

A Poem for Mother’s Day, from a great mother: Ruth Bell Graham

One of the mothers I admire most (other than my own dear departed, whom I wrote a bit about here) was Ruth Bell Graham. Her courage, devotion and persistent life-long faith are inspiring to me. She loved and prayed for a prodigal; her writing refreshes my hope for my own prodigals. Below is one of my favorite poems of hers.  I offer it to all praying mothers, in honor of Mother’s Day. May we all bow before the Infinite Wisdom.

Had she been another mother:

Had I been Joseph’s mother
I’d have prayed
protection from his brothers:
“God keep him safe;
he is so young,
so different from
the others.”
Mercifully she never knew
there would be slavery
and prison, too.

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