On Affirmation

In my old office I had two walls worth of books -- and my three diplomas hung beneath each other on a third wall. Somehow, I think, those were signals to me that I had made it, and I wanted people to see them. When we built a new building, I took the diplomas home and gave away nearly half of my books. I had learned during the construction that I hadn't used them and didn't really need them! And I guess I've gotten to the point where my affirmation comes from my people and my ministry, not the trappings of intellectual attainment.

I was thinking tonight (I don'’t know why) of being in the office of one of my seminary profs. On one rather large wall he had hung -- from floor to ceiling across the whole wall -- all of his diplomas and certificates and honors that he had earned over the years (even including an Evangelical Teacher Training certificate!). I thought it was strange -- that at that point in his life and career he needed to display all of his academic (and other) achievements like that. I could understand, maybe, hanging up his PhD diploma -- a lot of profs did that. But he had a couple of dozen framed certificates, all neatly posted with lines painted on the wall behind sort of tying them all together. He was an excellent teacher, but I think a part of him still needed the support of those pieces of paper.