Chautauqua: Find the Holy in All… Mind, Body, Spirit, Heart

“An intelligent mind acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” ~ Proverbs 18:15

This weekend begins another summer session for the Chautauqua Institution. For over 150 years, these grounds have gathered wisdom seekers and lifelong learners, deep thinkers and committed worshippers, all to make good on Proverbs’ advice: seek knowledge.

At this same time of year, we celebrate the graduations of our high school seniors, and we look back on the many years that got them here. We remember school plays and music concerts. Sports victories and academic wins. We list off every silly story, every heartfelt moment, every inside joke. And we give thanks—sometimes because it was good; sometimes because we survived.

These seniors will be the first to tell us: seeking knowledge isn’t easy. It has ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies. It requires a whole lot of little failures along the way. It can be exhausting as often as it is exhilarating. And it takes coming back, again and again and again.

And yet, these graduates have done exactly that. And these Chautauquans have done the same, returning summer after summer after summer.

The Hebrew Bible is full of references to wisdom. The entire book of Psalms is bracketed by it—or at least, it was. The longest psalm, likely the finale of an early edition, is a 176-verse ode to the wisdom that comes from meditation on God’s Law.

See, for the sages of the biblical period, there was no wisdom without God, and no God without wisdom. They were inextricably intertwined. The sages believed that God was the ultimate source of every form of wisdom, from the practical, everyday advice of Proverbs to the impossible theological questions of Job. To pursue wisdom was to pursue the God who made it. To pursue God was to grow in wisdom along the way. The two were so deeply linked that early Christians sometimes called Jesus “Wisdom.”

We lost track of that, somehow. Somehow, “science” and “faith” became opposites. “Questions” and “belief” became enemies. The two parted ways, and many assumed it was for the best.

When I started college, I wanted to be a physicist. By the end, I was going to seminary. When I told my physics professors about my decision, nearly all of them were utterly baffled. The two fields had parted ways; to see someone stand in between them was bizarre.

But it was the way of the sages. And it’s been the way of Chautauqua for 150 years. Here, we understand that myth and magic, sacredness and story make meaning for us as humans. We trust the artists in our midst to draw us into beauty and wonder and understanding. We learn from scholars and neighbors teaching anything under the sun, but we also stop under the sun to rest and to play. Because the holy is in it all, and the human is in it all—mind and soul, body and heart.

Congratulations to this year’s graduates, and welcome home to this summer’s learners. May we all find the joy in a life seeking wisdom together.

Grace and peace, The Rev. Rachel Erin Stuart