September 9, 1999 Chapel Address

It's good to see all of you here this morning. It's always an exciting time when the campus fills up again. There is an energy that comes to campus when all of you come back. I think probably the weekend was a time of adrenaline, and maybe the adrenaline rush is wearing off a little. You are beginning to think about classes and you are beginning to realize that work is involved here. 

Last spring I had the privilege of speaking to you on three separate occasions. And each time I talked to you I said that I had intended to talk to you about my philosophy of education. Of course each time I diverted from that and didn't really do it. Although at the end of each of those talks I said that the theme of paradox and tension had emerged, and because of that in a way I had been talking about my philosophy of education. 

Well, today I would actually like to try and say a few things about what I think this whole process is about. So I don't have an inspirational talk for you today, I don't have a sermon for you today, I don't have a devotional for you today. I'd kind of like to ask you to think hard with me today, and use this as an occasion to think about the process we are beginning here together. 

I want to talk about why I think the liberal arts are so distinctive. Because you have heard that phrase and some of you are paying big bucks to get a liberal arts education instead of a state education at a university somewhere. So it seems to me as though it is important for you to understand what is really different about that. And what I am going to say in the next couple of minutes is probably the key. So if you want to go to sleep, do it after this. 

The liberal arts I believe are important and distinctive for at least two reasons. Usually we ask the question, "What does this education that I'm getting do for me." And that is a very important part of what an education is all about. What does the education do for you? It prepares you in practical ways. At Greenville we call that service. It has what I sometimes call an instrumental value. A value that helps you to go out and do something else better. That is the side of education that most of us think about and most of our parents think about because they don't want you home at the age of thirty-five taking the trash out for an allowance. And neither do you. 

But we shouldn't just be asking what is the practical, the instrumental value of a liberal arts education. We should be asking what is the intrinsic value of it. Another way of putting it is, you shouldn't just ask what is this education going to do for me. You should ask what is this education going to do to me. What's it going to do to me? Not just the practical, not just what it's going to do for me, not just the instrumental value, but ask yourself what's the intrinsic value. What's it going to do to me inside? At Greenville we sometimes use the expression an education for service, yes, but also an education for character. What's the education doing to you? Now if you don't remember anything else, remember that. 

As you begin this educational process, what I'm going to call an educational exodus, try to ask yourself this year, next year, every semester not just "What is this education doing for me?" but "What is it doing to me?" "What value does it have inside regardless of how practical or impractical it might be?" That distinctive is what makes the education here at Greenville different. Now I want to say some things about the practical side, the service side. Because in fact that side is different at Greenville from what you would get from other places as well. 

We want you to leave with more than just transferable skills reading, writing, and thinking. Those are all very important and they will help you through the six careers you are likely to undertake in a lifetime. We want you to be able to approach real world problems in an integrative way. And that's different from the kind of narrow specialization you often get in other colleges and universities. So even the practical side, the "what's it doing for me?" side is different. And I want to talk to you more about that later on in the semester. 

But I want to talk today especially about what is this education doing to you. In part because it is a whole lot less popular as a form of education in our society today, and because it is a whole lot more important in our society today. Character formation. You don't have to watch the news very much to realize that our society needs people who are more than just practically trained. It needs people who have character. So what does character formation look like? What is this way in which this education is doing something to me? In a way it's kind of a story about a journey. 

Yesterday Dr. Balmer talked about journeying mercies. And in a way I want to talk about journey today, too. Except I want to use the story of the exodus, the story of the exodus of the people of God. Because you see all of us are involved in character forming process that is like a journey. All of us are involved. Some of you are just beginning, some of you are seniors, and some of you are adults who have followed this journey for many, many years. But we are all involved. And it is a process that usually goes through stages. 

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. In a nut shell, 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 I'd like to describe three stages. 

First of all is a stage where everything seems to be black and white. That is what a high school mind-set is usually like. And there is nothing wrong with that. We all have to start our journey here, so don't misunderstand. Everything is 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, you move to a stage where you come to see things are actually not black and white.  You realize things are gray. And that stage is characterized not by a kind of passionate commitment which becomes dogmatic, but is characterized by a kind of open-mindedness; to put it positively. But this often devolves 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. 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. This is a stage where people are committed like the first stage and open-minded like the second stage, but they are neither dogmatic nor skeptical. And this stage is what I would yearn for, for all of you. And I hope you see that this is a journey that you can undertake and begin even now; even today. 

Now, really I could stop here. But I want to illustrate this from the Exodus. You all know the story of the exodus. The people of God got there because of the famine. Joseph gets sold into slavery, winds up there and becomes a leader of Egypt. His brothers get sent down there to find some food. So goes the story. The people of God wind up living in Egypt for a long, long time. And then God calls them out, and at first they are afraid and they look into the wilderness and they are worried. Eventually they start and it is really tough. 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. 

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, first they were not sure, 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. Now we pray 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. You should understand that. 

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. 

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. This 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 Ammonites. Did Moses go down and wield the sword? No he didn't. He was an old man. He sent Joshua. Now Joshua was one ripped 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. You have heard me talk about this before. 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. Those are the analogies from the exodus. 

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. 

So if students have to embrace the paradox of risk and trust, faculty have to embrace the paradox of provoking and nurturing. If we embrace and understand that that is our task, we will move forward ... and will undertake together to complete the liberating educational exodus. 

Dr. Jim Mannoia