Why They Might Frame Their Diploma

In the movie A Man for All Seasons Sir Thomas More takes his good friend and noble, the Duke of Norfolk, to task for his spiritual apathy.  He tells him that "the nobility of England would have snored through the sermon on the mount; but they'll labor like scholars over a bulldog's pedigree."  It was a difficult word but a well-driven one.  More, who would eventually have his head cut off by King Henry VIII for his unwillingness to forsake his private conscience for the sake of his public duty, loved his sleep-walking friend and cared more for the condition of Norfolk's soul than for his own life.

A BICS education is a lot of things - biblical studies in the deep end of the pool, personal finance out on the end of the limb, community living with the more simian quarters of the animal kingdom, and so on and so forth - but I wonder if the education we most appreciate now is the education we found most unnerving then.  I'm speaking of the education that came at us sideways while sitting across from PB in the corner office - those times when our self-examination was deemed insufficient for the job and the administration took over.  We were all taken to task at some point weren't we?  We were all loved and shown that discipleship was more important to Steve, Wes, Mike and the others than having the good opinion of a bunch of dudes and drama queens.  God bless them for it and, after sitting in on this year's exit interviews, may I say - they've still got it!