Tag: Convocation

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Bring Them Up

Black Belt Raggants

“Will this be on the test?”

This is a standard student silly question. To ask it is to raise a different question: are you working to learn the most you can or are you learning to work the least you can?

Here we are on the first day of school. This is a place of learning. But it is easy to deceive ourselves into thinking that we have learned enough rather than that we are just getting started.

A good teacher knows what to expect of his students when they enter his class. He has a vision for what his students should know at the end of the year. He follows a scope and sequence. He uses books and discussions and resources to go step-by-step. His daily lesson plans add up and work to get his students to the next starting point.

Do you not think that the Lord is the great lesson planner? Do you not think that the Lord has particular tests for you to take? He does. (See Philippians 1:6)

One lesson the Lord repeats is that there are almost always higher levels to get to. When you love something, your love will be tested. When you learn to crawl, next up is walking. When you learn to walk, next up is not walking into the corner of the table. When you reliably can walk around furniture, and can hold your own against big dogs jumping into you, then we’ll see if you can do all that and chew gum at the same time.

I’ve been looking for a good name for this phenomenon. One name for it could be the category of a false summit. You’re climbing a hill, you can see the top, you do the work to get there, and once there you see that there is another hill, but it wasn’t visible before. You made real progress, but you’re not done.

Karate (or jujitsu or taekwondo) is a better illustration. Depending on the local teacher, it’s common to identify 8 colors of belts: White → Yellow → Orange → Green → Blue → Purple → Brown → Black. Kyu (or student) ranks get a beginner to “senior brown,” and then Dan (or master) ranks (black belt and above) go from 1st degree to 10th. So 1st degree black belt is an end in one way, and just the start of advanced study in another.

There are things to “master” at each level, but mastery leads to more. The fact of increasing difficulty doesn’t mean you’ve not progressed, it’s part of the process. Another lesson and test is a result of passing a test. Seeing another move, or combo, is not a failure, it is progression.

There are a few parts of our Christ-honoring culture that we identify at ECS, that we have been practicing, and that are being tested to get to black belt and beyond. We call it our enculturation trifecta.

Masculine nerve. This isn’t making everyone into a dude, but it is a kind of backbone that belongs with image-bearers who know what they’re made for. We’re made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever less like kittens just out of the bath and more like lions.

  • The Kindergartener sounds off at full volume though he might get the phonogram wrong. He tells the teacher he broke a thing before anyone has asked who broke it. This is good and proper white belt work.
  • The 6th grader sings with guts even when others act like it isn’t cool. She doesn’t laugh at a joke that’s critical of a classmate. This is green/blue belt level, when a lot of people give up.
  • The senior picks a thesis that’s pokey, not one that’s easy. He asks the girl to dance. First degree black belt is close.

Of course we will be tempted to flop. That’s the time not to.

Tactical laughter. This is knowing when to laugh, and that’s more than knowing not to laugh at a funeral. This is choosing to laugh when all signs point to freaking out.

  • The grammar-stage student biffs hard on the blacktop at recess, has blood to prove it, and turns on his laughing tears not his sobbing tears; white belt.
  • The logic-stage student bombs the Logic quiz, but laughs at his fallacies while working to get his Ps & Qs in order; green/blue belt.
  • The rhetoric student reads the most pages and plans the big events and sings and sweats running the Liden Mile; black belt.

Our school motto is risus est bellum: laughter is war.

Radical company. We are in this together. Raggants don’t go behind another raggant’s back; raggants got each other’s back. We don’t sow discord. We don’t badmouth. We don’t spread rumors. We love getting along, we love working in the same field, we love making our school a destination.

  • Kindergartners say, “I was wrong, please forgive me. Want to play?”
  • The 6th grader doesn’t take her complaints about a classmate home over the weekend to dump her fussiness on her family, but talks to her friend when it’s hard and doesn’t cut her off.
  • The almost-graduate knows the names of the grammar kids. He humbly asks the 6th grader for forgiveness for being annoyed with him. She makes being a senior, and the whole senior class, look good.

The white belt performs the move, the black belt performs the same move smoothly.

Make no mistake, your nerve is going to be tested more than it was before. When it comes to laughing, you’ll be sure that you’ve hit a situation where you can’t. For the sake of fellowship, did it really mean you were going to have to forgive that person? You’ve got to be patient, like, not just immediately?

The Bible says that we will be tested. God’s Word actually says that God will give us many tests, a variety of tests. It also says we are supposed to be excited about test day. We’re exhorted to “count it all joy” when we face various trials (James 1:2) because the tests are actually working on us.

One of the objectives in James 1:4 is that we be complete, and it means something like: ready for any situation or equipped to meet the expectations. This progress happens on a grade-by-grade level but it is also part of our school’s responsibility. Overall we are trying to give you what you need to carry and advance Christ-honoring culture.

I referenced The Horse and His Boy on the first day last year, but fits today’s call as well. Shasta barely makes it to the old man’s house when the old man sends Shasta immediately out on a more urgent task. The narrator says,

“He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.”

Will all this be on the test? Yes, all of the above. God is calling all of us to go further up and further in. He is teaching us and testing us so that we will be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Is it your time to watch a good example? Your time to learn by trying and failing and trying again? Your turn to pick someone else up off the mat?

You don’t sign up for karate because you just want to wear the belt. You want to kick butt. Good, it’s time to robe up and become black belt raggants.

Categories
Bring Them Up

No Feather Lifting Classes

These are my notes for the 2025-26 convocation at ECS.

Have you noticed that there are no Feather Lifting classes? I know there is such a thing as a “featherweight class” in boxing, but featherweight in that case is an adjective. I’m talking about a class that has different sizes and shapes and colors of feathers, with instruction on different lifts you could learn to do.

One reason why there are no feather lifting classes is because most people can already lift most feathers without any problems. You don’t need much muscle or flexibility, you don’t have to think too long or too hard. You don’t need an expert to model it, and you won’t find trophies for winners at feather lifting competitions because it’s easy.

Is there anything wrong with doing easy things? Well, no. Breathing is usually so easy that you don’t realize you’re doing it, but if you stopped breathing there would be something seriously wrong. Some sins are easy to commit, but it’s the sin part that makes sin wrong, not the easy part. Easy isn’t necessarily bad, but it also isn’t usually impressive.

For that matter, just because you can do a hard thing doesn’t make you awesome. You could drink nine gallons of chocolate milk in a day, which would be difficult, but it wouldn’t get you much more than a lot of trips to the bathroom. And yet, God made the world—which was easy for Him—in such a way that image-bearers would learn to be more stout by learning to lift heavy things for their glory.

