-I wanna shine on in the hearts of man.-

Thank you, The Killers, for providing my blog post title! "all these things that i've done"-- perfect. (i got soul, but i'm not a soldier!!)

I am sure that there always have been, and always will be, people who are "creatively on fire with a set of ideas no one had heard of before," as in Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I think it's a somewhat vital part of the human race. Granted, they're a little hard to find. I'm not saying that everyone needs to be this way; that might be a little chaotic.  I kind of don't think that society or civilization or whatever can progress without these fiery people, history makers. They're hard to see, hard to accept, uncomfortable to listen to, and not always right. But sometimes they're very right, and to ignore them would be to miss that the earth is round, not flat, or that we go around the sun, not vice versa. 


Standardized education seems to rule a lot of these people out. Several probably survive. I don't know how many people listen to these survivors, but i say next time we see someone with a sign that says, "prophet creatively on fire with original ideas," we sit down and listen to what they say. ;P who knows what we'll learn!

Wisdom again!

This time with guest speaker Phaedrus! Except not really...
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the narrator talks about his "ghost" (to put it semi-simply), who at one point became frustrated with his university. The people weren't understanding the point of the school or what would happen if they were de-accredited. Phaedrus tries to explain it by example of a bar occupying the building a church once occupied. The building itself was no longer the church. As Lecrae puts it, "she [the church] ain't just bricks and buildings, she's all of God's people: men, women, and children." Similarly, a university shouldn't be defined by the buildings and class schedules. It consists of the people and the spirit behind it all, the desire, need for, and suppliance of education. At JBU, this has another dynamic: we want everything to be centered around Jesus. Thus, the "real university" isn't the Walker student center, or the cathedral, or even the campus area... it's the people and why they're here. We could all pack up and relocate, but if everyone was together and still seeking the same thing, with the same leadership & history & guiding principles, we could still refer to ourselves as JBU.
This makes me wonder about how much I respect the institution. I mean, i think I owe JBU more respect than I give it-- by doing my work more faithfully, maybe, and taking it more seriously? ugh. that's not a fun thought. just bein' honest, guys.... I don't like work. I guess i might be human or something. #gonnaworkonthat

Wisdom!

Wisdom is a strange thing. I've never thought of it (or her, as it's personified in Proverbs) as something to be taught by humans. I mean, your parents kinda steer you there as best they can throughout your life, because they have wisdom, or they're supposed to, at least. But I always thought that wisdom was some mysterious quality that you acquire as you get older and go through hard things, but can't necessarily be taught, unless by listening to your grandmother for days on end.
According to Caroline Bassett, who wrote "Emergent Wisdom: Living a Life in Widening Circles," wisdom can be mapped out into several 'dimensions:' discerning, respecting, engaging, and transforming. Only two of these areas-- transforming and discerning, but mostly transforming-- seem to deal directly with 'concrete' knowledge. I think that's why it's so hard to teach wisdom. Nearly impossible, in fact. Wisdom is what you do with what you learn from other people, personal events, and authority figures: how you therefore use judgment to live your life. This isn't another grade or gold star for a student to earn and check off the list. Such a thing is too nebulous for colleges. Why waste money trying to teach something you can't accurately grade?
The HSP might do a study on the wisdom passages in Proverbs. Other than that, and reading a lot of good literature, I can't think of a way to really internalize the good principles that usually accompany wisdom. It's tough to evaluate. I think it's usually reflected in the way one lives, but that's hard to grade. I guess we'll see eventually... maybe when we get to Heaven!