Learning

"The disciple is not above the master."
- Jesus, Matthew 10:24

The Greek word for disciple is "mathetes" (math-ay-tes'), which means: a learner, a pupil, a student.  It is the word Jesus used to describe the people who followed his teaching and example.  The "disciples" were students and Jesus was their teacher.

It is the season, and this week in particular, when millions of students of all ages from pre-K to graduate level in the U.S.A. and around the world are "going back to school."  Classrooms, lecture halls, and seminar settings are alive with learning as teachers and students interact, share, and explore.

Being students and teachers is not just confined to formal education or religion.  Somehow the process of learning is innate in all creation.  As information, knowledge, and experience are given, taken, explored, examined; then shaped, molded, and adapted in light of new information, knowledge, and experience - learning changes lives and the world.

So as we enter the rituals of official beginnings of a "school year" perhaps it is good for us to remember that every day is the "first day of school" and all of creation is our classroom.  Within every interaction we have with nature and every exchange with another person there is a teacher and a student learning together.  And there is always the caveat of  - who is teacher and who is student?

"...go therefore and make disciples..." 
 - Jesus, Matthew 28:19