I bring this up on the first day of school because we really are tempted to believe that life, and learning, should be easy. But we not only want you to learn more than how to lift feathers, we want you to learn to love the good hard parts of learning so that you’ll keep learning good and doing good hard things for the rest of your life.

In a lot of ways, school is what could be called a “kind” learning environment. You are told what problems are going to be on the test or what the assignment requires, someone else gives you instruction and resources to prepare to handle those problems, and then you get fairly quick feedback (also known as grading) to know how you did and what you could fix for next time.

A “wicked” learning environment is when the problems are not so defined, when you have to figure out what you need/want and then try to get it. You might not know if you succeeded until long after the work is done. Lots of “assignments” and jobs and projects that are worth something are harder than lifting feathers. Part of what we’re doing here together is training you to want and to work in unfavorable conditions, and do all those things without complaining or arguing.

Remember in The Horse and His Boy about Shasta:

“He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.”

So make sure that you don’t believe lies. The work is hard enough without adding the heavy load of false expectations. What I mean is, it takes more than a couple weeks to get an education. A good school knows that there are stages of development and how to keep stretching students at each stage. Lord willing, you will finish this grade, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be finished being awesome.

There are some things that others just can’t do for you. Good teachers learn not to do anything for their students that students can do for themselves, and part of the lesson is teaching students what they can do.

Why memorize anything when you could just look it up? Why write anything by hand when you could just have your phone transcribe your talking? Why read a book when you could just have robot summarize it for you?

Sure, and why would married people kiss each other when they could just put a lips sticker on their Stanley water bottle? Why eat steak or pizza when you could just watch a YouTube video about it?

Summaries are good. They are even better when they are your own summaries. Bullet points are beneficial, but there’s a reason parrots aren’t the boss of very much. The story of Moby Dick wouldn’t be the same on a 3×5 card. The scouring of the Shire matters more because of the 60 chapters that came before it. The Bible has something good for you to read every day, but you cannot get it all in just a day. Salvation and sanctification and eternal life are God’s gifts, and our day-to-day challenges are also given to us by God as He is “preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

Constraints increase value, especially the constraint of time. God made night and day, God made you need to sleep, God made it so that things are due, maybe even tomorrow. Yes, you’ll be learning to decide what to cut, what to prioritize and what to postpone, and when to go to bed.

If the brain is a muscle, then you’ve got to exercise it for it to be stronger. You can’t skip the line to know what/who and how to love. You don’t win a wrestling match without getting a little sweaty. You can’t order the courage of a raggant off of Amazon. But you can learn to care and you can learn to care more.

This is the problem with cheating, and I don’t mean just lying about whether it is your own work or not. Don’t cheat by not doing your own work. Because it isn’t just the right answer that we’re after, we want you to be smart and have self-control and steadfastness.

Education is not difficult like trying to reverse stuff toothpaste into your tube from the hole, it’s difficult like trying to dig and dung enough around your tree so that it grows more by the time we check it next year.

  • Do something. “In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty” (Proverbs 14:23) Get started. “It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish.” —Samwise Gamgee
  • Do your own work. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10)
  • Don’t complain. “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father” (Colossians 3:17)
  • Finish what you start. “A lazy person does not roast his prey, but the precious possession of a person is diligence.” (Proverbs 12:27 NASB)

If we want to carry and advance Christ-honoring culture, then we’re going to need bigger imaginations and stronger muscles. You don’t get those things from lifting feathers.

Categories
Every Thumb's Width

Picking up Speed

The only thing I like less than traffic is traffic circles, but that is just my favorite complaint. With traffic, especially on I-5, have you ever been in a major slow down, seen on your maps app that it will open up in a mile or so, and you really expect to see a doozy of an accident when you reach the appointed mile? Then when you arrive, the lanes did open up and you did start picking up speed again, but there was no visible problem? Why is there still so much traffic?

There probably had been an earlier accident. But there is a phenomenon where a past event has lagging consequences. Non-technically it’s like a compressed spring that takes time to uncompress. The technical term for it is Hysteresis:

term used in physics, engineering, economics, and even psychology to describe a phenomenon where the effect of a force (or input) on a system depends not only on the current value of that input but also on the history of past inputs. In other words, a system exhibits hysteresis when its response lags behind the changes in the influencing factors.

With traffic, once the accident is cleared, no one wants to keep driving slowly, and yet it still takes time to recover from the lag. Hysteresis explains economic lag, magnetic lag, emotional lag.

There have been three major, overlapping accidents that have caused quite the stop. The accidents happened a while ago, but we haven’t even really swept up all the broken taillight pieces. There’s enough little puddles of oil and gas on the road that any one of them might still catch fire.

  1. Education crashed because people thought that God was unnecessary.
  2. Education crashed because God’s people thought education was unnecessary.
  3. Education crashed because in 2020 almost everyone thought the whole education system was unnecessary.

These aren’t going to be my talking points, they just describe our unfavourable conditions.

We are about to add a fourth crash according to some, where AI takes over all our jobs, and maybe AI will learn that humans are unnecessary.

This is why education starts with worship, why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and why men are imago Dei before they are homo sapiens. Christ is Lord, ergo cogito.

On one hand, it’s hard to believe we have to keep making the case that education is good, let alone that good education comes with high expectations and high effort and high blessings. And on the other hand, favorable conditions never come.

But all are yours, and you are Christ’s, so Christ remains the one to whom we must give account. Who knows how much lag there will be? But let’s get our foot ready to hit the gas, and remember where why we started the trip in the first place.

I have three books that I stand up behind my computer on my desk in my study at home.

  • Everett and Snohomish County: A Pictorial History
  • Reflections of Marysville: A Pictorial History
  • Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction

Better future down the road. Students with a larger language model who also know WHY and have WANTS. AI does not have any loves, no ordering. We have gifts worth dying for, and a God worth living–and learning–for.

Categories
Bring Them Up

Watershed Raggants

There are three things I’d like to do today. I’d like to welcome you to year 13 of ECS, and so, WELCOME!

We’re already down to just two more. Second, I’d like to encourage you again, from a different angle, about carrying and advancing what it means to be a raggant.

Raggant characteristics are Christian characteristics (see these notes from the beginning of last school year). We talk about being raggants because it’s playful, and because it’s particular to the life of Christian students at ECS. There are Christians all over the world, but it’s a limited group who get to have the raggant as a mascot.

At the most recent teacher retreat, we considered the idea of watershed raggants. A watershed is “an area or ridge of land that separates waters flowing to different rivers, basins, or seas.” At its height, a watershed is a point, and rainfall goes one way or the other.

Perhaps the most famous/dramatic watershed near us is the Continental Divide. See this page by the US Forest Service for more.

At some points along the divide, rain that falls just a quarter inch apart either ends up in the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic Ocean.

