Eyes Wide Shut

In my last post, I explored the concept of ontology (the study of what it means “to be”) from my grad class by referencing a quote and some commentary from a fellow student. Tonight I move to epistemology.

Epistemology is the study of what is knowledge. What does it mean to know? How do we know that we know? And on and on. I used the same paradoxical quote that the aforementioned fellow student used: “I shut my eyes in order to see.” Except, I used it as a basis for my epistemological approach to life. Here’s what I wrote:

Knowledge is very rarely what is immediately in front of my eyes, or at least not completely that. It’s just not that easy. While it’s tempting to make it that easy and to decide that something is absolutely true based on immediate evidence, I’ve found it be fairly reckless to be sure of something based on that quality alone.

To really know, to have knowledge and wisdom and confidence in what we think we know, requires a long-term (sometimes years-long) acquisition of experience, study, and reflection. One example is with people. If we base what we “know” about a person based on what’s right in front of our eyes this second, we will either be dead wrong or only cognizant of a small fraction of the truth. We must take what we see, add it to all our other experiences and conversations with this individual, and balance it in order to create knowledge about that person. That can’t happen in a day. There have been many days when I’ve been agitated with some of my best friends in the world, and I’m sure I’ve produced similar feelings in them. Had they or I made judgments based only on what was in front of us at that moment, it would be a lonely life. When I close my eyes, I get much closer to knowing.

The same is true of study, especially in education. Too often educators get caught up in what they are reading right now, of what “the research says” in the article in this month’s journal, or this year’s best-seller, or this conference’s keynote speaker. And that’s not true. If we close our eyes and combine it with years and years of study and experience, we can come closer to “knowing” the truth. I also love to study leadership theory. There’s a new book out every 12 seconds touting a brand new approach to leadership. If I were to embrace each book, each article, each speaker that’s before my eyes as having absolute knowledge, I’d be lost. Instead, I must slow down, reflect, and alter my “knowledge” where appropriate. I assume this to be the case in every profession.

This is especially true for me in obtaining “knowledge” about my faith. I’ve come to realize that I can have complete faith at the same time I have a working theology. What I was convinced of when I was 18 has changed considerably now. What I read or hear from religious leaders now I’m also careful to handle with care, or at least with lots of reflection and prayer. In fact, each time I read Bible passages, they seem to speak a different “knowledge.” A lot of that is dependent on my life scenario at that point in time, and a lot is also dependent on prior “knowledge” I bring to the table in my reading.

I guess my point here is that the here and now, the immediate, carries with it too much emotion to call it knowledge. We rush off and can't wait to share with somebody what we just learned, how it's changed how we see everything, how it can save their career/life/soul. Perhaps we shouldn't be in such a rush. Positive or negative, everything we see, read, hear, and speak is colored by biases. In order to remove the color and obtain true knowledge, I must fade to black, eyes wide shut, in reflection.

Piles of Laundry and Spilled Dog Food

In my philosophy course for grad school right now, we've been talking about ontology, epistemology, and axiology. It's some pretty heavy stuff, and I see it influencing the next few posts here on the blog.

Today I'd like to look at ontology, which is the study of what it means "to be." What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a husband? A teacher? A Christian? What does it mean to be me?

A woman in the class, whose work I've really enjoyed reading, had an interesting post that I read this morning. The assignment asked us to choose from a list of paradoxes that help to define what our ontological view is. She chose the quote, "I shut my eyes in order to see" (Paul Gauguin). Her point was this: if she lets what is immediately in front of her eyes define who she is, physical distractions such as "piles of laundry . . and spilled dog food" can keep her from forming a real identity.

This struck a chord with me this morning. I had just done a walk through my house , making a mental list of what needs to get done in order to simply survive the weekend in the house. And five minutes after it’s clean and orderly, it will fade back into piles of laundry and spilled dog food. Is this what it means to be me? Is this fatherhood and manhood? Is this seriously my life, seriously how I spend almost every waking minute, managing the chaos of piles of laundry and spilled dog food? That's where it gets scary, where people really start to question why they had kids, or why they're in their marriage. They must get past what their eyes tell them at that moment.

