i wish i could graduate from the questions.
it seems like i've been struggling with the same questions for a few years now. i've made some progress, but don't have many more answers than when i started. the art of forgiveness, miracles vs. coincidences (is there even such thing as a coincidence??), patriotism, pacifism, war in general - these kinds of things. i like to have straight-forward answers...maybe that's my problem. with forgiveness, i wish i could have a list of sequential steps that i need to go through. i want to complete each step before proceeding to the next. when i reach the end of the list, i don't want to have to think about it again because the process should be complete.
this week i had an unexpected, 2-hr conversation with a member of administration. the person was asking a random question and was going to share the answers with the RA's or chaplains or some other group like that. i gave an answer and then we just started talking about random topics that come up in our lives and questions we have been struggling with. (i couldn't believe how many questions we are both attempting to answer!!) one of the things brought up was that of the complaints that consistently show up on evaluations of retreats. our student leaders want black-and-white answers. they want to be told exactly what they have to do to accomplish their tasks as leaders on this campus. the intent of these retreats, i am told, is to train them spiritually for the tasks at hand and to get them to wrestle with questions. the point is to provide support in their quests, but not necessarily straight-forward answers.
i wonder if this is drastically different than other, less-technical universities. as programmers, engineers, pilots, and other technically-minded people, we are often given a step-by-step procedure of how to accomplish our tasks or calculate the desired answers. my professors often use the phrase "the standard operating proceedure is: ...." because of this, have we trained ourselves to always have this mindset? or maybe it simply comes naturally - and that is why we're in the particular field of study in the first place. i am also told that people in the "non-technical" majors also want black-and-white answers. so does this mean that we, as a particular age group or as college students, naturally want cut-and-dried answers? or are the technically-minded people rubbing off on the rest? the administration is primarily non-technical - so is this the main reason they notice it after every retreat?
it seems like i've been struggling with the same questions for a few years now. i've made some progress, but don't have many more answers than when i started. the art of forgiveness, miracles vs. coincidences (is there even such thing as a coincidence??), patriotism, pacifism, war in general - these kinds of things. i like to have straight-forward answers...maybe that's my problem. with forgiveness, i wish i could have a list of sequential steps that i need to go through. i want to complete each step before proceeding to the next. when i reach the end of the list, i don't want to have to think about it again because the process should be complete.
this week i had an unexpected, 2-hr conversation with a member of administration. the person was asking a random question and was going to share the answers with the RA's or chaplains or some other group like that. i gave an answer and then we just started talking about random topics that come up in our lives and questions we have been struggling with. (i couldn't believe how many questions we are both attempting to answer!!) one of the things brought up was that of the complaints that consistently show up on evaluations of retreats. our student leaders want black-and-white answers. they want to be told exactly what they have to do to accomplish their tasks as leaders on this campus. the intent of these retreats, i am told, is to train them spiritually for the tasks at hand and to get them to wrestle with questions. the point is to provide support in their quests, but not necessarily straight-forward answers.
i wonder if this is drastically different than other, less-technical universities. as programmers, engineers, pilots, and other technically-minded people, we are often given a step-by-step procedure of how to accomplish our tasks or calculate the desired answers. my professors often use the phrase "the standard operating proceedure is: ...." because of this, have we trained ourselves to always have this mindset? or maybe it simply comes naturally - and that is why we're in the particular field of study in the first place. i am also told that people in the "non-technical" majors also want black-and-white answers. so does this mean that we, as a particular age group or as college students, naturally want cut-and-dried answers? or are the technically-minded people rubbing off on the rest? the administration is primarily non-technical - so is this the main reason they notice it after every retreat?
posted by zippy @ 9:14 PM
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