Saturday, June 28, 2008

WHAT TECHNIQUE?

"Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. . .'" (John 11:25,26).

"For the wise men of old, the cardinal problem of human life was how to conform the soul to objective reality, and the solution was wisdom, self-discipline, and virtue. For the modern mind, the cardinal problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of man, and the solution is technique" (The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis).

The quote from Lewis reminded me of the years when I was teaching as an adjunct professor at Nebraska Christian College. For grading, I placed a high value on questions that the students asked and one of the most common questions asked by female students (I do not recall male students asking the question with very much frequency) was, "What technique works best when . . .?" I should have done more to help them understand their own need to be controlling! Counseling is more than bringing short-term changes of behavior, but it involves changing a life. Sometimes, life-changing can make things worse rather than better in the short term, but the long-term changes are the ones that matter. Short-term changes may result from manipulation, but long-term changes result from being introduced to Reality.

I am going to take a 2-week vacation from posting--I just wanted to warn you faithful readers so that you wouldn't worry about me.

Grace&Peace,
Tom

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Tom, somehow I think we faithful readers will survive your absence! The real problem is surviving until the college football season starts. Life is football. What happens before or after is just waiting.

--Husker Red