Where has the summer gone?
The summer runs away quickly. There’s never quite enough time to take care of what needs to be done. From one perspective (and this is the way in which my own summer has tended to go this year) summer seems to be there only so that all the things that pile up during the school year can rear their heads and steal the “break” that is supposed to be there. But then there is always something to do. If all the things piled up during the school year aren’t there, the lawn care, house and equipment maintenance, ball games, fishing, and the rest will be there to take up the time.
There’s pretty much ALWAYS something clamoring for your attention. These days it’s either the things that are left over from school/wintertime or the things that are staring you in the face and demanding to be done so you don’t fall farther behind in what’s accumulating NOW. And in just a couple of weeks, the school season will fire up again for the youngsters, with breakneck schedules and commitments and homework. For those out of school, the details are different – keeping up with what’s going on at your work, dealing with all the details of the ranch, the business. Then for the older among us the time might be taken up in more basic things, like dealing with health issues of your own or those of a family member, taking care of grandkids so their parents can take care of their own “overages.”
Priorities. There always so much to do. We need a basis for understanding so we can sort through what’s truly important. As we enter another school season, the original goals of education point to how that prioritizing can be made.
School wasn’t always available for everyone. Prior to the Reformation schooling was only for the wealthy and the well-heeled. Most folks lived with the messiness of immediate demands, not really sure what the priorities were beyond food and shelter; why they would do one thing over another; not sure what the overall purpose of what they did might be, much less how what they did served that (or any) purpose.
With the Reformation came schools intended to serve all children. Those schools had a clear purpose; to help all students to grow develop as God’s own. They would continue as His own as they matured. Reading would more than all else would give them knowledge of God’s history with humanity first through the Scriptures, and secondarily through writings of secular authors. They would learn logic; logic that is first grounded in the Logos, the Word, the Christ. As they grew be capable of taking that Logos and applying wisely to the world around them. The footing for foundation of their development was first to know God. They would then apply what God gave them to their world for His purposes.
That was the order of things as set up by “education for all” in the 1500s. Until about 1850 virtually every school was attached to a church. Priorities came from the footing/foundation. Purposes were tied – not to each person’s whims and momentary desires, but to God’s purposes.
Wonder what would be different if that were the situation now. Pr. Tim