13 Lessons #9: Feed Their Soul

Last week we watched Dicken’s Hard Times.  One of our party found it terribly dark and depressing in an overwhelming way.  But profound truths do come to light in this movie, imperfect as it is. We are each human souls, replete with overflowing hopes, dreams, unique personalities reflecting some aspect of who God Himself is; with differing callings and loves and passions and interests directing our attentions and gifts across the spectrum of humanity and the world in which we find ourselves.  We also have idiosyncrasies, strengths and weaknesses, and various traits we bring to every relationship that can be helpful or hurtful, but that we need to understand and refine and bring under the Lordship of our Relational Christ, who understands us best of all.  Immersing ourselves in the rich soul food of Creation all around us, whether in admiring a person we love or in watching raindrops diamond-pivoting off pine needles, -- whether relational, art, music, story, nature--it  feeds longings put there by the Creator of all these good things:  the Artist of all Artists, the Musician supreme above all, the One who first conceived of humanities’ need for one another.  And He looked at all He had made and beheld that it was very good.

This week we read, “Schools in America are to drop classic books… in favor of informational texts… American literature classics are to be replaced by insulation manuals and plant inventories in US classrooms by 2014. A new school curriculum which will affect 46 out of 50 states will make it compulsory for at least 70 per cent of books studied to be non-fiction, in an effort to ready pupils for the workplace.…

“ Jamie Highfill, a teacher at Woodland Junior High School in Arkansas, told the Times that the directive was bad for a well-rounded education.

"I'm afraid we are taking out all imaginative reading and creativity in our English classes.

"In the end, education has to be about more than simply ensuring that kids can get a job. Isn't it supposed to be about making well-rounded citizens?"

"Supporters of the directive argue that it will help pupils to develop the ability to write concisely and factually, which will be more useful in the workplace than a knowledge of Shakespeare.”

Brilliant cultural critic  George Grant twittered, “Gradgrind would be proud.  US public schools adopt the Victorian utilitarianism Dickens skewered in Hard Times.” 

We should feel a cold chill.  Ultimately this kind of thinking will remove the soul of a people, mechanistically making them fit only for the “factory work” of existence.  They say they do this so that students will have jobs someday.  Does not something ring eerily diabolic about causing a person to be prepared only to do a job, but not to live a life?  I am sure they would stutter that this is not what they mean to do at all.  Alas, it is what will be accomplished, and it is the diabolic vision for the rabble, the masses.  Dangerous for them to think, to imagine wild dreams, for then they cannot be controlled. 

We understand ourselves and one another through Story; yes, sometimes through the diverse and colorful medium of the classics and their study of human nature, of who God meant for us to be individually and in community.  Scripture itself is largely made up of Story, from which we decipher and discern many things about ourselves and others, about sin, redemption, grace, love; and indeed there is nothing new under the sun.

Weaving Scripture masterfully, colorfully in and out of who our young people are becoming, and the world they inhabit; weaving rich parable and quiet understandings from fiction and non-fiction alike as they begin to discern themselves and others, and the times in which they live; weaving a love for all things beautiful and praiseworthy through their weeks like so many cedar garlands strung with lights and ribbon along the archways of our homes; weaving talks and warm eye contact and hugs into hard discussions and decision-making and growing times, with a felt understanding and camaraderie in the basic business of being human and navigating relationships;  these things feed souls.  Do we know each of them in our home well enough to know what is meaningful to them?  What reaches them?  Are we helping them to read their brothers and sisters, others in their church community, to really know them, so they will know how to bless those around them in ways meaningful to them?

And as we read the writings of the western canon of literature, are we teaching them that any good can be had apart from Christ?  Common grace gives us much, to be sure, but to rely on virtue without godliness is to deny the Cross.  To rely on change by our own power and devices is to build a legalist, not a man or woman dependent on the only source of true change,  Jesus Christ.  What is story doing for us?  Helping us understand who we are before an Almighty God, in need of Christ’s finished work on our behalf?  Or building up our own sense of self-worth and self-reliance, while all the while killing truth and goodness, beauty and joy?