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!
