Some Spiritual Reflections on the Start of Classes

This is a post that was inspired by Barb's thoughts on faith as a will to believe and a challenge to act, congealing with my own reflections about the role of learning and knowledge, and the ways they could be enhanced by our faith--in light of the upcoming semester of classes at the College. 

Perhaps one way to act on our faith is to make our pre-existing connection with God a part of the new and upcoming cognitive connections we make with the content, teachers and students we encounter in our courses. Bringing my spiritual life and religious disposition to bear on my identity as a student is by no means easy for me, for it is easy for many of us to compartmentalize our life the way the disciplines are in any school: We classify our being as the "school me" the "work me" the "play me" and the "religious/faithful me". Bringing faith to bear on the knowledge with which we come into contact is not to suggest applying a Christian frame of analysis to whatever we read or hear; it is instead a way to challenge the objective epistemological position that is so highly valued in an age driven by, and supportive of, scientific innovation. Parker J. Palmer, in his luminous yet crisp work, "The Courage to Teach", suggests that "[w]e are obsessed with manipulating externals because we believe that they will give us some power over reality... We turn every question we face into an objective problem to be solved" while the heart remains merely "an escape from harsh realities". Instead, maybe it is worth it for us to try on a lens that asks how the content and dialog we encounter in our classes connects us--or detaches us--from our "will to believe", or how it could shape our behavior in light of what God is asking of us. Since, if God resides in the heart as well as in what we see (or don't see!) everyday, shouldn't the heart be more than a romantic aside for the learner or teacher?

This could have implications for us all: We are all teachers, and we are all learners: "Teaching" and "learning" cannot exist without one another; their meanings coalesce and reinforce one another in an ongoing cycle--a dialog, between people, or between person and text. Maybe this semester we make it a point to more purposefully include God--our faith--in that dialogue to facilitate the new understandings we will acquire, and to help more holistically mold the beings we are becoming....

Here's to a great semester!

Being drawn to faith

In today’s gospel, Jesus asks the apostles who they believe he is. Only Peter replies: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Peter believes. He is the first person in history to declare his faith in Christ.

Father Larry asked today, what drew Peter to faith? What draws us?

Is it what we see? What we read? What we do? What we think about? It’s an important question a college campus, where we tend to intellectualize so much of our experience.

However we arrive at faith (I don’t like the word “arrive” because I think the quest never ends), belief is not enough. We’re called to act on our faith. It's hard to figure out exactly how to do this.

Maybe it goes back to what I wrote last week. Ignatius saw God everywhere, in everything. A first step for us today is to discern God’s presence in our everyday lives and act on it. To affirm it when we see it -- and create it when we don’t.

How is faith like water?

Thirsting. Quenching. Washing. Cleansing. Swept away. Drowning?!

This blog is a place to reflect about faith. I imagine we’ll most often be inspired by everyday life. Pay attention to what happens through the day, St. Ignatius would say, and you’ll see God everywhere – in all that makes you more alive, more caring, more loving.

Why water? Well, its presence here is pervasive: the Thames River, the Arbo Pond, the lush campus with flowering shrubs and towering trees that rely on water for life. Faith gives life too. By faith I don’t mean certainty. I mean a desire to believe. To believe what? That’s up to you.

In the week ahead I intend to pay more attention to what happens through each day, to experience the tides and eddies. Here’s hoping I don’t drown :-). Norman Maclean writes in A River Runs Through It:

“Eventually all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river ... runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”