For the love of knowledge

I am writing this post after attending one of the most stimulating conferences I've ever experienced. It was entitled, "Strengthening Families in the 21st Century" and had the aim of bringing faith-based research findings to bear on local church functioning. The researchers behind the publication, Hardwired to Connect presented their research on infant-parent bonding and how early infant experience sets the stage for attachment to relationship style, learning, and EQ (emotional intelligence). The research was amazing--I'll discuss some of it later. But what I left the conference with was a loud question ringing in my head: Are my contributions to my field worthwhile? Against the stunning clarity and novelty of the other researcher's findings, mine were pallid in comparison and seemed like amorphous mush. I felt like a mental midget. (This is not a ploy for supportive or sympathetic comments).

Have you ever bumped into someone so brilliant in their line of thought that you wondered how you could be so plain or lackluster and still belong in the same field as they are? That was how I felt leaving the conference. It was two days of absolutely incredible researchers discuss their findings on faith communities, authoritative communities, and trends on spirituality and religious practices. The third day was a working day during which academics, researchers, donors, and church leaders, tried to brainstorm about how to bring the research home. As I drove home after that day, I just started crying in the car. Not just a tear, but a real good bawl. Why? Perhaps I was full to the brim. Maybe it was that I have wanted to see, just once in my lifetime, the church actually utilize research and be empirically driven. Maybe it was being in close proximity to impassioned conversations about what relevance scholarship and academia is to the local church. I'm not sure--but I sure had lots of tears about it. I was left feeling very, very small and humbled by what I had witnessed.

They were tears for knowledge: sadness for being so limited in my little academic corner; overwhelmed for the great needs in the church; the opportunity for continued servanthood; wonderment that so many voices had joined together in the search for new directions on the ground; and sheer mental fatigue from trying to contain all the information without having my head blow off my shoulders.

I'm still getting over the experience. There is so much to be done now, in trying to apply what I learned. Part of that will be discussing some of the ideas at the conference here. I think you may find it interesting, even if not mood-altering as I did, for the moment that you hear about it.