Several months ago, I was chatting with some folks that I knew from a different life. I asked them if they were doing any continued thinking or reading on things that we used to talk about - theology, philosophy, history, etc. One fellow turned to me and said, "I don't talk about ideas any more. I want to talk about what is real. If it is real, then I am there."
This is a lovely sentiment and probably born of too much time spent with bottoms in meeting room chairs and too little time using hands and feet attached to those bottoms. However, this pursuit of the real as if it is separated from ideas is very close to the "Let's just pray about it." conversation ender that I grew up with. I am glad that one of the contemplative values is study. It is considered real and anyone who studies formally or informally knows that study is also real work.
We deceive ourselves when we think that we live outside of the world of ideas. I have heard the least engaged people, those who would not be considered studious quickly reflect back ideas that are deeply entrenched in their own Western mythology. They believe that they are "real" and of the moment when the ideas behind their thoughts have been worming their way into their consciousness for hundreds of years. For some reason they believe they are acting out of some kind of independent thinking and that they came to a particular perspective all by themselves. Or worse, they are convinced that their viewpoint is THE God ordained one held by all people at all times.
It is more than evident to those who wisely engage study that experience is a necessary handshake with many things cerebral but to toss one side of these into the corner like winner take all combatants in a boxing ring is sheer silliness.
Engaging study, wrestling with ideas, is not about finding the one right direction or the one right perspective. In fact, more often than not we find ourselves face to face with having to shed pieces of what we thought were ourselves -- things we thought were so right fall by the way aside as we are given a wider view.
The hard work of conversion includes study. It is part of paying attention to open up your heart and mind to a book, a conversation, a film, a piece of music, a perspective that you may not have considered. If God is speaking into the world as we claim, if we are at times as dull as we know we are, we hold much of what we think and see loosely. We wait to be changed. We do not mistake being entrenched as the only expression of faithfulness.
I have heard many leaders say that people do not wish to wrestle with hard things and they would rather appeal to what people want to hear for their daily lives. And so light-hearted tips on parenting, money management, and self-esteem replace thinking deeply about the world. And when we respond to a chaotic world with simplistic cliches or react to suffering and issues of justice with an immature stamping of feet, leaders are surprised that they have encouraged childish behavior. We are shown the mountain and continually pout while staring at the summit. We want someone else to do the work for us and do not want to "take ourselves in hand".
What is real? Only God knows. We are always staring at edges while hurtling through infinite space at thousands of miles an hour. We are what we are, each with our own limits in vision, mind and heart. But surely it is real to try our best as many before and after us to understand our own limits, to seek wisdom, to apply our hearts to understanding and to not mistake being real for ignoring the complexities of the world around us.