A different world

Melvin is my classmate in this year’s RZIM Oxford Summer School and he hails from South Africa. He is currently working in New Zealand but by the time this article hits the press he will be in Dallas Texas. I met people from Ireland, Malaysia, United States, Hong Kong and all 120 of us are made up of 22 countries represented. I asked the students what made them decide to come and attend the Summer School and they all practically answered the same way. “We found it through the Internet and decided to attend.” We are now living in a world wherein distance is conquered and people are connected by technology.

Melvin told me a story during lunchtime. The food in Queen’s College is very good and the dining room looks similar to the great dining hall featured in the famous Harry Potter movies, which incidentally was also shot in the same University. Melvin says, he has a young nephew who visited his grandfather. And as the little boy played in the old house he somehow wandered into the private room of his grandfather and saw an old Underwood typewriter on top of an old desk. He tinkered with it a little bit and excitedly ran out of the room, pulled his father’s hand and said, “Daddy you got to see this. You got to see this!” The father wondering what caught the attention and imagination of the child quickly entered the room. And then the boy excitedly pointed with his finger pointed at the typewriter and shouted, “Dad, look at that, it’s a computer that prints even without a printer!”

The typewriter and the computer. A mixture of the old and the new. This is Oxford University and its vicinity. I have never had the experience of living in a community dominated by the incessant pursuit for academic excellence, a place reeling with history as I have experienced in attending this year’s Oxford Summer School. The reason why I am saying this is to encourage all of us to channel our time and money and experience into the seriousness of education and the pursuit of learning. Shopping is shallow; touring is meaningless compared to the experience of learning in a place where education is given a premium.

Oxford University has produced 25 Prime Ministers, countless numbers of CEO’s and prominent personalities in almost every field of discipline.  As I visited the different colleges, I suddenly had a weird feeling like my own academic attainments were so insufficient as I was overwhelmed by the grandeur of the place. I stayed in my dorm; attended classes and functions that would start at 9 in the morning and end at 9:30 in the evening. Bought my ever-reliable Victorinox backpack with me, start banging on my MacBook Air courtesy of PowerMac both brands which I endorse heavily….. ( there goes the commercial side of me…..). I worked on the lessons every night before dozing off to sleep. Wakes up early in the morning and do my daily run around the parks and lakes of Oxford and noticed what a different world it is. When you see cobblestone streets, castles here and there, shops and inns that are centuries old mixed with the modernity of boutique shops I knew I was in a different world. This is the world of the typewriter and the computer. I visited a pub. I refuse to not to. The Eagle and the Child is the name of a pub in Oxford where the Inklings (C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkiens and company would regularly meet to critique each other’s books). It is small but it is beautifully maintained. Just to take pictures of it would be meaningless although I did, but to sit where they sat and write an article or two would be paying homage to the great writers of the ages.

Great names and authors were chosen to speak in this year’s Summer School. Great names with great minds. Names like John Lennox, Michael Green, Michael Ramsden are names I get to see only on philosophy and apologetics books but the main dish was of course Dr. Ravi Zacharias.

Dr. Ravi spoke at the House of Commons during their National Prayer Breakfast Event the day he gave us his first talk. Ever the humble man that he is I shook his hand, exchange pleasantries. He greeted me with “Why it’s so nice to see you again Francis” and with a long line behind me waiting to talk to him I extended an invitation for him to visit our country and share his knowledge with us to which he said he is much willing. “Perhaps in 2011 Francis as the next year is already tight,” Dr. Ravi says. And to have him here will be a privilege and I will see to it that it happens.

We need to learn from the great names with great minds. From the typewriter to the computer, the world is no longer the same. Leaders continue learning. Great leaders are great readers and there is practically no exception to that rule.

Somebody says it correctly: “Life change begins with education but the deeper life change begins with transformation.” But you and I need to start with something. 

(Francis Kong will be the lead trainer for the Dr. John Maxwell’s “Developing the Leader Within You” leadership program this July 28-29 at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel. For further inquiries contact Inspire Leadership Consultancy Inc. 632-6872614 or 09178511115)