September 8, 2004

Chapel Address

The Loneliest Trip I Ever Took:

As always at this time of year, it's good to see you all here today. We missed many of you over the summer and are delighted to have so many new faces among us. How many of you are new to GC this fall? A week ago yesterday I spoke to many of you at Camp Mihaska for the NSO/Cor 101 retreat. You all must living right as the weather was just perfect! You who were there remember we even practiced the mission statement together! I talked to you then about the “ service ” half of our hope to transform you for lives of character and service. You might even remember that I said I believed that serving was best accomplished by taking what we call an integrative approach to your education; one that tackles real world problems. Just two days ago, I was at Camp Mihaska again, and reminded the seniors in the Cor 401 retreat of essentially the same point. But in both cases I promised to say something about the other half of our mission today . So I want to talk about character . For the seniors, I showed pictures of some of my favorite cars, suggesting that like cars , an education can have not only a practical or useful value, but also a value that is inherent or just beautiful. While both of these values can be forms of worship to God, it is the second kind that is least understood. Today in America everyone wants an education that helps you DO things…including service to God and country. But at GC, we want the transformation to help you BECOME a person who is beautiful inside, and whose beauty of character is worshipful to God.

Today marks a “ mile-post ” in your educational journey, both in regard to what you are learning to DO and who you are learning to BECOME. For some it is a starting milepost in college, while for others it is a signpost of the “last leg.” As Dr. Hartley reminded us on Monday, we are “ people on the road ” and as followers of Christ, we should then adopt a “theology of wayfarers .” So I'd like to talk to you today about this educational journey; about the character it takes and about the character it produces. It is I believe a journey of liberation.

PRAY

It was the loneliest trip I ever took. It changed my life and may be changing yours too! 42 years ago today , I arrived in Brasil for the first time. I was barely 13 years old, and my parents had responded to a call from the Free Methodist church to serve there as President of the denominational seminary in Sao Paulo . We were pulled away from the tiny rural town of Spring Arbor Michigan , away from the only friends we'd ever known, and plunked down in a city of 7 million people where everyone spoke Portuguese . Despite the huge expense, my dad had asked the mission board that we be educated in an outstanding local English speaking school for children of expatriates and wealthy Brazilians, instead of sent away to boarding school for 6 months at a time as previous missionaries had done. So 42 years ago this week, I began the loneliest trip I ever took. The school was two bus rides away from our home in Tremembe da Cantareira on the north side of the city. Each bus ride was 45 minutes long. The first one was on a public bus downtown to the busiest intersection at the heart of the city during morning rush hour. The second was on a school bus from that intersection to the opposite outskirts of the city. The “handoff” downtown was nightmarish for a little sheltered rural Michigan boy. So my parents took me once, but the next day I was on my own. I remember my mother waiting with me at the public bus stop. It was barely light , and cold . My stomach was churning so badly I thought I might throw up! She prayed with me, the bus roared to a stop, the doors hissed open, and when they hissed shut I was entirely on my own for perhaps the first time in my life. The people were different colors, the noise was terrific, the diesel fumes made me even sicker. The odd body odors of people jammed together so closely I could hardly breathe, made me actually not want to breathe. Because I had to stand, I bent over sideways most of the trip so I could peer out the window trying desperately to catch glimpses of the neighborhood so I could pull the rope to request a stop. I worried a lot about this: I dared not pull it too soon but definitely not too late. The consequences of becoming lost in a city that size, not speaking a word of Portuguese, with no cell phones, and not even a phone at home…well they were unthinkable.

