Guide it when it is yet a seedling --
And it will turn into a mighty oak,
Straight, tall, and upright.

Neglect the sapling when you
  had your chance
And you will rue the day
  of your folly.

It is never too late
Unless it is too late.
Grace and mercy
Abound

Forever?

It's 11:23 pm -- and I'm tired. I was hoping to write a piece about independent scholarship today. Instead, I will just point you to a piece I wrote three years ago: Christian Independen Scholars. I'm going to copy the piece over and drop it into my blog (a crass type of reuse):

The first time I ever came across the idea of independent scholarship was in high school, when I stumbled upon Ronald Gross' Independent Scholar's Handbook. Although I had every intention of becoming a professor of physics (an institutional scholar), I resonated with the book's image of men and women so committed to the act of learning and research that they would pursue scholarship even without pay. Several years later, as an undergraduate, I became a Christian believer. Since then, I have wrestled to bring together the life of the mind and the life of the spirit. (This challenge often goes under the name of "integrating faith and learning" in intellectual evangelical circles.)

Integrating faith and learning has been a challenge for me (and many fellow Christian scholars) partly because how marginalized the Christian voice has become in the modern university, dismissed as being irrelevant, anti-intellectual, and/or oppressive (See, for example, George Marsden's Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship.) At the University of California, Berkeley, I have known only a handful of professors and staff, and a small minority of graduate students who are professing Christians. Many of us struggle with understanding how to fit our understanding of the world together with the specifics of our fields of study. Indeed, we feel very much like independent scholars even in the midst of being at a university.

Hence, I think that many of the challenges that face independent scholars (who are can be marginalized from the academy) are the very ones that face Christian scholars today (who, because of their beliefs, are often on the margins of the academy). Of course, Christians are not unique -- many others are also on the margins -- but being a Christian, I have a special interest in that community.

My hope, therefore, is that this online community will be useful to Christian scholars, especially as we discuss issues of particular interest to them. My hope is also that all participants, whether professing Christians or not, will be able to helpful and respectful to each other as we learn together.

While I was updating my work blog, the clock ticked past midnight before I had a chance to write my daily entry for Monday, August 25, 2003. I will yield to the temptation to adjust the timestamp for this entry so that the piece will land on Monday. (I worked hard enough, I deserve it, no one will ever notice. Oh forget it.)

Today was one those extremely rich and fulfilling days that gave me surprisingly little time to write. And as a blogger, I get frustrated. Can't I have days that are full of life away from the computer and on the computer all in the same day? Apparently no for me -- at least not regularly. I have already drifted way past my scheduled bedtime to write more. It's quiet and I'm drawn to write more. I'm tired, though, and am liable to write drivel.

But let me share one piece of exciting news which I'll elaborate tomorrow. Ronald Gross, the author of The Independent Scholar's Handbook, found me through my Independent Scholars site that I had set up three years ago (but abandoned). More tomorrow....