Christian Life 22 - On Church

 It should be obvious by now that what we're discussing is not easy, not the least because we've stated as much several times.  In all my research, I've yet to run into any author who thought it was possible to achieve nirvana through private effort.  There is a unanimous consensus that the pupil must seek out a teacher, rabbi, imam, sensei, lama, daozhang, or guru.  And, where will one find these wise people?  Short of entering a monastery, one's best bet is to find a place of common worship where adherents meet en masse, then listening carefully to the membership and picking out the pieces of Truth held by each.  This is, as far as I can ascertain, the main reason for church attendance.  Many people are not fond of church attendance, nor was I for many years, both when I believed and disbelieved.  It is necessary, however, and it is necessary to avoid entering any of the congregation's cliques when doing so, because one never knows in whom wisdom might be found.

Among my favorite teachers was Dr. Hanks.  I was in his Freshman Comp class by default - it was the section that fit the rest of my schedule.  From then on, I arranged my future schedules so as to enroll in as many of his sections as I could.  I learned much from Dr. Hanks beyond sentence structure, verb conjugation and a love for great literature.  Among the many life-lessons gleaned from Dr. Hanks is the need - nay, the obligation - to give clear audience to people with whom one disagrees.  As a Christian, it is one's duty to make a point of understanding the Quran.  As a Conservative, one is obliged to seek out and understand the positions of liberals.  No one, Dr. Hanks argued, has a monopoly on the truth; indeed, each of us is imbued with a tiny particle of it.  Anyone who wishes to seek a higher education must delve into a lot of people's muck in order to find that one tiny particle, lest one has no right laying claim to any superior enlightenment.

Dr. Hanks' point, and mine, is a simple one: every person one encounters can serve as a teacher if one allows them to do so, and doubly so when one is immersed in a group whose existence is based on the mutual study of one's subject.  How much one can learn from any individual member of that group is a subject of some speculation and a great deal of prayer, but it remains true that one's personal enlightenment will be enhanced tenfold, a hundredfold, when one immerses oneself in the study, and the best way to do that is to surround oneself with fellow students.  When one thinks of it, a commitment of a couple of hours per week - the typical length of a church program -seems hardly sufficient for the task!

Those who say they shan't attend church because of the hypocrites therein remind me of the "social students" in school; those who aren't actually there to learn, but attend class as a very expensive meet-and-greet.  If one takes an art class at university, one will almost certainly find oneself sharing the lecture hall with at least one Fashion major or student athlete who plans to put nothing into the class or get anything out of it save an "Easy A."  The presence of this fellow student should in no way discourage one from getting all one can from the material available in the class, however.  After all, it is to be hoped that one has enrolled in the class to learn, not to socialize.

Yes, one shall encounter people in a church whose contributions to one's own learning will be no more than to serve as bad examples.  That's perfectly okay. As any professor employing the Socratic method in his/her classroom can attest, we often learn best through adversity.  We need the negative lessons at least as much as the positive ones, ofttimes more.  What shall we call the man who allows his teeth to rot out of his head because he's afraid of the dentist's drill?  We call him a fool!  The discomfort of the hypodermic is intended to prevent the agony of the disease.  Just so with the less pleasurable encounters in our lives, both within the church and without.  And let us not forget that, like the unpleasant class clown at university, they are not even remotely the reason we're here.

Pax