And it isn't just because I'm into Socratic education. It's because I don't know, myself. I am committed to holding whatever learning I may have, together with the particularity of each person's condition, and together with whatever the Spirit of Wisdom may bring to us together. Quaker educators as individuals, and Quaker schools as institutions, are often well placed to hold wisdom and learning together in this way. At our worst, Friends can fall into a kind of mystical obscurantism, a kind of dumbing down that doesn't really serve us.
Mysticism is great.
But mystification is not. And Friends are often guilty of abandoning our intellect, just when we need it most, when our religious quest rubs up against the knowable world. At our best, Friends have held up a combination of learning with humility, a combination of real knowledge with a sense of dependence and waiting before God. As I said, this is not too radical a message for most Quaker educators. We dumb down knowledge, or we chicken out of being wise, when we are called to both.