Brief Thoughts on Scholarship and Service

Is it wrong to hope to use your gifts to one day benefit the world?

Can theology and polemic be used as an efficient and positive tool for good?

Going to college, particularly reading church scholars and theologians, and wanting to study them and understand them and follow in their footsteps, all the while seemingly neglecting service to my neighbhor in real and tangible ways - can I excuse it?

To what extent do we look at time as pre-existent, a world-system already self-contained, id est, from the omniscient perspective my future choices and actions and (ideally/hopefully) good deeds are already accomplished - from the eyes of God I have already done all the good I will ever do (though this does not stop me from still having to do it from my perspective).  My mother in particular has always ragged on me for my lack of tangible service to others - the poor, hungry, needy, etc. - but I've always felt that pursuing and developing my gifts is a form of service, not to the present, but to the future.

But I may just be excusing something simply to avoid psychological tension and incongruence, or simply buying into what our culture has impressed on us - that successful young people go to high school, get good grades, go to good schools, and thats their job - but then again, while our culture may be on some level professed Christianity, we as Christians must recognize that we will never live to our own standards; we will encounter "the world" in all its brokenness even within our own parishes, congregations, and homes - can I excuse my intellectual development?

Are my academic pursuits, just like consumerism, on some level sinful by implication?

More on this later.

The Need for Self-Reflection

So I was reading a paper on Buddhism for my class, and it was espousing some of the same things I believe.  The one I focus on here - the need for an effective means of self-dialogue/self-reflection.  I think that too many people in the world go through their lives from moment to moment, but never living there.  Each day is a series of "what-do-I-have-to-do-next"s, and at the end of their days they are unfulfilled.  Everyone should learn at some point in their lives an effective means of communication and analysis with and of themselves - a way to improve, develop, grow, without outside resources, such that in the absence of all "fertilizer", per se, one continues on one's own personal development.

Obviously, the example here was the buddhist method of mindfulness.  But there are other practices too.

The Journey Begins

So I was thinking the other day...

Self: You know Self, I need a good way to articulate my thoughts, in a more organized fashion than just journaling perhaps, also, in a way that could encourage discussion and foster intellectual development by reaching out to other people.

Self No. 2: Hey, remember that blogging thing, thats how people in generation do exactly that!

Self: Oh yeah!  Now I remember - I'm a hipster!

Hence, this blog.  Tonight's brief musings are on: Education Reform

Its the last week of classes where I'm at.  And I find myself increasingly frustrated with due dates - most of my papers are heading in late (technically, this is procrastination, but thats besides the point).  I find myself questioning the purpose in our writing papers - because if it is to reflect a genuine understanding of the subject material, then when we get it in, so long as its by a final end cut-off point, like, say, the beginning of the next semester of some such, shouldn't matter, so long as we understand the material and our paper reflects this.  I hate feeling this immense pressure to get the work done, but to get it done as fast as possible so that I can meet a deadline, even when as little time as an additional day might have made the difference between me remembering and just forgetting what I stressed for days over.  I think something should change in this system, though I'm not sure what.  So far I'm just not stressing and am basically ignoring most due dates in the strict sense (one paper goes in 13 hours late, another will be late by about a day, etc.).  Thoughts?  Oh well, back to work.

Josephus - get over yourself.

My Dear Dietrich - I grow increasingly fond of you, though I find some of your ideas antiquated

What I'm reading: Letter & Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Works of Josephus (the classic translation, not the Loeb Classical Library one); Ethics by Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Spiritual Care by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Alas, to work, to work.