Watched the film “An Education” a few nights ago.
Clever film, one I thoroughly enjoyed. I saw myself in the main character, particularly in her inclination toward questioning everything. Her father says something to her in the early minutes of the film, and by the time he gets done answering three of his daughter’s questions, the poor man is completely turned around, confused… he doesn’t remember what his original point was at all. I laughed (loudly, watching this alone in my house, as I was), thinking of the numerous times I’ve done the same to people. Watching people learn to think through what they say is a favorite part of relationships.
In any case, the film raised some questions about the purpose of an education. Set in the 1960s as it was, it especially brought to light the common assumption that a girl should go to college to get a degree to get a man to forgo any degree-related pursuits and raise a family. While America as a whole has gotten past this point (though the movie wasn’t set in America), I still see the same thought in too many Christian women, that we are to go to church and to school and keep going to school until we get married, preferably to a nice pastor. And then whatever passions or dreams or giftings we’d been honing immediately shrivel and die.
A friend, upon graduation from the same university I attended, was asked quite seriously by a woman one day if she was single. Upon her affirmative response, the woman adopted a soothing, pitying voice and probed gently, “Honey, was there NO ONE in college?”
As if that had been the point, rather than the degree, rather than educating herself, rather than spending four years growing up and studying the Bible and enjoying living downtown with her friends.
This isn’t to say that some women aren’t called to marriage and families. It isn’t to say that God doesn’t use Christian schooling environments to bring together couples who show so powerfully the glory of God together. It isn’t to say those things. But it is to say that perhaps sometimes we get the priorities mixed up. Perhaps sometimes we’re quick to “die to self,” provided it means he resurrect us to a mate. Perhaps sometimes we look at education as a means to an end, and prematurely toss it to the side as soon as our life boat gets thrown us (be that marriage, money, whatever).
Perhaps we could stand to be a bit more present in where we are and to see each experience as character building in itself, as its own destination worth reaching. And perhaps we could stand to see God as a giver of those dreams and passions, and not be so quick to dump them when something that seems more shiny comes along.
I’m just saying…
