Several years ago I returned to university to pursue further studies in history. Walking onto campus my first day, I felt that familiar, nearly tingling, excitement of the beginning of school. (I was one of those odd children, I confess, who always looked forward to September.)

In the subsequent three years of classes, research, and thesis writing, I found myself mulling over the great command to love God with heart, soul and . . . mind. What does it mean to love God with the mind?

It means, surely, to delight in knowledge – in that vast store of all that exists in God’s world. Whether the behaviour of earthworms, adolescents at a rock concert, or the black holes of space, God comprehends and owns it completely. Ours is the privilege of investigating and knowing bits of this whole reality.

Since knowledge belongs to God, it follows that God is present within learning. This is most particularly perceived, perhaps, at the very place where our finite knowledge bumps against the unknown. As we read and listen and figure our way to a grasp of some topic, God’s presence provides courage and great joy. (To recycle the memorable line from Chariots of Fire: “When I learn, I feel God’s pleasure.”)

To love God with the mind also means thinking correctly about God, and therefore, submitting our thinking to the lordship of Christ. We should not be naive about the human propensity to lose the trail of truth in our minds, but it’s important to notice that the critical link in the sequence between godly understanding and darkened minds in Romans 1 is not the intellectual endeavour but rather, not honouring God as God or giving God thanks. The truly open mind has a Godward orientation (like those old drawings of heads where the top of the skull is a hinged lid that exposes the brain to the sky) as it thinks.

Loving God with the mind means offering God the fruit of our mental work. In many instances, education equips us quite directly to serve others. We should not, however, get hung up on a narrow understanding of usefulness. There are many callings in God’s kingdom, even esoteric ones. “Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty . . .” prayed David. “Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand” (1 Chronicles 29:11, 14).

Finally, to love God with the mind means using study to grow as disciples. The current emphasis on worship and spiritual disciplines of a meditative nature has been a necessary corrective in our church culture. Correctives, however, pose fresh challenges. We need content in our faith, and content requires mental participation. Our brains may ache, but the diligent study of God and God’s Word will anchor our spiritual experiences.

The participants in our forum feature (page 4) address another angle of our theme of life at school. A father and son who are both professors of psychology, two students, and one recent grad responded to the question, how their faith has been challenged or nurtured in their educational setting. They answered quite differently, but their insights are examples of the love “with the mind” of which we speak.

Staying involved with health

This issue of the MB Herald features life at school, but a major theme in Canadian news while we were working on it was health. For three days in mid-September the prime minister and provincial and territorial leaders wrangled over the future of health care before reaching a deal both sides could accept.

Most of us, I suspect, were not particularly riveted by these talks, nor are we that interested in the topic generally. As soon as health becomes personal, though – as soon as I or someone I’m close to seems to be falling through the proverbial crack or is waiting for treatment – health care becomes very important indeed.

Times of illness or a chronic condition of ill health are often times of spiritual vulnerability and distress. It’s no surprise that many of Jesus’ compassionate encounters with people involved sick people or their families, or that the church has a long history of involvement in health care.

Mennonites too have made ministry in health a key point of care for their members and service to others. Since the 1960s, however, because of changing technology, professionalization, regulation, legislation and mounting costs, it has become increasingly difficult for churches to provide institutional health care. Those institutions that survived now work in tandem with the medicare system or specialize; their connection to congregational life is arm’s length.

It takes creativity and adaptation, then, for the church to stay effectively involved with people in their health care needs. One example of such creativity is Port Rowan (Ont.) MB Church’s parish nursing program, described in a news report in this issue. Dalhousie MB Church in Calgary has also had a “nurse in the congregation” program for some years. And there may be others.

Parish nursing is a model that fits the needs of our current health environment. It reaches out to those who get lost in the system. It pays attention to people as both soul and body. We applaud its development in our churches and will be watching with encouragement and interest.