(27) Learning to Learn

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for Learning to Learn, originally shared on June 29, 2020. It was the twenty-seventh video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

    This week, we have still been trying to get our newly installed high-speed internet to perform up to its potential. It has the ability to live up to its potential, it just isn’t doing it.

   The same thing seems to be happening in the pandemic. We have the ability to lessen its deadliness. But, many of us, it seems, just aren’t living up to our potential.

   We are seeing a pull-back from the re-opening and a push back by people who see wearing masks as futile effort, a political plot, a government plot, or who just flat-out don’t care.

   You may have seen that Hugo’s Tacos is closing two of their stands just because they are tired of being abused by patrons who don’t like the no mask, no service policy.

   Or, the cynicism of people peddling bogus “Facemask Exemption Cards” claiming that because of HIPPA laws, no one is allowed to ask you what exactly your alleged medical exemption is based on.

   At the same time, a model done by the University of Washington often cited by the White House, has shown that if 95% of the American public wore masks (just that) we could save 33,000 lives by the beginning of October.

   When we held the kick-off fundraising dinner for our new parish hall at the Roman Catholic church up the street, our main speaker was Marge Wold, a prominent member of our Lutheran denomination.

   She was one of nine children. She told a story about how, when she was growing up poor on the South Side of Chicago, her mother was so obese that they weren’t really sure when she was pregnant and when she wasn’t. All they knew was that, every once and awhile, their mother was gone. And, when she came back, she would have a new baby boy or girl.

   Their mom would explain that, while she was gone, the stork brough a baby. But, that when the stork unwrapped the baby, it was so beautiful that the stork wanted to keep the baby. So, mom had to fight the stork to keep the baby, and that’s why she was tired and needed to rest for awhile.

   Marge said that, while we might think that story was quite naive, for all most of us know about where our church buildings came from, the stork might as well have brought them.

   We, however, are now privileged to participate in the struggle and the sacrifice of brining a new facility into being. And, when it was done, we would forget the struggle and sacrifice and must marvel at what had been brought into the world.

   What if all we knew about the world came from those in authority or popular folk wisdom? How do we learn the truth? Who do we listen to? Who do we trust?

*2 Timothy 4:1-5

   The word “science” is a word for a particular kind of knowledge that helps us understand and predict the behavior of the physical world. It is always developing.

   Science has its doctrine, its saints, and its heretics. The science of years past is the superstition of today.

   Science has made it possible to reach the moon, to allow relatively painless curative surgeries, to feed billions, to extend the average human life span to free the human mind from wooden dogmas and traditions, from bullies and despots all in order to allow for progress in human physical development and prosperity, exploration and civilization. We take the fruits of this knowledge for granted all the time. We look at the stars without fear. Most of us in the world eat something nourishing every day.

   I sometimes took young people on trips to Magic Mountain when I was serving in Lutheran churches. When I went on those rides I was praying that the engineers who designed these rides got an A in every single class they took. Apparently, for me, they had. Their knowledge about the behavior of things in the physical world produced entertainment.

   Science has also made possible overpopulation, the degradation of the environment, antibiotic resistant diseases, alienation and radical individualism, and atomic, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction.

   Revelation is another form of knowledge. It is the truth we receive from God, revealed by the Holy Spirit. It is truth with a capital T: Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

   For example, in my opinion Genesis is not a book of science. The question of how the cosmos physically came to be would not have been particularly interesting to ancient people. So maybe the world was created in 6 literal days (though how measure) or in 6 kabillion years. The purpose of the Creation story in Genesis is not to answer the how questions, but the why, what and who questions: Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the meaning of life.  Who am I?  What is my purpose?

   Revelation itself cannot itself be tested by the scientific method and is easily abused. It is very difficult to keep it from being used by charismatic but ruthless people to support their own greed and lust for power.

   Religion has brought people into a liberation of the self, sacrifice for others, and sense of the dignity and value of the self, and knowledge of the truth in a wider sense than merely the things that can be measured.

   It has also been hijacked to justify war and violence, conquest and domination of people, it has led people into lives of crushing guilt and soul-crushing ignorance. 

   How can we tell what is truly of God?

   Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, during a time with leadership consultants were popular and in demand was once asked why he thought they were referred to as “gurus” by the media. “Because they can’t spell “charlatan”, he answered.

   Finding sources of authority in matters of revelation is tricky. It depends upon discernment of the truth based on what God has revealed to us about God’s nature, our openness to receiving it, and our humility in getting out of God’s way in us.  

   I posted a meme yesterday that said, “There are more planets inhabited by robots in the solar system than planets populated by people.” Have you ever been asked online if you were a robot? It’s a common question to make sure you are a human being. You are asked to do something that robots can’t do, yet, like entering the number of streetlights you see in a photograph.

   “Robot” or “sheep” are words sometimes thrown at people who are currently wearing face masks. How do you know who is behaving like a robot and who is behaving like a human being?

   So, how do you know which one you are? Genesis tells us that human beings were created for a living relationship with the living God, but that God didn’t want the meaningless love of a programmed robot, so God gave people the ability to say “No”. And that’s what they did.

   The rest of the Old Testament is the story of God trying to lead human beings back to that relationship, one for which they were created. God came to answer that big question, “What is my worth” when God died on the cross to restore the relationship that human beings destroyed.

   How do we sift through this and learn to learn? What voices do we listen to?

   Here’s one of the things that helped me navigate school, particularly seminary. When presented with new or conflicting ideas, I learned to ask myself, “Who do you trust?” 

   Inherent in that questions are other questions like, who benefits from how this discussion gets resolved, why does this person or this source present these ideas. Are the ideas presented the person’s best of a number of alternatives, or is it all they have ever been taught? What are the assumed values for measuring progress? How does one advance in their profession? Is critical thinking valued or discouraged? What does it mean to value innovation in ideas in their field?

   Should we wear masks, or not? How will we decide? Maybe we’ll learn from experience when the hospitals hit apocalyptic numbers and people we know start to die.

   How do we know where babies come from? I would suggest it is known by those who know the struggle of conception, labor and delivery. Popular folk wisdom will not help us get to the truth.

   We are learning how to learn when we become self-starters, when we decide that when only one view is presented we will need to be responsible for our own education, by honestly considering all the voices, including the unpopular ones. By resisting those who, “accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires” but instead seek out and learn, listen to the truth, and learn to learn.

   We learn how to learn by being fearless. By following an idea wherever it takes us, knowing that, if God exists, and I believe that God does, our searching will always take us back to the source, to God.