“Shannah” is the term for a “year” in the holy language…it means to repeat…or to change.
This double meaning is the challenge put in front of us each moment, each day, each week, each month, and each year.
Will this next time be like the last? Will we repeat what we have done before?
God makes all things new so we have the opportunity to fall into the lines of habit and choose that the next time will be like the last time. We are creature of habit and this is the worldly way to go. All animals, for instance, operate in instincts that compel them to repeat the habits of their lives. They are doomed to this pattern for their whole lives. God has provided us with the truth that is we are not instinctual beings…we can choose to change the patterns by which we live. In fact, that is the great calling of our relationships with Jesus. To be born new, or to be born again, is to NOT repeat that patterns that trapped us in the sinful life that we have led to that point.
Learning is defined as the relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of experience. This is a very technical and rather unglamorous definition, but it gets to the point. Things happen to us, we are exposed to experiences such as reading, events in our lives, conversations, books we read, news we hear. These have the capacity to change us, to compell us to question our assumptions and to consider changing our thoughts and minds about the world.
Instinct to Learn
In my courses on Developmental Psychology, I often state that humans have no more instincts save one. That instinct is to learn. Right from the first instances of our lives, our nervous systems begin to gather information. The spirit of our souls enter our flesh and we begin to learning process of entering into life. We spend a lot of our time in formal aspects of education (school) but we spend a lot more time simply, and automatically, gathering information from our world.
In the same course of study we discuss schemas which can be thought of us our conceptions of ideas. Expertise in any given area implies that the person’s scheme in that area is highly developed, adaptive, and effective. So an expert in farming has a very complex and useful schema related to “farming”.
This only happens, however, because the farmer (or would be expert in anything) is actively learning and incorporating new information (assimilation) and modifying existing constructs (accommodation) which results in the development of a professional in any given field.
This person, however, must be in a mindset that allows existing schemas to be changed by new information. This relates back to my essay about the cup that I just wrote. We might consider the consumption of information, the exposure we may have to things in the world, as an attack to our foundations. But, if this is the cup that has been put in front of us, and we hold true that the statements that Jesus said regarding that which defiles us (not the things that go into us, but that which proceeds out of us) then we must be open to the changing of our internal schemas and we assure that this day, week, month, year…will not be like the last.
We will have learned.
Keeping the Anchor
At the same time, we need an anchor. There is an absolute truth and it may not be attainable by us in this life. That truth is in the natural world (the creation) and in the word (Bible).
The natural world was crafted by God and just like the recognizable technique of a great artist is evident in their work, so is the evidence of God’s hand in creation. The patterns, the links, the natural analogies…these have been purposeful with a complexity and wonder that is far beyond our comprehension.
The Bible is the inspired word of God crafted, particularly in modern times, to be accessible to all of us. In it lies the complex definition of something that is not definable by our simple minds…the nature of God. The complexities, the seeming contradictions, the culture- and time-specific rituals and cultural facts that do not lend themeselves easily to modern thinking, are all part of the definition of that which cannot be simply defined by words.
Our human nature (our threefold composition of mind, body, and soul) and then word (written on our hearts) is our anchor as we consume the world.
Jesus talked about that which we consume goes through us and out of us. The internal processes of the body select that which is useful from our food and expel the waste. This natural process goes unseen by us and we rely on our natural systems to define what is useful and what is not. In the absence of diseases, our bodies can do this very well.
As we encounter the world, the cup that God has put before us, and we consume it…we are to let our natural bodies and the world of God written in us to shape what is useful and what is waste. In order to do so we need to two things:
- We need to nurture our bodies. We need to be healthy (eating well, sleeping well, resting, relaxing, and exercising). This is important because our souls must operate through out earthly bodies and as our bodies are modified by the presence of our eternal soul, so is our soul modified by the body it inhabits.
- We need to fill ourselves with the Word through regular study and reflection on the Word. We may not understand many of the things that are presented in the Bible, but we need to consume it and incorporate it into our being.
Sometimes the filtering out of that which is useful and that which is waste is automatic. (Being careful that we don’t simply filter things out of habit!). However, sometimes, this is effortful and we need to reflect…to really “chew” on things for a while.
And sometimes, the answer will not come to us when we want it. We won’t have the answer to a question, or to a mystery. And it may not be in our cup to find the answer to that mystery and we must go on what we DO understand related to that question or circumstance.
The reliance on our minds (connection to the God’s Word) and bodies (the very carefully and artfully creation of God) our souls (our selves) can consume the cup put in front of us.
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Mark K.