That’s a physical/geographical watershed. The word watershed also has then been used in a figurative sense in reference to “an event or period marking a turning point in a course of action or state of affairs.” And we are interested in watershed raggants. When you meet one, you can’t stay the same as you were. A watershed raggant is light in the dark, salt to the tasteless, hard to ignore or forget. Other people remember meeting a raggant. (See 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 for an evangelistic example.)

On the last day of school we talked about The Summer of Raggants. We considered some examples of what kind of things raggants could do that were ragganty while not at school.

One question you might have is, what does it look like to be a raggant in class? That’s reasonable! In class is where we’re training raggants, building and sharpening your watershed qualities. Here are some ideas that go with all six raggant virtues.

Stout Image-bearers

An image bearer is a reflection of God, and one of the things that means is that we’re made for relationships. Each student has a job, and part of the job is not being isolated. So he Works and plays well with others.

To be stout means to be strong, and that includes being strong enough to know when and where to fight. Most of the time, your classmates are not your enemies, and your teacher always deserves respect. He Is courteous in speech and manner.

God made men to take dominion. The whole earth is a gift, and this assignment is part of who He made us to be. No excuses, even when it is hard. He Accepts responsibility.

More than only doing what one is told, there is some eagerness to find things that can be done. He Shows initiative.

Generous Disciples of Christ

The word disciple means learner or follower. Learners pay attention to those that have something to teach them, they are ready when the leader points the right way. He Responds to authority promptly and cheerfully.

While in class, there are some times to give gifts (for example, maybe around Christmas time). But most of the time, you give yourself. One way to give yourself is to have your things ready and be where you’re supposed to be without others waiting. He Shows regard for others in timeliness.

Another thing you can “give” is not making others do what you can do for yourself. Don’t “take” their energy. He Uses self-control in actions and in speech.

Copious Producers

Copious means plenty/a lot, and a producer is a maker. Making much. In class, he’s trying and trying hard. He Works up to ability.

It also means he’s got to watch out for distractions. There are so many things! (And this only gets more true the older you get.) He Stays on task. and Is diligent.

Making more includes not just quantity, but quality. Take care of what you’re working on. He Shows neatness in work.

Prodigious Learners

There will be a time when you learn on your own. Classical education includes learning how to learn.

We’re at school. This is a place of learning. And similar to the meaning of disciple, a learner Listens attentively.

Technique can be improved, but you have to learn it first. There are a lot of words in English, but if you don’t know the ABCs and the phonogram rules, you won’t make much. Start with the start, do what you’re told. So he Follows directions.

Especially at school, our teachers know things. He Interacts well with adults.

Thankful Stewards

A steward is one who cares for things. All that we have is from God, so we give thanks to Him. Also, God cares how we care for His things.

Steward your work. He Completes assignments.

One of the things that we cannot buy but are always spending is time. Steward your minutes. He Uses time wisely.

Steward your word; do what you say you will. He Is trustworthy.

Steward things, including things that others have paid for. Maybe that’s part of the classroom, maybe that’s recess equipment, maybe that’s the lunch of a friend. He Respects property.

Jovial Warriors

We don’t want to be isolated from one another, true. But also, have you ever tried sword fighting while needing someone to hold your hand the whole time? It’s one thing to need help, it’s another thing to require the whole class to wait for you. He Works independently and Claims only his/her share of attention.

Independent effort (without talking to your neighbor) is right when it’s time to do your homework, contributing to the discussion is right when it’s time to talk. Demanding that others give you attention is wrong, giving attention to the subject, and to what others have to say, is right. He Participates in class.

And he Is optimistic. We work in hope, hope that our labor pleases Jesus, hope that He will cause what we sow to be a great harvest, hope that when we sacrifice He will bless us. Let the joy of the Lord make you confident of good to come.

A lot of this should sound familiar, because you see it on every grade card at the end of every quarter as part of the Character Assessment. For that matter, some of the teachers have posters of these very things around campus. It’s all coming together, isn’t it?

So may the 2024-25 school year be a watershed year for ECS as we train watershed raggants as part of a watershed rumpus.

I said there were three things I wanted to do today, and here’s the third: I’d like to give you a bookmark! (Thanks to Mrs. Herr for the watery raggant and thanks to Mrs. Higgins for cutting them so straight!)

Categories
Bring Them Up

The Year of the Raggant

The following are my notes from the ECS Convocation for the 2023-24 school year.

Welcome back to another school year, Raggants.

We think it is an extraordinary thing to be a raggant; we are the only school in the world with the raggant as mascot. The raggant is more than uniform embroidery, acting like a raggant is part of our vocabulary. I want to remind you of what it means. We include the characteristics on our grade cards, they are part of our other graduation requirements (and there are a few other uses). At least some have wondered why we make such a big deal about it; aren’t we supposed to be Christians? And of course following Christ what we’re about, but I hope to show that being a raggant is a particular and playful way to pursue being a Christian. I’m ready to say that this should be The Year of the Raggant.

Mr. Sarr is the one who first noted how the raggant perfectly embodies the center of classical and Christian education. Before ECS started we were reading The Case for Classical Christian Education in which Doug Wilson wrote:

Classical Christian academies teach all subjects as an integrated whole with the Scriptures at the center.

Christ is Lord of all He made (and “by Him all things were created” Colossians 1:16), and Christ’s Word is the special revelation for our worship and our worldview. We are to “let the word of Christ dwell in (us) richly” (Colossians 3:16). There is no other book like the Bible; the Bible gives us the standard by which we evaluate every other book, subject, class, conversation, and claim. The Bible teaches us about Christ and what it means to follow Christ.

Mr. Sarr was also reading through the 100 Cupboards trilogy by Doug’s son, Nate Wilson. And in the second book, Dandelion Fire, Nate describes the raggant:

The raggant didn’t have any extra senses. He only had one, and it interfaced everything into an amazingly complicated but entirely accurate caricature of whatever worlds were within his range.

What a great parallel: Classical Christian schools where everything is integrated by Scripture and the raggant interfacing with all the world by one sense. So Mr. Sarr proposed the raggant as our mascot. On our school webpage he wrote:

That is a picture of how we want for our students to perceive Christ’s domain academically. We want their perceptions of the world to be less compartmentalized (like human senses) and more academically integrated like the blended, combined senses of the mighty raggant.

A few years later, in the spring of 2016, I needed something to talk about for an assembly. I came up with a list of characteristics for our students, showed it to my wife, and she wondered if I was okay. Ha. My first draft wasn’t impressive. I went back to the brainstorming, and ended up with six things. That talk got a good response, and later that summer the school board approved these characteristics as things to for ECS to emphasize.

At the time I didn’t use a lot of Scripture proof-texts. But all these virtues are driven by the Bible. When we talk about being raggants, it’s not really about taking on the shape of a small rhino with wings, we’re talking about integrated learning and living according to Scripture.

