“Judging whether life is worth living amounts to answering the fundamental questions of philosophy”.
These opening words of Camus’ “The Myth of Sisyphus” are right – the meaning of life is an urgent question and central to the meaning of life is its purpose.
Hopelessness is in bloom in our culture as the atheists speak positively of an imaginative world where the future is eternal nothingness. Living life as if it has meaning all the while knowing it is futile produces anxiety and despair for our young people.
The purpose of education is “to deal with existential questions about life and death, what constitutes truth and wisdom, how we relate to one another, the broader community and the wider world, and what constitutes happiness and the good life”.[1]
The Christian faith gives us a set of coherent answers to these questions. The Greek philosophers believed there was a rational ‘logos’, a cosmic spiritual and moral order behind the material universe that had objective meaning. To live well was to live according to the ‘logos’ – the abstract principles behind reality.
But the true logos is the divine Word of God – a person, Jesus Christ, the self-existent one. He is the Truth and the Life. He alone can make sense of our lives and the world. He is the truly transcendent source of knowledge that brings light to our minds and hearts. Without Him, we can only have a distorted view of reality. The pursuit of knowledge and wisdom must begin with submission to the Lordship of Christ and the Scripture. Just as the sun gives light to see other things as they truly are, so faith is prior to the true understanding of reality and how life is to be lived.
Through the Gospel work of Christ, creation itself is being made new. Though we hear the present groans of a world desperately aware of their need for renewal and healing, ours is a story of kept promises.
The City of God is a Kingdom in full bloom. Unlike the cut-flower culture, it never spoils or perishes because the resurrection is a fact. In Christ, we can invite our students into an inheritance that is “imperishable, undefiled and unfading.” [2] Unfading comes from the Greek ‘amarantos’ (meaning to bloom) from which is derived the flower ‘amaranthos’, known as the eternal flower. Our students are to be those beautiful flowers born again of a seed that is imperishable. This engenders hope into their lives as they experience an identity that is received not achieved, and meaning that suffering cannot take away.
The Wisdom of the City of God must have the final word.
As Teachers, we embody what it means to be citizens of the City of God who have returned to the ways of God. Our work has eternal significance. We are God’s in-between[3] people who live in the light of eternity trusting God to unfold His story to the generations of children. This is a story of grace from start to finish.
As William Wilberforce, the great Christian reformer, said “Let a Thousand flowers bloom”[4]
A Prayer for God’s Storytellers
“High King of heaven, Lord of the years and sovereign over time and history, grant to us such an overpowering knowledge of who you are that our trust in you may be unshakable. Grant to us too a sufficient understanding of the signs of the times in which we live that we may know how to serve your purposes in our generation and more truly be your people in our world today. To that end, O Lord, revive us again and draw us closer to yourself and to each other. Where there is false contentment with our present condition, sow in us a holy restlessness. Where there is discouragement, grant us fresh hearts. Where there is despair, be our hope again. For your sake empower us to be your salt and light in the world, and thus your force for the true human flourishing of your shalom. In the name of Jesus, Amen.”[5]
Grace and Peace
The Team
The Excellence Centre
BACK TO TEACHERS TALKING
[1] Dr K Donnelly &Professor Wiltshire – submission to the Australian Curriculum (2014) pp21.
[2] 1 Peter 1:4
[3] A term coined by Professor TJ Cooling
[4] Guinness, O. Renaissance pp.29
[5] Guinness, O. Renaissance pp.30