If I don’t close my eyes every once in a while, I forget that “being” is much more than that. I forget just how good it is to “be” in the midst of all that laundry and dog food, of how lucky I am, of how much joy it all brings. I love my wife, I love my kids, and I love my dog. Admittedly, what's in front of my eyes is, at times, a little discouraging, especially when what's in front of my eyes is throwing a fit or peeing on the floor. But it's only discouraging as long as I forget that what it means "to be" me is a man who has everything that anyone serious about happiness could ever want.

It's hard a lot of days. When your eyes sees an expensive car repair, an illness, a mess of toys and dishes everywhere, or repeated rejection, it's easy to begin believing that's what defines you, that that's what it means "to be" you. When you let both the figurative and literal piles of laundry and spilled dog food in life be your focus, it's going to be depressing some days.

You've got to close your eyes at those times. That isn't you. Don't let your eyes speak. Close your eyes and listen to God remind you of who you are.

Persevering in Prayer

My year-long struggle with maintaining a regular prayer life continues. I reread a book this summer called The Contemporaries Meet the Classics on Prayer, this time taking notes as I read. It's a collection of short essays, book and sermon excerpts, etc. that Christian leaders from the last 2,000 years have written. One heading I have in my collection of notes is "Persevering in Prayer."

I've struggled with this, as I've been loathe to pray when the mood doesn't strike me. I fear not being authentic in my praying, so I've stayed away from forcing prayer when I just didn't feel like it. In my mind, that meant it would be in some ways fake, routine, and empty talk. After reading this text, I realize I was wrong.

Below are some of the quotes I've taken from the text that I wanted to share. I feel like a hypocrite for posting advice on prayer, but my weaknesses don't make any of these ideas any less true.

My notes:

• prayer is a relationship in which you allow God to see so much that you would rather leave in darkness. It’s going to be rare to feel like doing this. (151)
• resistance to praying is the desire to cling tightly to yourself (151)
• “The visible world daily bludgeons us with its things and events. . . Few people arise in the morning as hungry for God as they are for cornflakes or toast and eggs. . . (However), We are required to ‘bet our life’ that the visible world, while real, is not reality itself.” (157-9)
• Waiting for the right mood is impossible. “Make up your mind in advance to keep your course steady, when you feel like it and when you don’t. . . A man who surrenders to these variable moods is doomed to inefficiency. . .” (160-1)
• Dean Goulburn: “When you cannot pray as you would, pray as you can.” (161)
• “So if you are averse to pray, pray the more.” (162)
• Charles Spurgeon: “We should pray when we are in a praying mood, for it would be sinful to neglect so fair an opportunity. We should pray when we are not in a praying mood because it would be dangerous to remain in so unhealthy a condition.” (163)
• “The less one depends on feelings, the more one is prepared for union with God” (193)
• “We refuse to pray unless it thrills or excites us, which is the most intense form of spiritual selfishness. . . When you labor at prayer, from God’s perspective there are always results.” (258)

Reflection on Reflection

As a follow up to my previous post on some of the major concepts of philosophy, I've included below some of the thoughts on reflection I've contributed in my current grad class:

Reflection is closely tied with questioning, because it requires the question of how well did I do this? And it's rare, like deep questions, because reflection itself implies that there is a better way. Few want to admit that, and fewer still believe that it's even a possibility. Reflection barely has a chance in American society; it screams of weakness, not of the American way of self-reliance and strength.

One huge challenge that I find in terms of reflection is striking a balance between acting and reflecting. Reflecting is somewhat counterintuitive. Action is celebrated - we are told to do, to accomplish, to win, to work hard. Few are the pep rallies motivating us to slow down and ponder. But effective action requires reflection. With too much action and not enough reflection, the action suffers. The doer becomes mediocre. On the other side, an individual who is constantly reflecting can be paralyzed by self-doubt. Then all of the reflection goes for naught - no improvements can be made on a lack of action (call it the Hamlet syndrome). As with most things in life, balance is key.

Reflection requires a couple of commodities that are increasingly rare in our society as well. One of them is quiet. It's impossible to reflect with a constant stream of messages being inflicted on our brains. Whether its our kids, the TV, the phone, our students, or the radio, our world is filled with noise. And for the most part, we like it that way. We look busy, feel productive, and get entertained. It's a world we've created, consumed, and now demand; it just isn't an environment that allows for a lot of think time.