Stout Image Bearers

God made man in His image, blessed him, and told him to be fruitful and take dominion (Genesis 1:26, 28). In order to know who we are as human beings, we have to know in whose likeness we were created, and that comes from God’s Word.

As reflections of God we’re responsible to fulfill God’s mandate. Taking dominion is not for wimps, it requires stout/sturdy/strong image-bearers. So we take heart in what the Lord told Joshua at the edge of the promised land,

Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:7–9 ESV)

So “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might” (Ephesians 6:10). “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13).

Generous Disciples of Christ

Every Christian is a disciple, a word we got from the Latin word discipulus meaning “student/learner/follower.” Making disciples is the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). That requires learning and observing all that Jesus commanded, which we get from Scripture.

And disciples give, first of themselves following the pattern of Christ, then of their resources. They die to bring life (2 Corinthians 4:7-12), they contribute to those who need it and show hospitality (Romans 12:13). Liberal education, education that makes free-men, includes giving freely as we’ve received (Matthew 10:8 KJV). Wisdom teaches that “One gives freely, yet grows all the richer” (Proverbs 11:24).

Copious Producers

Copious means plentiful, overflowing. Raggants/Christians aren’t just consumers, they are big-time producers.

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
(Psalm 1:1–4 ESV)

Fruitfulness is not like that of a machine, but of a living tree. This fruitfulness, like courage, comes through God’s Word.

Remember the sower and the seed (an illustration of the gospel Word), that which fell on good soil “produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold” (Mark 4:8, 20). When the soil is right the Word grows into a field full of good works.

Prodigious Learners

As copious means abundance, prodigious means enormous, vast. Christ is interested in a lot, so to be like Him we have a lot we can learn.

That includes about Christ Himself: “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). That’s a command, and we start with Scripture. So also, when we walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, we are “bearing fruit in every good work (copious) and increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthen with all power (stout)” (Colossians 1:10).

Thankful Stewards

Thankfulness is how we learn, not just the end of our learning. We give thanks before and during our work, not only after it. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:16–17 ESV, see also Ephesians 5:20)

If Scripture integrates all our learning, then thankfulness is like glue that holds together our attitude about it all. To whom much is given, much (gratitude) is required (see Luke 12:48).

Jovial Warriors

Since Genesis 3:15 humanity as been in a battle; there is enmity between two seeds, that of the serpent and that of the woman. That promised seed we now know is Christ Himself. Christians are enlisted as soldiers in a spiritual war (2 Corinthians 10:4) along with Him.

The good fight should be fought in a good way, so our motto is: laughter is war. It comes from Psalm 52.

The righteous shall see and fear,
and shall laugh at him, saying,
“See the man who would not make
God his refuge, (Psalm 52:6–7 ESV)

See, fear, laugh, all of which come from faith in what God’s Word says. The Word is our sword (Ephesians 6:17), and we wield it with joy.

Of course there are other great characteristics in Scripture. The Greatest Commandment is to love God, then we’re to love our neighbors. The Great Commission is, again, to make disciples not to make raggants. We’re not saying that these six qualities are an alt-fruit of the Spirit, another six onto the inspired seven. But in a school context, with the Bible at the center, with the goal of Christ-honoring education culture, these characteristics seemed playful and potent.

So put it all together. Raggants are high discipline, low drama students who see all the world through the Scriptures. May the Lord bless this 2023-24 school year at ECS as The Year of the Raggant.

Categories
Bring Them Up

A Cultural Cathedral

The following are my notes from the 2022-23 ECS Convocation assembly.

I read three books this summer. Hopefully you read even more. These are three that I won’t easily forget and that I think, perhaps strangely enough, easily relate to each other.

The first I’ll mention is a book that has been on my to-read list for many years. It’s not a long book, but it is a book about projects that take a long time. It’s written for 10-11 year-olds, and we have a copy in our 4th grade library. Here is my book report and rally to begin another year.

The book is called Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction. It was published the year before I was born (1973), but it’s a story about the citizens of a small town in France who decided to build the biggest and most beautiful cathedral in their country in the year 1252. It’s actually a fictional story about the people of Chutreaux; there is no city with that name, so there are no remains of this particular project. But the imaginary cathedral takes details from in-real-life construction of Gothic cathedrals built in the 12-14th centuries.

The bishop of the city when they started died before they finished. The master builder of the cathedral himself died more than halfway through and had to be replaced. In the non-fiction preface, the author only gives one qualification about what makes his story less real: the workers didn’t take any long breaks in construction. And still, it took 86 years from the first decision to the final detail.

To build something so grand took a lot of money, obviously a lot of time, and it also took a lot of different people doing their work expertly. There were teams of people, those who cut down trees in a nearby forrest and prepared the wood, those who cut out stones from a quarry and moved them to the site, those who dug deep footers and blacksmiths who made nails and hooks and hinges. There were master craftsmen and apprentices and assistants, masons and mortar makers, carpenters and climbers and cooks. No one person could have done it.

In one way your life as a student is like this. Even though your years in school are a jumpstart, your education is a lifetime project. It will take much time, much care, much effort, and a multitude of people. As the Lord adds to your knowledge and understanding and wisdom, as He knits you together with love for truth and goodness and beauty, your life is a cathedral.

In another way, ECS is a great project. For the first time, after ten years of school, now we even have our own building! Thanks be to the Lord. The classrooms are our classrooms, they have our desks and our chairs. Many of the rooms have been painted, they’ve gotten new lights, the things on the walls are decorative and educational and ours. Though they wouldn’t identify as Michelangelos, the teachers, many of the students, and some friends of the school have painted and furnished and adorned and loved this place into a more lovely place.

This facility is probably not ever going to be cathedral-level beautiful, and that’s fine. We’re actually trying to build something much more difficult than walls, something that will outlast us. We are like so many medieval stonemasons, adding a few more bricks to this generational project. Lord willing, the best years of ECS may be seen our grandchildren.

Another book I read this summer is Battle for the American Mind. It was published just this year. It’s about schools and education, about the trajectory of troubles for many government schools over the last century. The problems that are all around us are worse than new math and unscientific science and willful ignorance of history. The root problem is that people don’t have any real vision of the “good life.” They wouldn’t know beauty if it poked them in the eye-balls. They think the state has more power to make things better than the power of self-control. They have no center, no real reference point other than their feelings. They’re not practicing or pursuing virtues.

What we’re building here at ECS is more than just students who get high scores on tests. We’re not just trying to get you to graduate early so that you can get through college quicker so that you can get a high paying job. Those things are fine, but they are like a cathedral constructed of Popsicle sticks.

