What developing the power to think and do can do for you
In the mid-19th century, renowned American philosopher Henry David Thoreau spent two years, two months and two days living in a tiny cabin he built in the woods surrounding Walden Pond, Massachusetts. Part social experiment and part spiritual quest, he lived in simple, spartan-like conditions and wrote of his observations and reflections in his memoir, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, first published in 1854.
The explanation Thoreau gave for such an experiment: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” (Walden, p. 90).
Living deliberately. President Professor Ray Roennfeldt challenged staff members and students at Avondale to do the same, during his speech at the college of higher education’s Opening Convocation, held on the Lake Macquarie campus, Match 2, and on the Sydney campus, March 3.
Repeating the words of Thoreau, Roennfeldt encouraged the staff and the students to “suck out all the marrow of life” and to live the one life we are given to the full. And living life to the full, Roennfeldt explained, is characterised by developing the “power to think and do,” a phrase that originates in Seventh-say Adventist Church pioneer Ellen White’s book Education.
Avondale provides young adults with the opportunity to think and do, said Roennfeldt, “to, as Ellen White says, train youth to be thinkers and not mere reflectors of the thoughts of others. That’s what education is about.”
Roennfeldt quoted Jesus as recorded in John 10:10: “I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of” (The Message). The mission of Avondale is similar, said Roennfeldt. It encourages young adults to flourish and grow in a “safe place,” a place where they can make and learn from mistakes, where students can realise and fulfil their dreams.
In concluding his speech, Roennfeldt expressed his hopes for the students this year: “My wish for you is that you will develop the power to think and do, and that the year 2016 at Avondale will be more than you’d hoped that it would be because you’ve really invested yourself into it.”
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