It's about teenagers. I was up at 2:55 yesterday morning, shaking a sleeping-like-the-dead young man awake so we could get to the airport. He was flying away to the middle of our country for five days of adventure. And guess who else is adventuring? His big sister is taking a week's break from her Virginia work and meeting up with him in Ponca City, Oklahoma.
Hmmm...are you wondering what could pull people from opposite coasts to such a place? Would you believe Schola Academy?
And what is Schola Academy?
I am very glad you asked:
Schola Summer Academy is designed to provide the students and tutor of Schola Classical Tutorials the opportunity to meet and get to know face to face the people they've met online during the academic year, while studying together informally some of the subjects we all love: history, literature, and the natural world.
Schola students have come from around the country to study astronomy, church history, and poetry, and to meet people they have "known" for years. The host of this year's gathering has a daughter who has gone through four years of Great Books with our daughter. They lifted cups of "virtual tea" to one another over Homer, Livy, Aquinas and Austen, but they have never had the privilege of meeting. Now they are drinking tea together and enjoying two our family favorites:
Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo, which is a classic opportunity to laugh yourself silly
and
The Hawk and the Dove, a great catalyst for conversations on faith, friendship, confession and forgiveness.
So sister and brother are briefly reunited, online friendships deepen with a face to go with emails and chat boxes, and the beloved tutor will fill hearts and minds with new ideas to ponder. Plus losing sleep and catching one's breath with laughter, it really is a fine way to spend five days in Ponca City, OK.
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