We want you to be great-souled. The word magnanimous is just that: manga = great and animus = mind or heart or soul. It’s related to those who are animated, full of life. We want a culture of families, students, and teachers who know and love, who know what is lovely and why they should love the lovely and be abounding in love. Previous generations referred to it as ordo amoris, ordered loves. This is where intellectual and moral virtue comes from. We want you to learn the stock responses of God-fearers, to be unimpressed by what the world says is cool, which never lasts long anyway.

This includes the alphabet and phonograms, this includes reading your assignments, but it also means paying more attention to what’s in your heart than how long a classmate has been talking. It means committing to work hard, and then actually working when it is hard. It means listening to those who know better, it means looking to take responsibilities that make the whole thing better.

We are in a battle for minds and our minds are necessary for the battle. We are trying to battle by building a culture, a paideia, that forms what you like and that you’re like and what you pursue as good.

Which leads me to the third book I read, Good to Great (a book published in between the first two, 2001). The definition of good is a little different; good in this case is about commercial success rather than cultural blessings. It’s a business book, but there’s some valuable overlap.

Want to be great? Be fanatically consistent in the right things. Those things aren’t always big things. One of the greatest dangers is thinking that the right things are other things rather than the ones right in front of you. Do what must be done; do it faithfully. That makes great people, and a bunch of people working together makes a great culture.

We care about raggant virtues. Be generous, be a producer, be a learner, be thankful, be joyful. As we work toward being great, let us be staff and students known for: High discipline, low drama.

I read something else good just yesterday, and I’m thinking maybe I should tape it to mirrors around me. It said: stop whining. An alternative, since we’re on the first day of school: don’t start whining.

Your education is like a cathedral, ECS itself is a different sort of generational project, an educational cathedral, and may the Lord bless this next year of classical education, weaponized laughter, and sacrificial labors so that we will carry and advance Christ-honoring culture.

Categories
Bring Them Up

Laughing in Wartime

Here are the notes from my Convocation address at ECS yesterday.

The word perspective derives from two Latin words, the preposition per meaning “through” and the verb speciō meaning “I look.” We might think of a person with perspective like a bird, high enough to see a broader landscape, or as one using a telescope, far enough away to see how things relate. But at its root, someone with perspective is someone who is able to look through. Someone who can look through is someone who can see clearly as if having found a window in the wall.

From a calendar perspective, we are only on the first day of an entire school year, and so we have a long way to go. From an institutional perspective, we are on the first day of year ten, and so we have come a long way. From even another perspective, not just looking at time, we can see through the fog and know that what we have here is something special.

Follow me here. Perspective enables us to see that what we have is special, and I’d say that what’s really special is that we have perspective. My evidence for that is all the laughter. Bona fide laughter requires perspective.

The painting ‘De Lachende Rembrandt’ (‘The Laughing Rembrandt’) is displayed in the Rembrandt House museum in Amsterdam, on June 6 2008. It is a self portrait by the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn, presumably from 1628. (Photo credit OLAF KRAAK/AFP/Getty Images)

Both our mission statement and our motto talk about laughter. Here’s our mission:

We commend the works of the Lord to another generation with the tools of classical education, weaponized laughter, and sacrificial labors so that they will carry and advance Christ-honoring culture.

Our motto is: Risus est bellum, or Laughter is war.

We talk about laughter, and in the nine finished years of ECS, there has been nothing more difficult, and nothing more important, than laughter. This kind of laughing is not mostly due to a specific personality type, though it’s certainly true that laughing comes easier to some than the melancholy. I feel as if I have a good view of what this laughter looks like, like a drowning man looks up at the water’s surface with desperate attention and desire to reach it. Laughter is that important.

Of course not all laughter is the same. Solomon had some unflattering things to say about chuckling fatheads.

For as the crackling of thorns under a pot,
so is the laughter of the fools;
(Ecclesiastes 7:6)

Thorns in fire heat up fast, but don’t last. They burn out before providing any real benefit. The laughter of fools is as useless as it is noisy.

If a wise man has an argument with a fool,
the fool only rages and laughs,
and there is no quiet.
(Proverbs 29:9)

Fools laugh because they can’t see the bigger picture and because they don’t want to look at the immediate problems. A fool’s cackle is mere defense mechanism, making a racket against the reasonable.

Weaponized laughter, the kind we’re after at ECS, is laughter from faith for faith. It is able to see through the current troubles to what God is accomplishing in them. We have some historical examples surrounding us in a great cloud of witnesses.

“When sometimes I sit alone, and have a settled assurance of the state of my soul, and know that God is my God, I can laugh at all troubles, and nothing can daunt me.”

—Hugh Latimer

Latimer was the same English Reformer burned at the stake in 1555 with Nicholas Ridley, when Latimer is reported to have said:

“Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

That is the kind of thing you can only say with perspective. A man with the perspective of faith in God can “laugh at all troubles” even to the point of greatest sacrifice.

John Bunyan, who lived less than a hundred years after Latimer, also in England, was the sort of man who had perspective enough to laugh, and his counsel for those being persecuted:

“Has thou escaped? Laugh. Art thou taken? Laugh. I mean, be pleased which soever things shall go, for that the scales are still in God’s hands.”

Godly laughter is God-trusting laughter.

It’s why David wrote, “The righteous shall see and fear, and laugh” (Psalm 52:5). Not only did David have perspective, while on the run from King Saul and from Doeg the Edomite, he was laughing at the man who didn’t have perspective. Doeg seemed to have the upper hand, and he had the King favor, but he wouldn’t make God his refuge. The righteous see right through that.

We will be tempted not to laugh for a number of reasons, especially because of our work. This is true of students, new and old, true of parents, and true for teachers, a thing I know by personal testimony. Temptations come because:

  • The work is unknown, and we don’t know what we’re doing. There’s a certain level of discomfort, and fearfulness is an easier default than trying while laughing.
  • The work is unenjoyable, and we don’t like what we’ve been assigned. It’s easier to do the job with more whining than laughing.
  • The work doesn’t have enough time (from our perspective) to get finished. It’s easier to be flustered than to be laughing.
  • The work (we got finished) isn’t perfect. It’s easier to to be proudly irritated than to humbly laugh.
  • The work is tiring. It’s easier to belly ache rather than belly laugh.
  • The work is unappreciated, at least not praised as immediately as we’d like. It’s easier to fuss than to laugh.

Are you doing your work from faith and for faith? Are you doing your work “heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23)? Then trust the Creator of time with the use and fruit of the time He gives you. The woman who fears the Lord has such an approach.

Strength and dignity are her clothing,
and she laughs at the time to come.
(Proverbs 31:25)

There is a potent sort of laughing, and it’s the sign of a virtuous man.