I remember spotting the crucial landmarks, pulling the rope , pressing almost desperately to get to the door, and landing barely on my feet on the rainy pavement of the Valley of Anhangabau at Avenida Sao Joao; the heart of Sao Paulo Brasil. The traffic was thick and noisy and smelly. My “post” was to lean against the outside of a “ padaria ” (bakery) and await the school bus. To this day, that mixture of smells makes me shiver with fright. While there was an approximate time of arrival, traffic made such times notoriously inaccurate. As I later came to understand, the combination of unpredictability in my arrival time and unpredictability in the arrival of the second bus made the “handoff” quasi-miraculous. I stood my post that day, leaning against the outside display case filled with Zippo cigarette lighters , hardly daring to take my eyes from the street lest I miss the bus. It was to be an old silver bus ; although in the weeks to come it sometimes wasn't a bus at all but an oversized wooden-sided station wagon called a “ perua .” And I never knew which it would be. But this day it was the bus. The driver was a surly chain-smoking non-English speaking Japanese man who I later speculated had been a survivor at Hiroshima and hated little American boys . I knew traffic prohibited him from waiting at all, so I was convinced that my window of opportunity between hisses of the door was no more than 30 seconds or I would be stranded in downtown Sao Paulo for hours. But that first day I made it! And I made it most of the other days too! You can hardly imagine the relief I felt when I settled into a seat on that bus and spent the next 45 minutes thankful that at least for the next 7 hours before I began the nightmare in reverse, I had nothing more to worry about than meeting for the first time, dozens of other children that all seemed richer, smarter, and more capable than I.

I guess that trip was one of my earliest and certainly one of my most powerful lessons in character . It profoundly shaped my attitude toward what it means to grow inside as a person and consequently my passion for what I believe education at Greenville College should be. It changed my life…and so perhaps indirectly it is now changing yours. The basic principles I learned from that lonely trip were that growing up is painful, stretching, and often scary . I came to understand that by stepping out I was capable of much much more than I ever imagined. Greenville College is all about a journey of personal growth. We call it transformation through the liberating arts. It includes growth of intellect, of moral and aesthetic sensitivity, and of course growth of spirit.

Faculty in psychology can give you much more detail about developmental psychology and point you to the works of Kohlberg and Piaget and Gilligan and Fowler and others like them, who talk about the ways in which we develop and grow. But at the risk of oversimplification, I'd like to suggest that all of us go through a journey of intellectual, moral, and spiritual development, and physical development for some of us. Roughly speaking there are three stages. 

First of all is a stage where everything seems to be black and white . High school thinking is usually like this. And there is nothing wrong with that. We all have to start our journey here, so don't misunderstand. Everything seems black and white. Typically a person who is in this stage of development. is someone who is very passionate and very committed to things, but sometimes to the point of  dogmatism . It is however a natural stage of intellectual, moral, and spiritual development. 

Often in college years, and these are critical years in this journey, a person moves to a second stage where we come to see that our understanding is actually not so simple.  Life cannot be divided so easily into right and wrong, good guys and bad guys. Because human beings are fallen creatures , our abilities to understand have been limited. Though as Christians one still believes there is Truth with a capital “T,” we also understand that Truth is a Person, not the set of little “t” truths arising from our fallen attempts to “package” that Person in humanly devised language . We realize our understanding is  gray . We realize that for now “we see through a glass darkly .” This stage is characterized not by a kind of passionate commitment which becomes dogmatic, but to put it positively, by a kind of open-mindedness. Yet this often degenerates into a kind of  skepticism or even cynicism . You know what I am talking about, right. "Well... you do your thing I'll do my thing. Everybody's opinion is good as anybody else's." It sounds like California …in fact it sounds like the slippery slope relativism of American culture in general! Jeremiah says everybody does what is right in their own eyes. That is a  second stage. 

I think there is a  third stage, and I like to call it  critical commitment . It is one some psychologists claim cannot even be imagined by those in the first stage. This is paradoxical place where people are committed like the first stage and open-minded like the second stage , but they are  neither dogmatic nor skeptical. It is a healthy ongoing tension and this is what I yearn for, for all of you. I hope you see that this is a journey of growth and transformation that you can undertake and begin even now; even today. 

Now, really I could stop here. But let me conclude by illustrating this developmental process from the Exodus, the “Mother of all Journeys.” You all know the story of the exodus. Out of jealousy over his colorful threads, Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery. He winds up in Egypt and even becomes a big-time leader there. Because of famine, his father Jacob sends Joseph's brothers there to find some food and then takes his whole family, the people of God. So goes the story. The people of God wind up living in Egypt for a long, long time. And then God calls them out, they look into the wilderness and at first they are afraid. Eventually they start and it is really tough. It is really scary. They wander around and a lot of people get lost and die in the wilderness. But eventually they get to the promised land. You know the story. 

