new church life: jan uary/february 2015
examples of honesty or kindness or usefulness, because these things are taught
in the Word? Opening the eyes to spiritual reality, then, includes learning as an
intellectual process, and also as an experiential process.
5. “Helping People Become Loving, Wise and Useful Human
Beings.”
There is a phrase that captures the goal of some of our General Church schools,
namely to “feed the mind, touch
the heart, and prepare for life.”
The purpose for now is not to
focus on the school setting but
to see this as another example
of how to regard the use. This
three-part purpose was chosen
because it describes who we
are as human beings. We have
minds that can think and learn, we have hearts that can care and love, and
we have bodies that are incredibly capable of useful action. It is this essential
trilogy which makes us the human beings we are.
The clearest teaching I have found on the subject comes in True Christianity:
There are three things that flow as one from the Lord into our souls. These three-inone, or this trinity, if you will, are love, wisdom and usefulness. Love and wisdom
do not actually take shape, except in some conceptual form, because they reside
solely in the feelings and thoughts within our minds; but in usefulness they become
real, because then they come together in some activity and work on the part of the
body. (True Christianity 744)
O ther teachings focus on parts of that three-fold picture. For example,
concerning our ability to learn and love, we read: “The Divine resides in a
person in these two faculties, in the faculty for becoming wise and in the
faculty for loving – or rather, that he is able to do so.” (Divine Love and Wisdom
30) Another, focused on the goals of these things, states: “We are not born for
our own sake; we are born for the sake of others. That is, we are not born to live
for ourselves alone; we are born to live for others.” (True Christianity 406) All
of these things together – a desire to become wise and loving and useful – is
what makes us “truly human.” (See Conjugial Love 269)
The beauty of framing New Church education this way is that it accords
with the coaching and guidance that most parents and teachers do on a daily
basis. “Was that kind?” “What a thoughtful thing to do.” “Was that smart?”
“What would be a wiser way of handling the situation?” “Can you help me?”
“Hey, you’re really good at…” And so on.
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