Faith & Values: Lifelong learning helps us makes sense of the world

What do you like to learn about? I’ve been thinking a lot about learning lately since HART (Historic Area Religions Together, our local multifaith organization) received this year’s Lifelong Learner Award from the Alpha Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at William & Mary. This annual award recognizes a community member or organization’s commitment to the pursuit of knowledge. Previous recipients have included the Christopher Wren Association (now Osher Institute), the Williamsburg Regional Library, Child Development Resources and the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, so we’re in great company. Our plaque recognizes HART’s “dedication to education and community building across the greater Hampton Roads area since 2018.”

In addition to the honor of having our efforts recognized, the award has given me another gift: a broader lens for what HART is about, and what life can be about. For the past six years since our first official meeting, I’ve been more conscious of and focused on HART’s community building aspects: growing friendships among leaders of congregations, offering our annual Multifaith Thanksgiving service and other events, and sharing this weekly column with writers of different religious and spiritual backgrounds. The PBK award helps me see all of this in a wider context — as lifelong learning. Getting to know people from different traditions increases our multifaith literacy, our understanding of their beliefs, practices, holy days and rituals. Like the members of an orchestra or choir, we each bring our own voice to the mix, and — to the extent we can practice mutual respect, compassion and diversity-in-unity — we make music together.

But of course the wealth of religious and spiritual paths in our community and world is just one of the things lifelong learning can encompass. The “Historic” in HART’s name points to another subject ripe for exploration in our area. History, as Paul Giamatti’s character in the movie “The Holdovers” says, “is not simply the study of the past. It is an explanation of the present.” We can make more sense of the world around us by learning what came before. With The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, William & Mary, our fellow Lifelong Learner award winners mentioned above and many more local organizations and offerings, it’s not difficult to find a speaker, event or tour to get your synapses firing.

But of course learning can happen right at home too — from online courses to public television and radio programs to magazines or newspapers like this one. I love watching documentaries about the Earth and the universe, and I still have a fondness for nature shows since watching Mutual of Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom” every Sunday night when I was a kid. I also remember weekly visits to the library or bookmobile, and the joy and freedom of picking out any books I wanted, learning about anything that caught my attention. (Note: The Williamsburg Regional Library has summer reading challenges for children, teens and adults starting June 1 — a week from today!)

Learning is a privilege, and it’s also a duty. We live in a time of much misinformation, distortion and outright falsehood. We owe it to ourselves and our neighbors to seek the truth, to make sure we’re getting a balanced diet of news and analysis rather than a curated menu that only reinforces what we already believe. This Memorial Day weekend at St. Martin’s, I’ll be sharing a prayer of thanksgiving for those who gave their lives in the service of our country. It concludes, “Grant that we may not rest until all the people of this land share the benefits of true freedom and gladly accept its disciplines.” One of those disciplines is to be lifelong learners — informed, responsible citizens, learning about our history (all of it), standing up for our neighbors (all of them) and facing our current challenges in a spirit of solidarity, love and hope. E pluribus unum: out of many, one.

And learning is good for the soul, especially at times when we feel discouraged or overwhelmed by life. I’ve long loved this passage from T.H. White’s book “The Once and Future King,” from a conversation between Arthur and his wizard mentor: “The best thing for being sad,” Merlyn says, “is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie away at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world around you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never by tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you.”

The Rev. Lisa Green is priest-in-charge at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Williamsburg.