To the extent that the educational exodus that you are undertaking today is like that exodus, there are some powerful analogies that I'd like you to think about and remember as we go forward. 

First of all  Goshen . They started in Goshen . Goshen is sort of the Nile-Delta, the northern part of Egypt . It was OK for the people of God to be there. It is OK for a high school graduate to be a black and white thinker who is committed and passionate maybe a little dogmatic, seeing everything as right or wrong. Like the student in class after I have delivered this marvelous lecture in philosophy , they raise their hand and say, "Excuse me, is this going to be on the test?" Or I have argued two sides of an issue and someone raises their hand and says, "Would you just tell me what the right answer is ?" That is black and white thinking, us and them thinking. There is nothing wrong with that; that is just where we start. 

The people of God started in the land of Goshen . They were supposed to be there. That was God's plan to save the people. But when God calls you to move out, and apparently he has called you to move out or you wouldn't be in college, then you have a responsibility to leave. And for those who are called out, to leave is liberation. 

Secondly when you move out, you move  out of your comfort-zone . Think about the people of God. Did they really want to leave? They moaned and groaned and complained. They were slaves after all. Oppressed. But when Moses said let's get out of here, they said well where? And he said out there. And where did he point? He pointed out into the desert. Now that didn't look particularly comfortable. It didn't look like a lot of fun. If we are called to go out we are called to go out of our comfort-zone. 

How many of you have ever served on an athletic team ? A lot of you. In sports people understand a pretty important principle, and it is a simple principle. No pain no gain . If you have worked hard at athletics, then you know that you only grow when you stretch just a little bit beyond where you were the last time you did the exercise. Right? If you aren't stretching then you are not growing. No pain no gain. And every good coach knows that he or she has got to stretch the athlete, push them just a little bit farther. Now if that principle works for physical development, why should it be any different for spiritual development, moral development, intellectual development? No pain no gain.  I guess that's a big part of what I learned on the loneliest trip I ever took…forty two years ago.

If you are going to undertake this journey, this educational exodus, then you not only have to leave the land of Goshen and be liberated. You have to leave your comfort-zone. So you have to seek out deliberately, willfully, self-consciously, occasions where you are going to be stretched. Right? Doesn't that make sense? And that is what you are here for. 

Third , the people of God didn't just walk out there by themselves. They followed a leader . They followed Moses. Now at first they were not sure about him, but in the end I think they figured it made sense to have a leader. And sometimes they trusted him and sometimes they didn't trust him. Right? But who was this guy? First of all he was a guy that was educated and grew up in Pharaoh's family. That helps. Secondly he was experienced . He was experienced in the wilderness. Moses had had his own time of wandering in the wilderness doubting and God had brought him out of it. So he was educated and he was experienced. But he was also humble . 

Scripture tells us that Moses was the meekest man on earth. Now meek sounds like milk toast. Who wants to follow a meek leader? But meekness doesn't mean weak. Meek means someone who is powerful, but who has channeled it the way God wants it to be challenged like a river that would be wild until it is damned up and it serves a useful purpose. So the people of God followed Moses. He was  educated, experienced, and humble . You are undertaking an educational exodus here at Greenville . I hope and pray that the faculty at Greenville College are educated, experienced, and humble. 

Leave the land of Goshen , get out of you comfort-zone, follow the leader . What else happened to the people of God? They took a  risk . They wandered and it wasn't easy. I'd like to put a sign in front of the college. A sign above where it says Greenville College that says " Enter at Your Own Risk ." Why? Because there is education going on here. Not training, but education. Greenville College is not an entirely safe place. And if you came because you wanted to be safe then be careful because it is NOT entirely safe. The wilderness was not an entirely safe place. People got lost out there. 

If an educational exodus involves spiritual, moral, and intellectual pilgrimage you can get lost . We pray constantly to God that you won't. But Greenville College is not an entirely safe place. You have to understand that there are risks involved because it's education that is going on. If you are moving from the land of Goshen , if you are to be liberated and heading to the promise land, you have to take some risks. The people of God understood that. I understood it standing downtown Sao Paulo in the rain 42 years ago. You should understand it too. 