You’ve got to be able to not get sucked in by the complainers, to keep your cool when everyone is freaking out about the assignment, to be patient even when the deadline is looming. Laugh in faith because your life is bigger than your grade, and then laugh in thanks when you got a better grade than you probably deserved.

Little did I know how much I would come to appreciate an address given by C. S. Lewis (just a couple months in to WWII in 1939) which is called, “Learning in Wartime.” (Listen to the whole thing here.) I don’t know how many times I’ve shared this quote, though I know I quoted it the first day of ECS.

“If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come.”

Choose this day which character you will be, Distracted, Fearful, Grumpy, or Dopey. How about instead we aim to be those who are laughing in wartime?

I also said the following on the first day of ECS, 3290 days ago:

“We don’t want our kids to want someone else to do it. We don’t want them to wait for all things safe and predictable and comfortable, for the “perfect” conditions. We don’t want them to work in reliance on their giftedness but rather because they believe God. We want them to walk by faith, ready to deal with the challenges of the battle even if they don’t have all the resources. We want them to be starters and singers. We want them to be just like us, only better. We want them to have first days like this, only bigger.”

As we present ourselves as living sacrifices to Him, and as He blesses the fruit of our hands and homework, we will sing with the psalmist:

Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then they said among the nations,
“The LORD has done great things for them.”
The LORD has done great things for us;
we are glad.
(Psalm 126:2-3)

May the Lord give us His perspective on 2021-22 and fill our mouths with laughter.

Categories
Every Thumb's Width

A Seed Sown

Notes from my address at the inaugural convocation of Comeford College on September 6

Good evening, Mr. President, Founding Members, First Teaching Fellows, Beginning Students, and Guests. It is not a surprise that I have the opportunity to speak to you, but it is no less of a privilege.

Ten years from now the Comeford College convocation will be different, Deo volente. If the Lord blesses this work, we will know then so many more things that we don’t know now. But it will be a glorious decade if we pay attention.

There are some things that are good upon first encounter, that you find out more about later, that make it all even better. Part of what makes them better is that you had a bite, so your appetite was engaged, but then you get the full spread on the table.

On the back cover of the first book I ever read about classical education is the quote by C. S. Lewis, “The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come.” You don’t need to start a school to appreciate that reality, but it is possible for one’s respect for that wisdom to multiply.

How much more did my appreciation grow when years later I came across that quote in its native habitat, an essay titled “Learning in Wartime.” Lewis addressed the Oxford undergraduates only 51 days after Germany invaded Poland marking the start of WWII. His sermon was originally called, “None Other Gods: Culture in War Time,” in which he attempted to answer the question, “What is the use of beginning a task which we have so little chance of finishing?” He argued that not only will mankind search out music and meaning in the middle of great conflict, Christians must do it for God’s sake. I have assigned my Greek students to read that essay in its entirety before our first class on Tuesday night; they will not have to wait as long as I did to appreciate the full spread of unfavourable conditions.

A similar thing happened with another quote that has only grown richer and more costly, that has come to focus our energies while expanding our work. In a way, I suppose it was the seed that grew into tonight, sown in my mind in 2004.

“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!'”

The quote is, of course, from Abraham Kuyper. I heard the quote used by another preacher, and used it numerous times in sermons myself, starting with a message on Solus Christus, long before I began to care about Latin as a language whatsoever. As they say in hermeneutics class: That’ll preach!

I came across the quote again early in 2011 while reading a book about liturgy. The book is titled Our Worship, written by Abraham Kuyper, the first full book I read by him. In footnote number one in the Introduction, I learned that “square inch” is the Dutch phrase een duimbreed (pronounced “uhn dime-brrate”) which refers to the small distance between the sides of the thumb: a thumb’s-width. Everything thing we touch or frame, even what we thumb our noses at, Christ claims as His.

For the real goosebump part, do you know the context in which Kuyper said it? He said it in October 1880 in his inaugural charge to the Free University of Amsterdam. Kuyper talked about all Christ’s creation and sphere sovereignty and the Christian’s obligation to be interested in every sphere Christ is interested in when he launched a college.

In that address he said, “To put it mildly, our undertaking bears a protest against the present environment and suggests that something better is possible.” Yes!

There is a great crisis, a current and global crisis, that concerns not a virus or politicians, it is not a crisis of economics or higher education. It is a crisis that involves a living Person. The crux of our concern is the recognition of a King, who came and was crucified, who rose again, ascended into heaven, after promising to come again. “That King of the Jews is either the saving truth to which all peoples say Amen or the principal lie which all peoples should oppose.”

Will men and women confess that Jesus is Lord? Will they obey Him as Lord? Or will they say that man, and man’s mind, his technology, his methods, and his laws are lord? We will either confess that the “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” are in Christ (Colossians 2:3), or contest that claim as delusional and harmful. These two approaches are “the only two mighty antagonists that plumb life down to the root. And so they are worth people risking their own lives for and disturbing the lives of others.”

Think of all the things God has created, visible and invisible, the things He has put in front of the class, so to speak, and those He’s hidden, the Logos and the order and the beauty, the harmonies and tastes and healing medicines. Think of man’s call to take dominion (Genesis 1:28), and yet also of how the unbelieving world can’t help but miss and misrepresent God’s greatness and wisdom. Here is where we need Christian thinkers, a Christian consciousness that finds and defends the sciences and arts of Christ. Those who won’t fear the Lord can have no true wisdom or wonder.

We must buckle down and build up our understanding of Christ’s sovereignty over and in every sphere, from the center to the circumference. We must learn how each cogwheel fits with the others and functions in the great machine of the cosmos. We must see that the world and life and death and the present and the future, all are ours, and we are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s (1 Corinthians 3:22-23).

This is not your father’s Bible college, which is true in a very real sense. How I wish I could have taken this program. But we learn more as we go on, and now it’s time to start. We have learning to do for living and for influencing those around us. That influence won’t happen by floating in feelings and fancy. The college is our effort to reify Kuyperianism, to knead the idea into bread. We have a memory of what we’ve been given, and we have stewardship of a godward, intellectual life. The disruption of the world is no good excuse to stop loving the Lord our God with all of our minds (Matthew 22:37).

As Kuyper acknowledged through his address, it would be easy to laugh at not just the project, but at the persons committed to it. The Free University began with a mere eight students and five professors. Who do they think they are? Isn’t this pretentious? Isn’t it presumptuous? Isn’t it preposterous? I can say, it may be contrary to common sense, and that is fine, because most of what we see that’s common in education makes no sense. It may also fail to observe our limits, it is audacious, but it is by faith. So we aren’t striking a pose, we are desperate to be faithful.

I have two aimed charges to give, and one final defense.

