Sometimes I doubt the intelligence of the universe and suspect that it is mechanized and random, like a pinball machine, our fate a matter of chance. Then, as Richard Back said, the circumstances of my life conspire to teach me what I need to know.
Yesterday I found myself pondering my rejection of academia (or its rejection of me) and asking: "What is a scholar?" Last night I went to see a movie at our local art theatre about Louis Perraud. He answered the question for me.
Louis is a little man with white hair, an impish smile and a shuffling walk. We attend a Zen group together and I often see him around town. A retired professor, he taught classics, Latin, Greek and the like, for 26 years. The movie, made by one of his former students is about Louis' passion for classical education, a dying movement. Louis started studying the classics as a Catholic school boy and his love never waned. He talked about that moment when he knew he had the undivided attention of his students and how it was in then that he would "share something beautiful with them."
Louis left me with a question: How can I share something beautiful with the world?
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