A friend of mine recently sent me the following video. It’s about 10 minutes long, so if you can take the time, please watch it. I will share my thoughts below the link.
I think you would agree that there are a lot of truths in this video, not least the picture that is painted of the self-centered rat race reality of so much of so many of our adult lives and how quickly dismissive we are of those around us. Perhaps you even felt convicted by some of these truths – I certainly was.
But then the crux of the message presents itself, the “alternative” to this way of interacting with the world:
“If you are aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to think differently . . . it’s hard, it takes will and effort . . . but if you really learn how to think, how to pay attention, you will know you have other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer hell type situation as not only meaningful but sacred . . . ” (emphases mine)
So what’s wrong with this approach? What’s wrong with paying attention, with making conscious choices that come as the result of right thinking? After all, Jesus tells us to pay attention or “keep awake” in not one but two parables (Matthew 24 & 25), and Paul exhorts us to “be transformed by the renewing of our minds” (Romans 12). So clearly attentiveness and right thinking are important. We take this to heart at my school where we actually train our students in the habits of attention and critical thinking.
So what is wrong with the thesis of this video? I think what is wrong is that what is presented is a near-truth, and near-truths are more dangerous than lies.
And here’s the near-truth, as I see it being presented (note this will not sound as poetic as the narrator puts forth in the video): “Your interaction with the world does not have to be this way. You just need to wake up out of your zombie state and choose to think differently. Sure it’s going to be hard, but it is within your power and will and effort to change.”
In other words, “Just man up and be a better person! It’s just a matter of choosing to change the way you think about the world.”
Oh, and by the way, the narrator calls this “real freedom,” “real education.”
But does this account accurately describe how we learn, how we change, how we are transformed, how we are “perfected” into God’s image?
Let’s say that I meet an adult who is admittedly very racist against black people. Maybe he is even consciously ashamed of this disposition, but he explains his racism by saying that he grew up in a white home in a white neighborhood where there was an obvious yet unuttered fear of black people, that he went to an all-white school that was “on the other side of town” from the nearest school that housed black kids, and that once he had a friend who was robbed at gunpoint by a black guy.
I guess I should just tell this guy, “Listen, I know this is going to be hard, but you just need to change the way you think about black people.” If he laughs incredulously at this suggestion, I just need to engage his intellect with logical arguments for why racism is evil and how it does great violence to the human soul.
I think you see my point. Again, I am not suggesting that critical, logical thinking has no place in the formation and transformation of a human soul. If that were the case, this blog and a large part of my job as a teacher would be pointless. But what ultimately forms us and our perception of the world is something much closer to our center of being, much more closely linked to what burns in our hearts and stirs in our imaginations, something that often defies logical articulation, something that has been inculcated within us due in part to our experiences, but due also to the fact that we are naturally and primarily loving, desiring beings.
And this brings us back to James K.A. Smith’s thesis which he establishes early on in Desiring the Kingdom. I will quote him again, this time from a different location and said slightly differently:
“. . . education – whether acknowledged or not – is a formation of the desires and imagination that creates a certain kind of person who is part of a certain kind of people. The facts and information learned as part of the process are always situated and embedded in something deeper that is being learned all along: a particular vision of the good life.”
The fictional (yet to some degree, if we are honest with ourselves, representative of some part in all of us that passes dismissive judgement against some class of people, rather it be because of race, religion, social standing, education, the kind of jeans she wears, etc.) racist character I created above received an “unacknowledged” or “implicit” education that painted a picture of the “good life” as “life without black people in it.”
The point is quite simply this: what seems to “stick” in a person’s core identity are those “teachings” that have been directed towards his heart and imagination, and often times this type of learning actually bypasses our conscious, thinking minds and goes straight to our “second nature.”
Said another way by Charlotte Mason, “Education is an atmosphere.”
So what does this mean for education in a Christian school? Everything. The stakes are perhaps even higher because we are Christian. Symmetry in our “being” and “thinking” is paramount. I will leave you with one last quote from Smith:
“Could we offer a Christian education that is loaded with all sorts of Christian ideas and information – and yet be offering a formation that runs counter to that vision?”
Pi Alpha 
” the fact that we are naturally and primarily loving, desiring beings ”
How does this line up with your understanding of original sin?
Alan, I’m not sure that I understand your question. Could you elaborate?
I would agree that we are naturally desiring. Much of our suffering comes from our desiring and attachments. But if you accept Augustine’s doctrine of original sin can you say we are naturally loving in the biblical sense of what it means to be loving? In other words a disinterested love. A love for the sake of loving…I certainly believe that our “true self” is loving but because of our conditioning and becoming self conscious we lapse into an egocentric mode of relating to others through what Merton and many other great teachers would call the “false self”. We become unconscious of the fact that we are truly one with God and one with all others. The reason we find Adam and Eve covering themselves in the the garden is because they became “self-conscious”…before that it is said “…they walked with God…” (that may be a paraphrase). So, even though I don’t believe in original sin, I do believe we are unaware that we are one with the Source of our being but through our becoming self aware our ego takes over and we feel the need to protect (for a lack of a better word) ourselves. I recently read something that said true spiritual growth is becoming “less self-conscious”. That makes a lot of sense to me and tells me just how much further I have to go in this process of transformation.