The other commodity is honest feedback and criticism from people who want the best for you. Rare is the friend who is willing to risk the relationship telling you what you need to hear. Rare is the co-worker willing to deal with the confrontation present in telling a peer they need to do a job better (or at least differently). Rare is the spouse who, instead of complaining to their friends about their beloved, confronts the problem directly in humility. Conflict and confrontation carries with it such emotional baggage that most find it more expedient to say the easy thing. Reflection in all areas of life requires honest outside eyes to show us where our biases have led us astray.

I also believe that reflection is the burden of leadership. Most people have the option of engaging in reflection or not, but not leaders; leaders are not only responsible for their own development, but that of many others as well. When I think about the areas in my life that I spend the most time reflecting, it is those in which I'm in a leadership position. It's my job as a father to lead my family well, and I am in constant reflection regarding what I can do better in that category. As a basketball coach, not a game goes by when I'm not reliving the game, play by play, decision by decision, while I lay in bed late into the night trying to figure out how to reach potential. The classroom is another place that demands my reflection, as I don't want to cheat my students. If one is called on to lead, he/she must figure out how to reflect effectively.

On a related note, reflection in all of us seems to be motivated by having someone to answer to (players, students, boss, family, etc). For Christians, this includes God. A higher power, and prayer to that higher power, causes those of us who are religious to reflect on our spiritual life, as we are certainly answerable to Him. In my life specifically, but also in others whom I’m around, it seems that when we’re only answerable to ourselves, we reflect less. We’re willing to let ourselves down much more quickly than letting others down. I’m sure I reflect regarding items that only affect myself; however, if I’ve got to choose, I’m also going to default to those areas that affect others. Wise or not, I don’t know.

Questions, Anyone?

For my graduate course, “Philosophy of Education,” we’re discussing some of the major concepts of philosophy. Two of those are questioning and reflection. I’ve discovered through writing some of my assignments the following ideas that I thought I’d share here. Let me know what you think.

Regarding questioning:

• One note I have written down from Dr.Walker's lecture is that questions are one way to obtain truth, but those questions have to be deep, probing questions. I think about the way much of our society uses questions today, and it's clear that not many are asking those deep questions, especially of each other. We certainly ask a ton of questions, but many are fairly superficial: How's it going? How was your day? What do you do? Did you have a good weekend? Hot, isn't it? Here we are making conversation, not truth. We already know the answer (or at least the one we expect to get) and are simply attempting to appear interested. Part of the reason for this, frankly, could be the way we now communicate to each other. It's fairly rare for deep, probing questions to be presented on Facebook, Twitter, text messages, and email. And even if there were, would we have the patience to answer? Or the time? No, deep, probing questions come out over a long walk, or a letter, or around a friendly feast with the television turned off. C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and a few of their friends got together regularly for beers, discussion, and mutual critique of their writings. They produced great literature that responds deeply to human questions. We sit around our laptops and cell phones, checking for witty one-liners.

• Another way people use the questions they ask is as an "in" towards talking about themselves. I've never been more aware of this than with talking about my 18-month old daughter. She has a rare skin disease, so rare that we had to go to Mayo to even find someone who had studied it before. Fewer than 200,000 people in the world have this. There are visible spots that are a result of this disease, so we routinely field questions about it from strangers or others she is meeting for the first time. We tell them what the disease is, how rare it is, and what we're doing about it. I estimate that 75% of the time, the response is, "Well I (or someone I know) have something just like that," followed by intricate details of skin lesions. I've caught myself doing it as well in conversations with others, listening in for an opening to share about my experiences. Now I've tried to discipline myself to always ask at least one more question after someone has answered a question of mine towards them. It's been liberating, not trying to desperately fling myself into conversations every chance I get.

• If truth requires questions, then questions require a curiosity to discover new truths. This is not easy, and I don't think many people really want this. The phrase “ignorance is bliss” exists specifically because of the consequences of knowledge. And it’s these same consequences that make most adults, no matter how much they don’t want to admit it, as adamantly opposed to losing their ignorance. If what we know is true, we don’t have to change anything. Add something new or contrary to our existing knowledge, and then we might have to change our actions. Change is hard. I once had someone give me the advice of "Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to." I believe most of us take that to heart. We don't want to know that we've got it all wrong, that there is evidence against our beliefs, or that there is a better way of doing things.

• Also, it is essential for growth to surround ourselves with people who are good questioners. And these individuals are hard to find. Without someone in our lives to push us with questions, to require us to think, to ask us to grow, we simply won’t reach potential.