Credentials

I saw an article in the paper about this country's brightest and best 2 days ago. While I cannot altogether identify with that elite group of people, I have had enough academic experience that I wish I could tell them what they are headed for. Oh, they will have many compliments paid to them in life. And they will stand tall beside each sheepskin they receive. And many of them will make money, some of them hand over fist. They will be in positions of authority or in the rat race climbing ever upward. But, I wish not to tell them any of this because it is obvious and is what they strive to attain.

I wish I could tell them, instead, that life brings so many unexpected curves, that there is only one way to make it through life with any confidence. And it's not the way of the scientific method. It's the way that is unseen, unknown. It's the way where the greatest guides are those with the greatest confidence in seeing the unseen, knowing the unknown. The greatest credential is the mercy shown from the creator for the human condition. The greatest joys are in reconciliation. The greatest day is the day one enters the portal from this world to the next.

Of course, they will all have to find this out on their own as we all do. May the one who stays home to draw us to him, find many seekers to draw to him.