“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:29
Our heavy desks in my childhood school, circa 1962, were attached to each other in long rows. They bore the marks of bored and restless occupants who had scratched their names into the wood grain. With ink from the inkwell pot, a fountain pen and blotting paper, students laboriously copied notes. There was something scholarly and reassuring in the solidness of those desks.
As time went on, laminates replaced the old furniture. In high school typing class the desks featured pull-out trays for our Olivetti standard typewriters. Office desks and college tables were places of individual and collective work. My old plank-wood desk, though a cast off from a hospital basement, is much cherished as a productive place today.
I’ve learned a lot, from childhood on, while sitting at desks or on pews, taking in what I’ve received at the foot of a teacher or preacher. But it’s in the meditating on the lessons, remembering, and applying it through life’s challenges that makes them stick. Research has shown that retention of knowledge works best if it’s not only received, but also retrieved so that neural pathways are laid down in memory over time.
Of course, there is more to learning than just the formal kind presented in lecture halls. We learn by listening and by observing the creation around us. There has to be room in learning for wondering, for exploring and experimenting, for suspending our disbelief for a moment to at least try to understand an unfamiliar point of view.
Teaching is another learning tool, as valuable for the teacher as the student. One particular Friendship Club evening, our storyteller came in frazzled. She had spent hours that afternoon searching and finally finding her missing dog. Emotionally, she understood very well the concern for a lost sheep that day. If I am to teach others to trust Jesus, I will often be tested with a situation that requires that I trust Him first.
Jesus went to the towns and villages to preach the good news, speaking in plain language and in parables that had hidden depths, life lessons from the commonplace. He spoke in synagogues and from hillsides, to crowds and to individuals. It’s up to us to have ears to hear wherever we are, to take what we’ve learned from God’s Word and his Creation, to see that they both glimmer with God’s glory. We can be lifelong learners.