{"id":308,"date":"2025-02-19T18:24:26","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T18:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/?p=308"},"modified":"2025-02-19T18:24:27","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T18:24:27","slug":"what-is-the-true-point-of-school-harmony-between-being-and-doing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/?p=308","title":{"rendered":"What is the True Point of School? Harmony Between Being and Doing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is the true point of school? Aristotle defined happiness as \u201cthe performance of the activities inherent in our being.\u201d (Eudemian Ethics<\/em>). Happiness is what we feel when there\u2019s harmony between what we do and who we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Jesus asked the two disciples in John 1:38, \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d it wasn\u2019t a trivial question. It\u2019s essential for us to know what we want.<\/a> God knows that. It so much easier for us to say what we don\u2019t want. In ancient Greece, people regularly spent their leisure time figuring out what they wanted and what constituted their happiness. They called it \u201cschool.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word \u201c<\/strong>school\u201d originates from the ancient Greek word \u03c3\u03c7\u03bf\u03bb\u03ae (schol\u0113)<\/strong>, which meant \u201cleisure\u201d or \u201cfree time.\u201d It wasn\u2019t a time of intense study. It was a time to relax and get in touch with who you are \u2014 to see if you \u201cperform activities inherent in your being.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding \u201cthat thing\u201d is nothing short of a miracle. The two disciples in John 1:38 followed Jesus to his home and spent a day there. What did they do there? We are not told, but it\u2019s quite clear that they were \u201cjust visiting.\u201d It was their \u201cfree time,\u201d their school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we have this \u201chour\u201d of free time, we are in the school-as-it-should-be. Here, we don\u2019t need to memorize anything or answer multiple-choice questions. All we need to do is become quiet, see, listen, and absorb what our inner being resonates with<\/a>. What makes us alive? We are looking for a \u201cvibration,\u201d a \u201csound\u201d that will make our soul sing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are visiting with Jesus. He\u2019s asking us one question, \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d We don\u2019t know, so he invites us to hang out with him for a while. Andrew the First-Called was the first to catch that vibration<\/strong> \u2014 hear the call. He knew it because it made him happy.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Thomas Merton poignantly said,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cA saint is a person who has lived their own life<\/strong>, not someone else\u2019s or a projection of what others think a life should be.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What do we want? According to Aristotle, we can\u2019t be happy until we have found an answer. <\/a>Until we find this answer, our external actions will not proceed from our core. We will not be living our own life. We will live a projection of what others think a life should be. We will not resonate with the Music of the Spheres; the soul won\u2019t sing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all long to hear singing souls; we want to visit with them and spend a day with them. Something happens to us and for us \u2014 we get closer to the wellspring of our desire. As one of my favorite songs from Secret Garden says,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The wheels of life keep turning
Spinning without control;
The wheels of the heart keep yearning
For the sound of the singing soul. (\u201cThe Gates of Dawn\u201d).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The soul is made to sing because it is made in the likeness of Divine Sophia, who sang and danced when the first dust of the universe was formed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cWhen He drew a circle on the face of the deep\u2026 When He established the fountains of the deep\u2026 I was daily His delight, rejoicing before Him always, rejoicing in His inhabited world and delighting in the children of man.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Let’s Create Something Together!<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is the true point of school? Aristotle defined happiness as \u201cthe performance of the activities inherent in our being.\u201d (Eudemian Ethics). Happiness is what we feel when there\u2019s harmony between what we do and who we are. When Jesus asked the two disciples in John 1:38, \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d it wasn\u2019t a trivial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,19],"tags":[22,9,21],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-true-education","tag-aristotle","tag-language","tag-philosophy","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309,"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions\/309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/russiantranslators.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}