Leave Goshen , leave your comfort-zone, follow the leader, and take some risks. Then, thank God that it is not only Moses leading or only the faculty at Greenville College .  God Himself is also leading and He is directly involved. Think about God's people. What did they have? God supplied their food (the manna), water, and meat. He supplied their water. They hit rocks and it came out. God supplied it. Not only that, he supplied direction ; the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. Isn't that right? It wasn't just Moses, there was Divine leadership. 

Now keep in mind that God's leadership in your life is not something that  will allow you necessarily to see where you are going to be next week . He didn't tell the people of God where he wanted them to go the next week and give them a map. He just put the fire pillar and the column of clouds there, and they followed it day by day. They didn't have it mapped out. God's guidance doesn't work that way. So if you wonder, "What is my major going to be?" and "Where is this doubt that is creeping into my journey, this question, this risk, this tough time going to lead me?" remember the people of God didn't know from week to week. They only knew one day at a time. And he provided one day at a time for them.  Last week at convocation, Gloria Gaither made this clear when she reminded us that God's will is not a neat package waiting to be discovered. Instead it is God's will for me this minute .

Leave Goshen , get out of your comfort-zone, follow the leader, take a risk, rest on God's guidance and live in  community . The people of God didn't make this exodus all by themselves, individually, one after the other. Did they? They did it together and it was a big crowd. Greenville College is a community of scholarship, a place where we care about intellectual, spiritual, moral, social development. We do it together. 

Think about the people of God and the exodus . It wasn't Moses alone . Moses was out there and they were going to battle against the Amalekites. Did Moses go down and wield the sword? No he didn't. He was an old man. He sent Joshua. Now Joshua was one tough guy. But Joshua also couldn't do it himself. He couldn't even do it with all of the soldiers he had. God had to help and you remember God told Moses to raise up his hands with the staff over the battlefield. He raised up his hands but not for very long because he was old and grew tired. So who did he get to help him? Aaron and Hur . And they held up his old arms. Moses couldn't even talk very well; so Aaron did a lot of talking for him. And Moses couldn't do all the judging so his father-in-law Jethro said, "Get some guys to help you." This was a community project. They needed each other. 

You need each other. In your educational exodus you need the people sitting next to you. In particularly you need people who think differently from yourself. So find the people who don't think the way you think. Talk to them and listen to them and they will stretch you and help you to grow. Living in community means living with diversity, and that is good and helps you make the trip. Live in community. 

Start in Goshen, get out of your comfort-zone, follow the leader, take a risk, let God lead, live in community , and finally you will enjoy the  fruit and will enter the Promised Land. Now some of you will take four years, some five, I hope none of you will take forty years . But you will enter the Promised Land. What will it be like? What was the Promised Land like? It was great. A land filled of milk and honey. It was wonderful. It was freedom. Liberation leads to freedom , but freedom involves responsibilities . The people of God did not have an all-together easy time, even in the Promised Land. Don't assume that your problems are going to be over. They will be different problems and wonderful problems because critical commitment as I have described it before is a tension . And it is not easy. There will be temptations and difficulties. 

To be a liberally educated person, to be liberated and to live in the Promised Land is not an easy thing. It involves embracing paradox . It means believing, but not being sure . It means being passionate but open-minded . It means taking a position but listening to other people with an attitude of humility that characterizes critical commitment.

In summary what does it require of you? It requires of you to risk and to trust . To risk leaving where you have been in a high school way of thinking that was altogether appropriate. To risk leaving your comfort-zone and to trust the leadership, the faculty, and God. 

What does it require for faculty? It requires that you are willing to provoke, push, prod , and to stretch deliberately to make your students lives a little uncomfortable. You are the coach. If you are not stretching them, then no one will. But also it means for you to nurture them by modeling your own genuine passions, especially for Jesus Christ. 

So if students have to embrace the paradox of risk and trust , faculty have to embrace the paradox of provoking and nurturing . I never quite got used to that lonely trip I took to school every day in Brazil . But I knew then and I know now that I am capable of much more than I imagine if I willing to venture out with God's help, in community, on this liberating educational journey. If together today we embrace and understand that that is our task, we will move forward and I believe the Lord will honor our efforts as our worship to Him.

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Last updated: September 27, 2004