The Wonder of Learning

                After the story of visiting and singing at the leper colony, Lewis goes on to talk about his academic achievements aren’t as important as he once believed them to be.  This immediately reminded me of our discussions of learning earlier in Our English Syllabus.  It is so easy to get so caught up with coasting along just waiting for that diploma that you lose sight of what you are really learning about.  Lewis then described that all those degrees really don’t seem that important a few years after you graduate.  It is as if you missed the real education because you were trying so hard just to get the degree, than the degree isn’t worth as much as you thought  it did.  I really liked when C.S. Lewis said this about learning, “Real learning occurs when we face something new. It is a struggle for which we are unprepared, a challenge to the rhythm of our thoughts and actions. The heart of learning appears when we learn how to change, to grow to adjust, to become something different. Universities can help, but it's the leper colonies, the demands of humility or courage, that teach us best.”  I really like this quote because I think it’s unexpected in our society.  We are expected to go to a prestigious college if we can get into one, get a sophisticated degree is something that will help you make lots of money, and network all throughout college so you can get a good job.  The importance of humility and service are not usually taught and certainly not usually practiced.  I think this shows the importance of learning in everything we do.  Not just learning in our studies but through our work, even if we have a dead end minimum wage job, through our relationships, with our friendships as well as our business relationships, and through our experiences, no matter how humbling. 

                I also liked how C.S. Lewis transitioned to how we must grow in our faith.   We must know the Word, learn new skills, and know the world.  I thought it was interesting that he says that the Bible wasn’t intended to teach us everything we need to know about God and faith.  I feel like I sometimes get caught up thinking that stuff that isn’t in the Bible just isn’t in the Bible because than it would be too long or because it wasn’t culturally relevant at the time.  I think the culturally relevant is at least true, for example, God can’t talk about the morals of stem cell research because no one even knew what a stem cell was.  However, that doesn’t mean that God would have talked about it if it was culturally relevant,  It is as if God gives us a bunch of puzzle pieces to help up understand what is right and wrong.  I tend to think all the puzzle pieces are in the Bible, but some are in nature, others come from traditional theology and what I can learn from my forefathers in the faith, and others just from experience.  All our wisdom comes from the Lord, but he has more than one teaching method.  God’s providence allows us to learn from created things as well as from God’s special revelations to us. 

                God then continues to talk about God’s will for our life and how we must work to learn from him, however, he gives us laws to help guide us.  We must trust in God and yet continue to work hard and use the skills we have learned, just like the farmer planting his crops.  We must trust in God to help us learn in all the situations in life we come across.