Scholarship

Scholarship was the ultimate goal in Jewish culture, especially in Jesus' day.

But now?

Scholars hide in their offices, their campuses, their secluded compounds and defend the bulwark between themselves and the uninquisitive world.

What does it mean to be a scholar? My culture tells me that as I learn, study, fill my mind with the ideas of millenia of thinkers before me, that I am making myself irrelevant. When I ponder Descartes and Kirkegaard, my journey separates me from my community. They say "I can't go there with you. And, honestly, I don't want to."

Often, intelligent, compassionate people want me to be fully knowledgeable of only a certain canon. And, when I start to wander off the required reading list...then I become dangerous.

So, to follow my dream, I walk paths alone. I drag myself over an untraveled wilderness. I follow the traces left by poets and philosophers, dismayed that so few have gone before me. And, most horrified, that, as I scramble through intellectual brambles, I feel alone. No one in sight.

I crave someone to read with. My mind strains with ideas too heavy for me. I need a coach. A friend.

Jesus should be enough for me. He is. But ...

I want to walk with another flesh-covered Jesus-lover. In the rain. While carrying Kirkegaard.