Riding in Circles
Ever since my daughter discovered how to ride her bike without training wheels, it’s been nearly impossible to get her off that thing. She will find any excuse to ride, even if it is just up the driveway to get the mail. Considering the effort she put into learning, the pain I felt in watching her frustration when she couldn’t quite get it, and the size of the smile on her face every time she pushes off without any help, I can’t imagine discouraging her newfound obsession. The other day, she invited me to join her for a ride, and we made our usual jaunt up our street into the cul-de-sac at the end of the block. Once we arrived at the cul-de-sac, she invited me to continuously ride around, effectively chasing her in a circle. After more rotations than I care to admit, and when my patience for these monotonous rotations had just about run out, she called out, “Daddy, I think it’s cool that I’m behind you and in front of you at the same time.” Slightly perplexed before realizing what she meant, that by going in the circle I was literally following her and leading at the same time, I asked her how she figured that out. Her reply has stayed with me, “Daddy, I noticed it when I was riding with my friends.” In this time of disconnected community and rapid-paced living, I believe we need theological education to help us find the time and ability to notice things with friends.
I appreciate all the challenges to theological education and the hard work that administrators and faculty across the country are doing to address the times. Figuring out how to meet the evolving needs and capacities of our students is a constant struggle and remains a primary topic of committee meetings and faculty gatherings. But I fear that, in an attempt to meet the times, we are forfeiting our responsibility to shape them. If we, as theological educators, can’t create space and time in our classrooms for noticing and community when we feel a sense of call and obligation to do so, then there is no hope for other classrooms to do the same. We can model, in our pedagogy and practice, an appreciation for noticing and the time it takes to do so. We can challenge our students not only to work harder, but to work more slowly, to pay attention to the reading such that new insights might emerge and so that they are able to truly interact with the work that we assign them, instead of merely digesting and regurgitating facts and AI-inspired commentary back to us. We can and must cultivate wonder in our classrooms and provide space for the disciplined use of our imaginations. I believe it is a role that is specifically ours to play in this time of democratic crisis. Our students need time to develop their imaginations so that they can notice things in community.
Thurman spoke about imagination as a tool, as something that could be developed to aid in the formation of community. He suggests that imagination’s greatest strength is when it serves as the “angelos” or messenger of God, a tool that facilitates the creation of community by fostering connection across difference.[1] Our teaching can help create community and space for noticing, for imagining. In the seeming monotony of going to class week after week, seemingly around in similar circles, I believe that theological education can help us dream up things we’ve never thought of before, and wrestle with notions that don’t seem to make sense at first, vis-à-vis, chasing someone and being chased by someone at the same time. And perhaps the quiet revolution needed for theological education in this moment is simply this: not to move faster or produce more, but to slow down enough, together, to notice what we could never on our own, hope in this midst of this mess.
[1] Fluker, Walter, and Catherine Tumber. 1998. A Strange Freedom: The Best of Howard Thurman on Religious and Public Life. Boston: Beacon Press, p. 182.