BRYN ATHYN COLLEGE
once I realized that the answer was always good and truth !”
I don ’ t know how well that strategy really worked for religion class . But I have become convinced that it is the right answer for life — good and truth really are always the answer . Pursuing both is never wasted , and combining the two is the route to happiness .
I will mention that my friend ’ s statement that “ it ’ s all good and truth ” is not without support in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg . In The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine , it says “ All things in the universe , which are according to Divine order , have relation to good and truth ,” ( 11 ) and that truths without good have no life , but are like a body without a soul . ( 22 )
I have found that , if you pursue truth and good for their own sakes , you never know when you might use them . One example in my life is the book Middlemarch . I ’ ve always loved novels , and probably my favorite class in college that had nothing to do with my majors was a class on the Victorian novel . George Eliot ’ s Middlemarch is one of the greatest of these novels . Among other things , it ’ s foremost an exploration of how people find their use in life , and what they can do when they get that disastrously wrong . In fact , the main storyline of Middelmarch is a good example of what happens when you don ’ t combine good and truth : Dorothea Brooke is an idealistic young woman who marries a much older clergyman with the idea that she will help him in compiling his life ’ s work , a “ Key to All Mythologies .” She has the love ( the good ), but there is no truth for it to support , because the older man does not welcome her assistance and it turns out that his work is not going to amount to anything . She won ’ t find her real use in life until she can put her love toward something more deserving .
Anyway , there isn ’ t a lot of call for analysis of Victorian novels in law school or while clerking for a federal judge . But then I got called in for an interview with Justice Stephen Breyer . At the interview , we talked about some things directly relevant to work as a Supreme Court clerk — articles I had written in law school and my work at the court of appeals . But we spent most of the interview talking about Middlemarch . And by the end of the interview , we knew that we could work together .
I should point out that Justice Breyer doesn ’ t have some weird Middlemarch test for clerks . He spent most of the interview with one of my friends discussing cycling , something I could talk about for about three minutes . But it was a passion the two of them shared . And what Justice Breyer wanted to know was that we did have things we were passionate about , things we would think hard about and like discussing . And if they were things he liked too , that was even better .
Another example is a bit more directly related to my profession . In law school , I studied first amendment law . This is something you really have to study for the love of it , because almost no one actually gets paid to practice first amendment law . And at the time I was planning on being a tax lawyer , which I actually did for a couple of years after I finished law school and clerking .
It turned out that I liked being a tax lawyer ( a lot of it is like putting together a giant puzzle ), but I decided I would like being an appellate lawyer even more . And when I moved to Texas I represented a lot of public schools . It turns out that schools actually do have cases that involve the first amendment . And the clinic that I run at the University of Texas has taken on two first amendment cases this year . And it turns out that knowing a lot about this stuff helps in being a legal advisor to a religious school .
So you never know when truths you pursued for their own sake will come into use . But the things that can make us happiest are when we combine love and truth . For example , I ’ ve had great satisfaction from serving on the board of the Academy of the New Church , the parent institution of Bryn Athyn College . I always had a love for the school , but after I graduated and moved away , I wasn ’ t all that involved . Then , about 7 years ago , I received a call asking if I would join the Board . It wasn ’ t terribly convenient : I had a new baby and lived thousands of miles away . But I was worried about how the schools were doing — I knew that they were running large deficits and I didn ’ t see how that was going to stop — and so I took a deep breath and thought that if I wanted all the good things about the schools to continue it was time for me to step up . It was time to combine my knowledge about schools and law ( and my willingness to buckle down and learn a bunch of other stuff ) with my love for the school into a use .
I ’ m not going to claim any of the credit for what
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