Random 3 AM thoughts, Education and Religion

Education and Religion carry the same flaws, they are one and the same, they seek truth and seek to share their discoveries.

They both deviate when the teacher or the student, or wiseperson and disciple, either lack vision, adherence to the truth, or work ethic.

A class has failed a student when that student fails, but that failure could be rooted in any combination of the teacher, the material, or the student.

To succeed, all three forces (teacher, material, student) must accept full and active responsibility in the result.

It is common to lose faith even when the will to succeed exists. A teacher loses respect in their pupils, a student feels dumb and doesn't know why they bother, a textbook author just has to meet a deadline when they have yet to find the truth of the subject matter. A priest is shocked by an atrocity, a parishioner seeks help and none comes, a messiah reaches the end of their life and yet the world is unsaved. The potential for deviation from the goal is infinite.

Even if you believe your wisdom, your faith, is absolute and universal truth, you need merely look around and see that is has not saved every mind or soul. Ask yourself: Why? Why does someone refuse to believe in Genesis, why does someone refuse to believe in Evolution?

One answer that is possible: the answer is not perfect. It does not fill the needs of every person. Either the way it has been taught or the lesson itself has failed to gain purchase in their mind and spirit. Perhaps they just aren't ready to listen.

I am left with only one conclusion. Truth is a journey. Hold yourself to your own full height but try not to get whacked in the face by branches. Use your senses both physical and otherwise, pay attention. Every time you fall and scrape your knee the best you can hope for is you keep the wound from going septic and get a little better at staying on your feet the next time, or just falling in a less painful fashion.

There's infinite paths, infinite ways to go about it. There's good advice and bad from others who make the trip, there's good walking sticks to aid you, and others that snap in half at the worst time. The path is inside of us all, but there are signs both accurate and not all around us, pointing us this way and that. There are detours, there are encounters with the profane and the sublime, there is danger and there is safety, and while knowing the difference is a precious thing no one knows every threat and boon that's out there.

Some have an idea of what is at the end of the path, they have an image of what they seek to attain, while others meander on with little or no concept of what's at the end. So it's everything to all people? No, that's not what I'm saying. What we all seek and espouse in turn is the same thing, it only goes by a million names.

Truth.