My first charge, which may be unsuspected, is to everyone here who is not a teacher or student at the college. In years to come convocations charges will no doubt be different. But actually, there won’t be college years to come without you.

These few students need very little explanation of their responsibilities, because by choosing Comeford College they have already counted a great cost. Each one of them could do other things, go almost anywhere else. The world is small, they are capable, and the options are virtually endless.

In their Cost/Benefit Analysis, they will pay less tuition than at most other schools, but the cost to their reputations will at least be on loan. They, not their parents, have chosen to deal with more questions resulting in quizzical looks. “Where do you go to college?” Answering Comeford College will get the follow ups, “Where is that? Why did you choose that?”

We don’t have departments. We don’t have a Student Life Center. We don’t yet offer a degree or diploma. We don’t even have our own coffee pot.

Which means that these students have chosen what they cannot get at any other school: you. They have chosen their people, they have chosen their community. They are putting themselves on the line, risks and possible rewards, for more than themselves. They could have invested their talents in another field, they certainly could have done something easier. While I sometimes talk about loving Marysville into a destination, they have turned Marysville into a stay-stination.

As worship requires an assembly, so a college requires a community. Not everyone in the community needs to attend, but everyone one in the community should be blessed by college students who live for more than college. Your charge is to support them. Maybe it’s your job to give them a job; be a modern day patron. Maybe it’s your job to open a place where they could hang out and study and drink coffee, or beer when they are finally old enough in a few years. At the least pray for them. You are to help make them jealous-able.

Students, your only charge for today is: remember that Jesus, who is Sovereign over all, looks at you and says, “Mine!” Your class hours, your books, your late nights, your leisure time, and you yourself are His. You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. All are yours, and you are Christ’s.

So have I been talking too excitedly about this? Perhaps. But this convocation is like pushing an old manual car that won’t start down a hill: it needs enough speed before letting the clutch out. We can see the mountain on the other side, so we need as much launch momentum as we can get.

“As surely as we loved [Christ] with our souls, we must build again in His name. And when it seemed of no avail, when we looked upon our meager power, the strength of the opposition, the preposterousness of so bold an undertaking, the fire still kept burning in our bones.” (Kuyper)

Abraham Kuyper died exactly 100 years ago in 1920; we consider the outcome of his way of life and imitate his faith (Hebrews 13:7). As future generations look back with hindsight at the start of Comeford College in 2020, may they sit under the shade of a great tree and give thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ for the seed planted today.

Categories
Bring Them Up

An Eye for Learning

I gave the following talk at our ECS Convocation yesterday afternoon.

Or, Paying Attention to Curriculum and Character

There is an ancient Egyptian myth about Osiris, a god known for many things, including being the ruler of the dead. This is not a Bible story, but it is its own kind of mirror to problems that people have.

The head of Horus

Osiris represented tradition, and even more than tradition, he came to represent dangerous failure to change. Osiris had a scheming brother named Set who was eager to overthrow and destroy Osiris. It wasn’t that Osiris was dumb or even deceived by Set, but Osiris didn’t want to see his brother’s evil intentions. Osiris chose to be blind. Eventually Set took a chance and attacked his brother, hacked him into pieces and sent his parts throughout the kingdom and his spirit to the underworld. Humpty Dumpty would have had an easier time pulling himself back together.

Some time later Osiris’ son Horus came to fight Set. You may have seen the symbol of Horus as the single Egyptian eye. He was also represented as a falcon-headed man; falcons are known for incisive vision. One story teller put it like this: “Osiris is tradition, aged and willfully blind. Horus, his son, could and would, by contrast, see. Horus was the god of attention” (12 Rules for Life, 222).

Seeing is not less than, but it is more than, mere knowing. This seeing beyond what is already grasped. Because Horus could see, he could see the wickedness of his uncle and fought him. He defeated Set, but not before Set tore out one of Horus’ eyes. Later Horus took back his eye, and then in a surprising twist, Horus went to the underworld and gave the eye to his father so that Osiris could see.

There are a couple angles in this story. The first is that it may hurt to see; Horus saw his uncle’s evil and lost one of his own eyes fighting the evil. The second is that seeing is the necessary act to move forward. Seeing was necessary to defeat Set. Seeing was what Osiris needed. If we do not see, if we refuse to learn and mature, our knowledge will grow stale or corrupt.

“Every bit of learning is a little death” (ibid., 223). It is death to our pride to acknowledge that we didn’t know everything already. It is death to our reputation as our ignorance is exposed, or worse, our pet blind spots. But when we learn, when we pay attention, we are sacrificing what may feel secure for something that is better. To get perspective, it’s easier to stand on a dead long than climbing a growing tree, but the dead log will only let you see so far.

There are two general categories that I want to exhort you to open your eyes to see this school year. For simplicity sake, let’s refer to them as head and heart, or we could summarize them as curriculum and character.

Pay attention to the curriculum.

This may surprise you, but our school does not exist as a proving ground for experts. Our school is a provoking goad to learning. What I mean is that we don’t meet here in order for you to Show and Tell all that you know, let alone that you know it all. One thing we know is that you don’t actually know it all, and more importantly, what you know should become a foundation to see more, not a fence to keep you from going further. Knowledge should increase your attentiveness, not your apathy.

One of the most fundamental principles at ECS is that not only are we permitted to, but we are accountable to, grow in Christlikeness. But what does that mean? It does mean that we should obey the Father like Christ did. But it also means that we should observe what Christ has made. Being like Christ means being interested in the things that He is interested in, and He made the world. “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3).

Christ made the heavens and the earth, He made the visible and the invisible. He not only created but He continually sustains all things. “He upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3). We don’t keep the stars in place, but we can at least pay attention to them. Science, subtraction, Logic, letters, poetry, and history are all His delight.

Your current knowledge is not absolute, as in, you do not know everything. There will be times when you wish you knew more than you do, but the solution to that frustration is not to complain about the work required to see more. Teachers must keep seeing, and so must parents, so that you can keep seeing. The mission of ECS is that you would carry and advance Christ honoring culture. If you don’t have anything more to learn, then here we are, and here we’ll stay.

I remember my first day of 7th grade, and in particular my literature teacher Mr. Brenner. He had a sign hanging on his podium that he made sure to emphasize: “Hire a teenager while they still know everything.”

Pay attention to your character.

It often hurts to look at our own hearts. We don’t like what we see, so we go out of our way not to see. I mean, who wants to see his own sinfulness, more deeply, more clearly? Considering how we’ve offended God is nerve-afflicting. Looking at ugly things is not a good time, especially if we are the ugly ones.

But this is where you make or break your joy. You cannot be one of God’s children and thrive with unacknowledged sin. Willful ignorance about your sin, or proactive defensiveness of your sin, will choke out your joy. What is true for each individual is also true for a culture made up by those individuals. One weed can get its root deep, but if there are a lot of weeds in the garden, things are going to be a snarled mess.