So are we naturally, primarily loving? Yes. Recognizing our “true selves” found in God is the beginning of that kind of loving. Our true selves are made in the image of God according to the scriptures.
But the doctrine of Original Sin would seem to say our natural state is sinful (meaning “missing the mark)
The doctrine of Original Blessing (Matthew Fox) would say we are naturally good. Now being naturally good would have to be unpacked to see if that means we are naturally loving. That’s another discussion.
And the other thing to be unpacked is: What does it mean to be naturally loving? Maybe you could elaborate on that.
By the way, I like some of the stuff this guy has to say. I’m not in education but I am in the vocation of being a part of God’s plan in transforming minds which eventually transforms spirits, which I pray eventually creates persons who are loving, whether it be natural or not.
For me it’s about seeing reality as it is. And that has to begin with the mind. That has to begin with “thinking” . And at some point that thinking can lead to a transformation of the whole person, once they are able to “see” and “hear”. But again that too has to become a personal experience.
Everyone has to eat and digest for themselves. All I can do is set the table.
Maybe I have digressed. Forgive me.
Thanks for the conversation and your very engaging thoughts. Keep up the good work!
Alan
Alan, thanks for elaborating. You have brought up several great points, all of which are ripe for discussion but not all of which I will attempt to address in this response to your comment. I am sure we will have time for that later while enjoying some of the finer things . . .
Following are the points on which I think we agree:
1) We are, by our truest (read: originally created, intended) nature, “very good,” as the author of Genesis would suggest at the end of the first chapter.
2) We are created in the image of the Creator (Genesis 1:27), thus within our very nature is evidence of the Divine.
3) We are, by our created nature, loving, desiring beings.
Here is where I think we might disagree – or, perhaps we are saying the same thing but differently:
1) I do not think that the “biblical sense of what it means to be loving” is a “disinterested love” or “unattached love,” as you state below. I am not sure how one could read the biblical accounts, particularly those in the gospels, and not believe that God’s love is very much directed at something, at someone. We are told that “God is love,” but also it is clear, I think, that God loves his creation – in fact, I believe that it is out of His very nature as a loving being that he created, so that His love would be directed to (attached to?) something – not because He needed that attachment, because He wanted it (hence that “desiring” part of our nature, in His image). The greatest commandment is not “to love for the sake of loving,” but to love God and neighbor. The direct objects there are key, I think. And many of the accounts of Jesus’ love are shown by what He does – His love is born out in service. Maybe you mean a “selfless love,” in which case I would certainly agree with you, but I don’t quite understand the phrase “love for the sake of loving.” Maybe this is just a matter of semantics, though, and we are really saying the same thing.
Smith goes on to say that not only are we naturally loving, desiring beings, but our love and desire is teleological, meaning that it is directed at some goal, or some vision of flourishing. I would agree with him on this point and this description would seem to contrast to your “disinterested love.”
2) My understanding of the story of humankind as presented in the Bible is that we were created as “very good” beings, in the very image of the Creator Himself – that is our natural, intended state. “Original sin,” as I interpret from its being attributed to the story in Genesis 3, is simply our fall from that natural state due to disobedience to a single command – or, to get more philosophical, perhaps, Eve and then Adam chose things that were in and of themselves very good (wisdom, beauty, food), but chose to place their desire for those otherwise inherently good things above their desire for the Best thing (and we have continued to do this ever since, have we not?), The rest of God’s story is all about Him working to return us to our original, intended state – or, perhaps, transform us to an even better than original state – which I believe will come to fruition when His dwelling returns to Earth. So no, I do not believe that we are by nature (and here, I mean, originally created nature) “bad” – however, for whatever reason – rather it seems just or not in our economy – we have inherited that fall from intimacy that first occurred in Eden and, thus, we will continue to have the “nature of death” (we die, we decay, as does all of creation) even though, post-resurrection, we are already “a new creation.” This is that “here but not yet” that N.T. Wright talks about a lot, or the horse growing wings that C.S. Lewis talks about, both of which analogies I like but don’t fully understand. I continue to live with the tendency to sin, however God is in the process of remaking me, transforming me, into that “very good” (or very very good) state, a state which – because of the resurrection – I have already started to adopt to some extent. I cannot claim to understand this apparent paradox, but that is why we continue to seek “renewal of our minds,” right?
Lastly, you say that the transformation of a person begins with the mind. This would certainly be consistent with Paul’s claim in Romans 12:2. However, in my very limited understanding of NT Greek, the only other use of the Greek verb anakainosei, which is translated as “renewing” in Romans 12:2, is attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit in Titus 3:5. I found that to be interesting. I admit that I struggle to wrap my mind around this third person of the Trinity, but I do think that the NT would suggest that this transformation is ultimately not up to us – although we do play a very active, participatory role. Being able to “see and hear,” as you say, is – yes – a personal experience, but it is not “achieved” simply by us, personally, as I interpret the scriptures. Maybe you agree with me here, I don’t know.
To bring this back to the classroom – the most important takeaway here is that we are teaching (or counseling) loving, desiring, passionate beings, not just disembodied minds, and this human ontology must inform our relationships if we are to be instrumental in any kind of “growing up,” “education,” “healing,” or “transformation.” I think we both very much agree on that.
Thanks for your comments, and Happy Fathers Day. ☺