by Josh Dyson
One of the chief indicators that someone is in a good job fit is when you hear them say something like, “I feel like I was made for this job!” Essentially, they are saying they are filled with joy because they are fulfilling the purpose for which they have been designed. And what a joy it is to have these kinds of experiences!
But finding the right job fit is only a very small aspect of what God has created us and this world for. God has created all of his creation—all of reality with 100% intentionality. All things were created to make this proclamation: “I was made for this!” This joy is not created by us, but rather it is uncovered or discovered. It is in conforming to God’s reality that we uncover who and what we are meant to be—what we are made for.
In C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, George MacDonald (the “Teacher”) tells his new pupil,
“Milton was right,” said my Teacher. “The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words ‘Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.’ There is always something they insist on keeping, even at the price of misery. There is always something they prefer to joy – that is, to reality.”
This passage highlights the truth that joy and reality are intimately intertwined. For our students to experience joy, they must conform to reality. Not only for the experiencing of joy, but virtue itself only makes sense insofar as it corresponds to reality. Josef Pieper describes virtue as that which “can enable man to attain the furthest potentialities of his nature.” As classical, Christian schools we have set virtue and wisdom as the goals of our education. In the same book, Pieper describes wisdom as that “which is in keeping with reality.”
In order to achieve our goal of educating students into virtue and wisdom, we must lay this foundation for them: that reality exists objectively outside of themselves. Reality is a given. Education is showing our students how to conform their loves, their beliefs, their habits, and indeed the entirety of their being to this reality—not vice versa. This is essential if they are ever going to experience the joy of proclaiming, “I was made for this!”
So the first understanding of “givenness” is that reality is not subjective. We do not create reality. It is a “given.”
But the second understanding of “givenness” is the recognition that all of creation and existence is a gift. It is in fact an overflow of God’s grace to us. In another book by Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, he states, “Everything gained and everything claimed follows upon something given, and comes after something gratuitous and unearned; that in the beginning there is always a gift.” The reason we experience joy in conforming to the givenness of God’s reality is because we experience the freedom that nothing can be seized, but only received. Because ultimately, reality is a gift freely given by the Father, through His Son Jesus Christ. This is the givenness of reality. And it is in this free gift that we experience the joy for which we were designed and can proclaim with all of creation: “I was made for this!”
Mr. Josh Dyson is the Headmaster of Classical School of Wichita and is an SCL Fellow. Prior to assuming this role at CSW, Mr. Dyson served as CSW’s Director of Operations and as the Chaplain at Houston’s First Baptist Academy where he also taught Bible and Latin. Mr. Dyson and his wife, Julie, have four children — Deacon, Noelle, Daisy and Lucy. The Dysons also claim two, four-legged, furry children who answer to the names Hollie and Rocky.
Society for Classical Learning
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