If you don’t watch your heart, the sin in your heart will cut up your gladness into little pieces and scatter your soul all over the place. It won’t feel good. Paul told Timothy to “keep a close watch on yourself,” and that such attention had effect not just on himself but for those Timothy led (1 Timothy 4:16). It requires looking, and admitting, and sometimes even getting help to grow.

There will be all sorts of exposures of your heart this year. You will get to see how much patience you really have, how much diligence you really have, how much truthfulness you really have, how much skill you really have. Will you look for the opportunity to repent?

Don’t lie to yourself, or to others. You need to grow. We’re not going to freak out that you have immaturities, ignorances, and sins. Don’t you freak out either, and also don’t cover your eyes.

“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice” (Proverbs 12:15)

Conclusion

Do you know what you don’t know? What do you want to learn more about this year? You don’t necessarily need to have a plan, but your teachers will help. They have books for you to read and homework to assign and tests to give. They have curriculum, they have maps to show you more places that Christ loves and wants you to love. Listen to them, follow the path of their dry erase marker. Knock on their doors until they open up library of their own looking.

And also, are you prepared to become more like Christ in head and heart? Do you have an eye for learning the right loves, for seeing more ways to obey, for attending to the parts of your heart that need to be wrapped into integrity?

Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice. (Ecclesiastes 4:13, ESV)

Categories
Bring Them Up

New Adventures in Letters

Or, Off to Sail in Aslan’s Country

These are my notes for our school’s convocation last week.

As the end of every school year draws closer, it often (for me it always) feels like a ship in a storm. The final weeks of the fourth quarter pound like wet, wild wind that threatens to break the ship apart unless it reaches the harbor of summer break. Such a violent storm hit the Dawn Treader once upon a time, destroying the mast and almost drowning the vessel. If you know the story, she did make it to land for repairs and rest.

Summer break is natural port for students and teachers. The break is a blessing and allows for a certain amount of renewal and refreshment. But just as ships are built to sail, so students are made to study. Here we are on the first day of another school year to launch our vessels off the dock toward new adventures in letters.

People used to speak about being “lettered.” To be a man of letters meant more (though not less) than knowing one’s alphabet. Phonograms are fantastic, but they are only the beginning. A man of letters was a man who was literate, a reader of letters and books, a learner of knowledge passed through pen and paper. The Respublica literaria enabled men to study across great distances, communicating through correspondence and becoming a community of curiosity and contemplation.

We launch into another voyage on a sea of letters. We launch as a special crew, and I want to call us together (hence, convocation) to remember our glorious calling.

Toward that end I would like to focus on three letters (of the alphabet sort), letters that identify us, letters you will use on a frequent basis, letters that abbreviate the name of our school. The letters are ECS. Let’s work from the end back to the beginning.

School

This sturdy noun anchors our name. The first two words describe what sort of school it is, but school has a meaning on its own.

Our word comes from the Latin scola referring to a group for learning or instruction. The teacher or teachers are the first learners, the guides for learning, and ideally provoking learning among their pupils. A school is only somewhat her facilities; our school is in its third building and, while we do associate school with a particular place, school has much more to do with the practice of the people.

School is not your family, though enduring camaraderie does develop. You may refer to your classmates as a kind of family, but teachers can only support your dad and mom. In fact, we do not want their job, though we work on their behalf.

School also isn’t your church, or your state government. Worship happens here, but it is not like that of an entire church body. Likewise we discuss politics, but we aren’t making or enforcing laws.

But a school has her own special accountability to God. Her sphere is to study and sharpen one another for the sake of using our God-given minds and exercising our dominion-taking mandate. These are your fellow scholars, and your uniform identifies you as part of this elite learning force.

Classical

Many schools exist; many of them started again today. Your family may drive by a dozen other schools on your way to ECS each morning. We do not claim to be better than all the other options in every way, but we are different, purposefully so, than most of our counterparts. We are a classical school.

“Classical” does not mean the same thing to everyone, even those who call their schooling classical. At ECS we think about the nature of classical schooling at a higher level than the Trivium (Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric), though those are tools we use. Maybe the mainsail of the classical ship is that we recognize, with thanks, that we are in a long river of those who have studied and spoken and loved the truth. We are not isolated, we are dependent. We are not better, we are blessed. We are not more capable, we are more accountable for the gifts we’ve inherited from generations before us.

We’ve come to receive definitions, not destroy them or deny them. We take the identity God appointed, and that many of our (dead) teachers knew better than our modern prophets who cry “Truth, truth,” when they have only lies and darkness.

The waters of history are also full of classical snobs (which we do not want you to be), when, in fact, there is no good reason for our pride. Abraham Kuyper observed that:

[T]o study any discipline at all takes such a huge effort that even if you make no higher demand than to be a half-decent participant, there is just no time left to feed the tiniest microbe of self-conceit.

—Scholarship: Two Convocation Addresses on University Life

We have too much to do to be snooty.

Evangel

This is the most decisive of the letters, and the one we would choose if we could only have one. Evangel is English via Latin from Greek. It means good news, another name for gospel, which is that Jesus Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. This is of first importance.

Most schools in our day take a principled stand against religious exclusivity. They promote their version of tolerance by relegating faith as a private, personal matter. They want to multiply everything by zero, but this always equals zero. We, on the other hand, know that we cannot separate our beliefs about God, about mankind, and about the world. We know that our public work, our classroom work and our homework, whether in History or Science or Algebra or English, is the Lord’s work and He both demands and delights in our recognition of Him.

We study because we are forgiven in Christ, not to work for our forgiveness. We are free to learn, we do not learn in order to make us free. Saved students study, we do not say that students must study in order to be saved. This orients our attitude toward the labor of learning (all is gift) and toward our fellow learners (give with grace).

The center of the evangel is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ. He reigns as the first one resurrected from the dead. He also reigns as the Maker and Sustainer of all things. There is not one thumb’s width in the entire sphere of human existence over which Christ does not cry, “Mine!” So go on and learn His ways and study His stuff and organize the chaos for His name.

I referred to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader earlier. It is my favorite of the Chronicles of Narnia. I especially enjoy Reepicheep’s euphoric rapture as he sails east into Aslan’s Country. We who trust the Lord and serve Him will go there someday ourselves, but isn’t it also the case that all of this is Aslan’s Country? “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). “All things are yours…whether the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Corinthians 3:21-23).

As the ship sets sail for our seventh year at ECS, may we all take up our stations with eagerness and a sense of belonging and stewardship and laughter. By God’s wisdom and sovereign will, He has elected you to this course of study. Remember: “Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 124:8). Bon voyage and Godspeed.