The Good Life

I entered college with the intention of majoring in philosophy — an intention which changed to a minor in philosophy fairly early on, when some of my hallmates questioned what I wanted to do with philosophy and I realized that I didn’t have an answer for that question.  At least, I couldn't come up with any practical answers, and while I love and enjoy a lot of academia, I don't have much patience for ivory tower scholasticism, which seemed like where I'd be headed if I stayed in philosophy.  I don’t regret that decision; it freed up credit hours to take a conglomeration of classes that turned into an independent major in Cross-cultural Studies, which has proved to be pretty perfect for where I am and what I’m doing now.  


Yet the urges that drew me to philosophy in the first place still stir in me.  One of the foundational questions in Western philosophy has been “What is the good life?” and it’s well worth examination, study, and thought.  I think that a lot of my impatience with philosophy as an undergraduate discipline grew out of my feeling that it was too concerned with what the good life was but not necessarily with how the good life is to be lived.  Maybe if I had stuck with that major, I would have gotten into classes that were more concrete, but I’m very satisfied with having taken other courses and going down other paths.  As I move through the process of getting a master’s degree in TESOL and Intercultural Studies, I have a deep appreciation for the integration of theory and praxis.  Brilliant findings in the field of education are of extremely limited use and value without ideas for their application in the real world.  The question of what is good continues to be addressed, but the answers are embodied in ways that philosophy so often seemed to lack.  It is messy and risky to go beyond the theories, but it’s also beautiful and necessary.  

Not only professionally, but in my own life, I continue to ponder how to answer the question of what the good life is.  I can attempt to describe it, certainly, or to point to people who live in ways that I honor as full of integrity and beauty and truth and goodness, yet ultimately I am responsible for my own life.  In coming back to Sichuan for a second year of teaching at Chuan Wai, I’ve been noticing how there are countless little changes that I want to make to my apartment or to my lesson plans or teaching; in the same way, there are never-ending changes that I want to implement in my own life.  I desire to grow, to become more disciplined, more humble, more wise, more generous, more honest, more gracious, more holy.  

This is the good life: not that I live perfectly, but that I am being conformed more and more to His image.  I don’t always enjoy the process — to be honest, I struggle to get out of bed when I know that the first thing on my list for the day is to exercise — but I am confident that the end will be knowing and seeing Joy Himself.  
No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Her 12:11)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Waiting in the Rain (and Loving the Weather)

Image
Photo by Hannah Domsic on Unsplash I'm not a very serious gardener as of yet, but moving into an actual house this past spring opened up some possibilities for me to invest a little more in dreaming about growing things and cultivating our outdoor space as we do with the indoor.  Between wedding gifts and a church full of avid and generous gardeners, we soon found ourselves well equipped with a variety of containers, happily started plants, and abundant advice.  I set up a row of containers along one side of our yard and we got to enjoy some cucumbers, a few cherry tomatoes, quite a few peppers, and fresh herbs in everything .   My dreams for next year involved rototilling up one side of the yard (conveniently partitioned off by the sidewalk.) We broke down cardboard boxes for a month or two and now have that space pretty well covered with a layer of cardboard weighted down with a motley assortment of heavy junk -- pots, Adirondack chairs, an old shelf that's destined for the
Read more

Not in Vain

Image
Recently I've been listening a lot to Your Labor is Not in Vain (lyrics here ) , and yesterday I realized that I love this song not only for the reminder that it is to me, but because it makes me think of friends, dear brothers and sisters all over the world, and how faithfully they labor, and what a joy it is to be co-laborers. As many of us celebrate Thanksgiving this week, I hope that you all know how much I'm encouraged by the work that you do.  I see a fraction of what makes up your lives -- teaching, parenting, dealing with medical needs, listening to the people around you, fighting for justice for those who can't speak for themselves, making art, making meals, writing books, being willing to travel across the world, being willing to stay in the same hard place. I need to be reminded frequently that the work here is not in vain, that my students are learning how to be better thinkers and growing in their confidence to communicate in English, that conversati
Read more

When Evening is Overwhelming

Image
I was angry the other night. Enraged.  Furious.  Indignant.  Infuriated. I felt that there were not synonyms enough in the English language to express the depths of my emotion.  The world is sometimes so desperately broken and evil blows itself up so large, casting such large and far-reaching shadows that words fall short. There are no curses I know strong enough for such evil , I thought. Except one. Resurrection . In the face of the most ravaging evil that tightens around the world, that creates fissures in cultures, that breaks the hearts of my students, there is hope. He's risen. That truth is what kicks evil in the teeth, the earthquake that will destroy the whole kingdom of darkness.  For now, we wait and work, living in age of aftershocks, knowing that light is coming, that full morning will dawn and push out the darkness forever. ~~~ ["When Evening is Overwhelming" taken from a song by Zach Winters .]
Read more