Dr. Lee Camp stressed to students the importance of knowing what they each live for and asking themselves “Why?” in The Gathering on Tuesday morning in Allen Arena.
Beginning with a story about the late architect Albert Speer, Dr. Camp shared the concept of a “master narrative.”
He told parts of Speer’s story and emphasized a quote from Speer himself: “I wanted, above all, to be a good architect.”
This is what Dr. Camp called Speer’s “master narrative.” It was what Speer lived for and was the answer to the “Why?” in his life. However, Dr. Camp continued to explain that this is an insufficient master narrative because it is too small of a goal to base an entire lifetime on.
Dr. Camp shared with the students his love for reading books about business and starting companies, stating that they can teach us three very important virtues of self actualization in a search for one’s own master narrative:
- Take your intellect seriously. Challenge your brain.
- Take your body seriously. Challenge yourself physically. Go on adventures. Take risks.
- Recognize the social virtues. Appreciate the people around you whom you love and who love you.
“If self actualization is our master narrative, woe be unto us,” Camp said. “It’s way too small.”
Camp noted that, along with self actualization, one must also consider the virtue of justice. He gave the students a moment to think to themselves about what their own personal master narratives are — what are they living for?
He finished with a reference to the famous novel by Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, discussing the part of the story in which Huck decides to save Jim from his slavery instead of saving himself from going to hell for his sin.
Camp used this story to illustrate the idea of religion as a master narrative — one that in itself, without also learning self actualization, is too small — “the big true story of a God who comes among us and learns self actualization and virtues while also teaching us to seek forth the Kingdom of God.”
In closing, Dr. Camp challenged all of the students to be honest with themselves about what story they are living by, caught up in the narrative of the people of God.
Photo by Anna Rogers