The need for wise and viable guides

An address delivered by Jamie Howison at the April 21, 2018 Canadian Mennonite University Convocation

Iron sharpens iron,
and one person sharpens the wits of another.
(Proverbs 27:17)

Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labour in vain.
Unless the Lord guards the city,
the guard keeps watch in vain.
It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives sleep to his beloved.
(Psalm 127:1-2)

I was in this church once before for a ceremony not unlike this one; my own high school graduation from the Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute, almost forty years ago. Student Council had managed to get our year books published in time to distribute after the ceremony was over, so there we all were out in the church yard, dressed in cap and gown, getting everyone to sign our books. One of the people I graduated with—one of those frustratingly bright students who didn’t study just a whole lot yet still managed to pull in really decent marks—took my year book and wrote the following: “I hope we’ll continue to be fellow scholars at university, where we’ll sop up all the knowledge that’s left to absorb.”

I suggested that a verse from Proverbs be read here today: “Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another.” Well, when it came to the two of us out in the church yard with our year books in hand, it was hardly iron sharpening iron; more like play dough mushing into play dough. And sure, he probably had his tongue at least partly in his cheek when he wrote those words, but I don’t think that I ever knew quite so much as I did that day as I drove away from this church. I’d had a solid education at MBCI, but with my diploma in one hand and year book in the other, I really didn’t have a clue as to how much I didn’t know.

Two months later I was sitting in the cafeteria at the University of Winnipeg in the opening week of classes, having just attended my first Sociology lecture. I had this great brick of a text book on the table in front of me, and was just beginning to launch into the assigned chapter when a student who had graduated from MBCI a couple of years ahead of me stopped to say hello. “How are getting along here?” he asked, and I told him that it was good and that I was beginning to figure out where everything was on campus. Pointing at my text book he said something about it being wise to not fall behind on assigned readings, to which I answered “Yes, I’ve decided I’m going to set aside an hour every day to do nothing but the assigned readings.” He looked at me with some pity, slowly shook his head, and said, “I think it is going to take you more than an hour…”

It did. In course after course the readings and assignments began to mount up. I’d registered for The History of Western Civilization, reasoning that it would be a breeze because I’d done so well in my grade 12 world history class. When the first essays were assigned I looked at my options for topics and realized that I had no idea what any of them even were. Huh. When Professor Carl Ridd looked at the version of the bible I was bringing to his “Literature of the Bible” course, he took me aside and gently suggested that I really needed a more credible translation in an edition with proper scholarly footnotes and annotations. Huh.

And so I slowly came to the realization that the first thing you need to learn in university is how much you don’t know.

There is a story, almost surely apocryphal, that prior to writing Paradise Lost the poet John Milton read every book that had been published in English up to that point (1667). What is known about Milton is that having completed his B.A. in 1629 and his M.A. in 1632, he spent the next six years living in the home of his father where he read widely and deeply, in everything from philosophy and theology to science, literature, and history. Said to be proficient in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Italian, Milton was no slouch as a scholar, and certainly someone of whom it could have been said that he was “well read.”

Now I know that you’ve all read a lot, and some of you a whole lot. I know that your professors have read even more, and that you’d be tempted to say of at least a few of them that they are very well read. Yet not a one of them is nearly so well read as was John Milton. Not because Milton was smarter or because he had his father pay his bills for six years while he read everything he could lay his hands on. No, it is because in John Milton’s world there were not so many books to read, to say nothing of the number of disciplines, sub-disciplines, and specialties. If right now you set yourself the task of reading every book published in English during 2018, you would die having failed in that goal. As it says in Ecclesiastes, “Of making many books there is no end.” There is no end, and a whole lot of those many books are dreadful. Surely you’ve learned that too? Which is why perhaps the greatest learning you will carry away from here is a realization of your need for viable and trusted guides to help you wend your way through a world swimming in information overload.

I know quite a bit about a few things—theology, biblical studies, jazz music—and I know a little bit about a lot of things, yet I know almost nothing of human anatomy and physiology. I’m not entirely clear as to what a spleen is, but I sure want my doctor to know. I don’t really understand much about climate change science, so I need to figure out which voices, which scientists, to trust. I preach a decent sermon, I know how to lead worship, and I’m pretty adept at engaging with people in conversations on theology and the stuff of life, but I’m pretty quick to direct folks toward therapists, counselors, or mediators when those sorts of needs arise.

We can’t know nearly so much about our world as John Milton knew about his, but we can know that we don’t know everything, and we can learn of our need for those wise and viable guides in our oh-so-complex world. I hope—I trust—that over your years here you will have found a few of those professors whose teaching has sparked things in you and pointed you in good and right directions; been for you a bit of iron, to sharpen your wits and your mind. I hope you’ll discover that some of the authors you’ve read while you’ve been here will stay with you and keep forming and informing your imaginations. And guess what? With what you’ve been offered here, you’re also going to be called upon to be those viable and trusted guides for others. Carry that calling well.

And I do hope that you’ve been blessed with a perspective that says not only can you not know everything, you don’t have to. Which is where those two verses from Psalm 127 come in, and most particularly the second one. I would like to bless you with that verse, in a translation from the Anglican liturgical Psalter:

It is but lost labour that we haste to rise up early,
and so late take our rest
and eat the bread of anxiety.
For the beloved of God are given gifts
even while they sleep.

That’s a call to balance, really, and to the kind of self-awareness that will allow you to grow where you should, flourish as you may, and trust the One who has gifted you with life.

Jamie Howison is a priest of the Anglican Church of Canada and the founding pastor of saint benedict's table.