9.24.09 COLLEGE? EDUCATION? CALLING?

i went to college because both my parents went to college. i went to college to escape the draft. (i do not believe in giving my life in a war that is waged on a no-win basis. if there is evil, deal with it and get out.) i went to college to experience life, to be a brand new person (to bad i brought myself along!) and, oh...what shall i study...i like history. that will be my major. i am interested in understanding government. political science will be my minor. so there i was where my dad, one of the places where my dad, went. there i pursued pleasure, stayed up all night many night, learned i was a sinner (that was valuable!!!) and basically did what i wanted and read what i wanted, etc. i did not go to college to get a job.

for a number of years after college i bounced in and out of school. i was the quintessential professional student. in fact, for many septembers after college was over i had an almost palpable experience of lusting for the academic environment once again. i went to seminary and got an m.div. i was very samsonesque, a powerful (toxic) combination of flesh and spirit. i was too proud and arrogant to listen to anyone else, to seek counsel, to study wise models of human or ministerial conduct. i was wiser than all! so as quickly as i was in the ministry, i was out on my ear with a tremendous amount of bad effects on my family. i was a ship without a sail..away from God's calling with crying family needs. to lose myself i became a workaholic drifting further from everyone inwardly, bitter i had lost the deepest meaning i felt life had.

then in the vain attempt to mollify my wife's desire that i rise above low employment, i went back to school once again and got an m.ed along with teaching certification for elementary school. i didn't like the politics of public education and, in my mind, could not afford the salary of private education and so continued on the course of low employment ie. non-(so-called)professional. obviously most of my problems in the employment world are a result of my hard-headed obfuscation, but in all the darkness the single candle was a bone-deep love of working with my hands. as we humans are in many areas due to heredity/environment i am an odd combination of what i saw in my father (scholar, book-worm) and mother (working with hands) and i would have to say that the latter won out. in another life i could love doing nothing but studying the Word to first practice it myself and then to teach it to others. that would be highest. i could also love to do nothing but study other subjects of love (etymology tops a long, long list of such loves) and to live and then communicate that knowledge in such a way as to enrich the lives of others and the world in which they live. but in this life those choices are closed...and besides I LOVE TO WORK WITH MY HANDS. i would have saved a lot of time, effort and money if i had understood that early on and just found what i love to do, in that area, and do it in such a way as to show God and bless others.

when our children approached college i encouraged them to consider learning a trade. they all went to college. on both my wife's and my side most every person was a college graduate so they would have been bucking hard against the tide..and i think college was good for them generally. none of them seem to have a passion for working with their hands so it's good they went.

my parents never said a word to me about going to college. when nothing was done i had the opportunity to step up to the plate and made the decision to go on my own for the reasons stated above. i filled out all the paperwork myself. like the little red hen, i did everything myself. i wanted it. i knew that if i went it was all on me and i accepted that responsibility. the summer before leaving i bought the first new clothes i had ever owned with my own money. when i was leaving mom made me a big lunch to take in the car full of her out-of-this-world egg salad sandwiches, tastycakes, chocolate milk and other food items she knew i loved. i felt like a millionaire! that was the extent of my parents' financial support. they sent me a strong message. WE HAVE FAITH IN YOU. Y O U C A N D O I T ! how secure i felt in their love for and confidence in me. i became a man.

so when our children were approaching college, even though i had sinfully ceded all 'authority' to my wife, i was still able to exercise a sort of negative authority when i told them two things: it's all on you, stay completely out of debt. the influence of my wife brought as much aid $ in as possible as well as supply of needs..good and bad possibly in its ways..but my message caused our children to hate me..i'm not sure if that has yet turned the corner. it's what i would do all over again.

college, when not true to the Bible, can, apart from the grace of God, have a noticeable deleterious effect on the faith once for all delivered to the saints. my children, having an absent father, were at risk, and there are numerous parental failures, not to speak of evil outside influences and of fleshly aberrations, that can contribute to a toxic abandonment of childhood faith. one EXPECTS such at secular schools but it is an unexpected blow coming in the context of a college advertised as 'christian.

well, i've vented my spleen alittle on the subject and now a more or less quote from world magazine, (7.18.09, p28)..'as i've written before, higher education seems to have been oversold and a glut of grads are taking jobs they could have learned fresh out of high school. but the corollary is a developing shortage of skilled labor. these days, the board certification, not the diploma, may be the surest way to a good living. matthew crawford holds a phd. in political philosophy from the unive. of chicago. he's also a motorcycle mechanic in his own shop. in terms of personal satisfaction and intelledtual challenge, there's no contest between this job and his previous one as director of a washington think tank - reflections on which led him to write 'shop class as soulcraft: an inquiry into the value of work. if you're in the market for power tools, crawford says, surplus stores are overstocked with equipment from high school shop classes. these were largely dismantled in the 90s because of the supposed opportunities for 'knowledge workers' : processors, analysts, visionaries. the notion that not everyone is cut out for 'knowledge work' seems to have escaped the writers of articles titled 'preparing kids for high-tech and the global future'. there's also the troublesome question that if the wiring in the computer lab is faulty, who's going to fix it? crawford argues that there's a high cost to denigrating manual labor, both to society and to individuals. the ideal of education in the computer age is 'indeterminate' human beings, celebrated more for potential than achievement. training in a particular skill locks us in, ties us down. far better, the thinking goes, to lurk on the cutting edge of possibility. cut in the real world, people take pride in specifics. most of us are not mavericks or visionaries; most, in fact, are suited to certain kinds of work and not others how many potential crack mechanics are diverted into mediocre accountants by cheerleaders for the information age? further, in an increasingly specialized society, we find ourselves disoriented and powerless. the model T used to come with a toolbox so the motorist could make basic repai4rs himself. but today he may need a special screwdriver, not locally available, just to open the obelisk-like casing over the motor block. the assembly-line worker of today is the office drudge, shepherding information to no discernable purpose to earn the money to buy vehicles and appliances he can't even do routine maintenance on. crawford suspects we weren't made for such disengagement. he sees a correlation between the brain and the hands; there was more thinking going on in the bike shop than the think tank. the psalmist discerned a similar truth when he wrote 'establish the work of our hands'. paul's admonition to the thessalonians to live quietly and work with their hands is not merely a way to keep out of trouble. he modeled the advice, an educated man who knew and applied a manual trade. there is no such thing as a 'virtual human'. just as the cyber-world requires immense scaffolding of skilled labor, so we need practical skills to connect with our society and ourselves. by all means, train the mind. but don't desparage the work of your hands.'

post notes..i have learned and forgotten much. with each passing day it seems my mind and memory become more and more tenuous. i recent times i have thot of the vast amount of time i have spent accumulating knowledge to satisfy my own lust for it and to make it an ego-building/enhancing idol...and now it has/is turning to dust. it has come to my mind to seek to spend time only on what i can directly use for God in order to know Him better or to show who He is more clearly.. a perspective i wish i had had when i was 10.

also, when education or any activity/pursuit in life is for gaining $/worldly possessions for self it is defacto totally empty and meaningless. only when it is just a means to the goal of glorifying God and blessing others does it bring satisfaction and take on real living power.
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