--Richard Bach, "Illusions: The
Adventures of Reluctant Messiah"
This time of year I always feel envious towards the young,
as they prepare to go back to school, begin some new learning chapters in their
blossoming lives. Late August reminds me of the excitement and anxiety, the
nervous energy I always felt as a young person when brand new classes or a brand
new place of study was just weeks away for me. There's no other feeling quite
like it in all of life.
It's time to learn.
Time for brand new books that open with a satisfying
"crack" as you explore those pages of knowledge for the first time. Time
for unexplored class syllabuses outlining all you will learn in the days ahead.
A time when your only job in life is to learn. To expand your knowledge of the
world and yourself and others. A time when life is unsettled in a good way, as
you wade into some challenging new academic or life activity with absolutely no
idea of how things will turn out. Life then
is a blank slate, a canvas waiting to filled in, and so with courage and
curiosity you move ahead. Try some new way of thinking or living. In that one
bold act, your life changes for ever.
All because you are committed to the act of learning.
Which is why I also love this time of year, these
pre-September days, as I see young people in my life leave for college so
excited about all the new ideas that they get to study. As I drive the streets
of the city and watch young adults move into a new neighborhood, wrestle a
couch up a flight of stairs, live with new roommates, start their next academic
semester. As in just days from now when I will drive by the bus stop in front of my suburban home and watch as nervous parents let go of the hands of
their young children, sons and daughters off to classes, some for the very
first time.
All of them learning. All of those young people reminding me
that the best God-given life is always marked by this work: to learn and to
grow. To expand hearts and minds and spirits constantly. To never stop studying.
To see all of life as a beautiful and unexplored classroom. To learn just for
the sake and the joy of discovering some new talent that you never knew you had
or a new thought that you never considered before.
What I most fear as I age is not the slow breaking down of
my body, the new creaks and cracks I get to experience in the morning as I get
out of bed. Nor do I fear too much this fast changing world that admittedly some
days feels like a foreign land to me. Everything shifting and so quickly. No:
what I fear most is my mind's ossification, the nightmare that one day I will
awaken and conclude that I no longer need to learn anymore, or learn anything
else, in my life. That instead I've seen it all, done it all, learned enough to
last me forever. What I really need to do is fall back into my Lazy-Boy chair,
watch TV all day, preferably some mindless drivel, or worst of all, a 24 hour
news channel that tells me exactly just what to believe. No thought
necessary. No learning.
If one day in the future you happen to find me living thus,
please put a fork into me because then I will be done.
No. Give me a life of learning instead. Lifelong learning
from the day I am born until the day I leave this earth. Give me a room full of
books and the time to read them all, to allow those tomes to take me to places
I have never been before. Give me a God who pushes me to try new things, a God
who is ever faithful but always challenging me to expand my soul and never
settle for narrow orthodoxy or dusty doctrine.
Give me the courage to try something new each and every day. Some exotic food. To sing a new song I've
never sung. Ride on my bicycle to some
new place I've yet to discover. Give me a new idea I need to think about, that
just may change my mind for the better.
When will our lives of learning cease? When is school out of
session? If we are still alive, God willing, never. School is beginning again.
Today. Will I see you in the classroom called life?
Think about it.
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