The Immersion Method

I went to the theatre
With the author of a successful play.
He insisted on explaining everything.
Told me what to watch,
The details of direction,
The errors of the property man,
The foibles of the star.
He anticipated all my surprises
And ruined the evening.
Never again!—And mark you,
The greatest Author of all
Made no such mistake!”

–Christopher Morley,
“No Coaching,” The Questing Spirit.

Living in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado is a unique, soul steeling experience. Last summer, while getting my mail on the mountain road one overcast afternoon, I felt a gray tunnel of clouds swirling overhead. BOOM! A deafening peel of thunder clapped right over my head, making me feel as though I were right in epicenter of the storm. I wasn’t under it, but in it. It was the difference between being a spectator and being a player.

Feeling this stormy sensation made an impact. An immediacy, a sobering closeness, a reminder of my own insignificance, but also a focus entirely off of me and immersed in the direct experience of nature. In some ways, I felt catapulted deeper into what praise and appreciation are all about. To appreciate beauty is not to do so as a distant bystander, but as a practitioner. At times when I’ve kept appreciation of nature, of people, or of God on the intellectual plane, at arms length, I have forfeited the true value and wonder of the experience.

When my family moved to a different state while I was in high school, I transferred from a German class in my old school that was taught in the traditional method—rote memorization and written assignments. In the new school, I plunged into a class where the teacher used the “Immersion Method” of language learning. Students were expected to converse in class, to be stretched by the constant strain of mental gymnastics—searching feverishly for vocabulary, verb endings, and grammatical structures to talk to each other and the teacher. Grace under pressure. I found it to be overwhelming, but became convinced it is the best way to learn a language. Appreciating God’s world is best done through the immersion method.

Author Ravi Zacharias, in his book Recapture the Wonder, writes that the first destroyer of wonder is anything that steals the mystery of life. Indeed, there is a legitimate place for mystery and enchantment, and to allow for them, to appreciate and even embrace them is not to destroy learning and knowledge. To the modern scientific mind, bent on finding quarks and strings and ultimate, all-explaining theories of everything, we shudder to think that there would ever be a legitimate place for the admission that we do NOT know something.   The quest for ultimate meaning and explanatory theories is commendable, and many who have engaged in such a quest have admirably done so maintaining a sense of passion and wonder.  However, our pop culture has grown, in the context of such advances, yawningly complacent where passion is concerned.  I would argue that part of the beauty, majesty, and artistry of God’s world is its mystery.

I once read the transcript of a debate about the existence of God between a Christian philosopher and an atheist. The atheist, a brilliant microbiologist, boldly asserted that if he were to fashion the human body, he could design it to work more efficiently than it does. For example, certain organs, he insisted, do not function as smoothly as they could, and the appendix is still a deep mystery as to its purpose. The theist responded by affirming the possible truth of this observation. “But,” he replied, “your position assumes that efficiency is God’s highest value. What if it were not primarily efficiency, but artistry that God was after most?” Indeed. Our modern lenses are too steeped in analytical quantification and efficient mass production to appreciate the artistry around us.