For those like me whose heart yearns towards a monastery but whose vocation is found in wife and family, Br. Stephen’s observations on his first year as a Cistercian novice are a fascinating set of insights into a life that we’ll only ever know from the outside.
Daily Archives: August 17, 2009
Rethinking Clergy Education, Part N+1
AKMA points to a brief yet very interesting post on the future of Higher Ed given the realities of communication in the Internet Age.
My response is: well…no.
Learning is more than either the note-taking process or the data accumulation process especially when it comes to the formation of informed and effective clergy. I’d suggest that it has more to do with being grounded in foundational habits and absorbing an ethos and the book-learning is only a small part of that process.
I’ve come to identify as the most important parts of my seminary education the people I met, experiences I shared, and on-going connections I’ve maintained. A distance learning program doesn’t do well at facilitating any of these—there’s a fundamental embodied, incarnational component that’s missing…