Time, Education, and the Liturgical Year

I got back from our church's Easter early-morning (not sunrise at 7:30) service a couple of hours ago. The theme was "Scarred," a carry-over from a sermon series which will continue next week. The service was held in the darkened sanctuary, and the activities, which included liturgical dance (a sinner and the devil) and a sermon on the scars of "Good" Friday, did not end in light (physically in the sanctuary), though the Resurrection was, of course, invoked.

As we exited, Chris pointed out that she would have preferred to have a joyful Easter service on Easter, instead of an amalgam of Good Friday and Easter on Sunday morning. That continued some thoughts that I've had over the past few years concerning the importance of time and rhythm as an element of education. I now understand the importance of the traditional liturgical year in this way as well.

One of the things contemporary American culture seems to value is compression--compression of activities, compression of our awareness into a continuous active present of stimulation (consider Tweeting, Smart Phones, and connectivity in this regard). We've become accustomed to that in our church activities as well: I have not done a survey, but it does seem that fewer churches offer a differentiated round of services during Holy Week (Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday). Instead, we worship as though Easter comes out of nowhere (and, yes, in a sense it does) and has no context in Palm Sunday, Passover, and Good Friday. Certainly our church has moved in that direction over the last couple of years. I miss the rhythm of the liturgical year, which mirrors the rhythm of the natural year that we also tend to ignore.

So what does this have to do with education? I believe we ignore the rhythms of real education in the same way. Over a decade ago, I advanced the idea (at GCU) that there was a rhythm to higher education, which I defined as "knowledge acquisition, knowledge application, and reflection on knowledge." Of these three elements, we concentrate on acquisition, and occasionally on application (in internships), but have given little to no attention to reflection. That pattern has only intensified at the university, and in higher education in general over the last decade. I believe that we miss important elements of the educational experience, and important elements of the rhythm of life when we ignore reflection, especially.