Kim Paffenroth

“Teaching is hard, because love of neighbor is hard. It is like Dorothy Day's favorite quote from Dostoevsky: love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams. Instructing the ignorant (which is one of the spiritual works of mercy, and hence an act of charity) is hard work, especially when, as in our culture, the ignorant have previously been instructed to feel entitled to their ignorance (the dictum "no one can tell me what to believe" is most frequently uttered by those who have no interest in learning to think for themselves). The work is harsh and dreadful, for the soul feeds on beauty (nothing is more beautiful than truth), and ignorance is ughly and disheartening, like a paper written by a student who has never learned to write well and would rather be watching TV. It is an act of generosity and charity to read such a mess carefully and try to see what insight might lie behind the cliches and thoughtlessness, and it is a yet deeper charity to bear with the militant ignorance of students who think such writing ought to be good enough.”
― Kim Paffenroth, Augustine and Liberal Education