Leatherwood's Pensieve

March 02, 2005

Jonathan W. Wilson

In reading Mr Wilson's blog today, I noticed his recent entry has attracted quite a few comments. In reading them, I was reminded of why I admire Jonathan Wilson so much. It isn't that I always agree with him - I remember arguing with him myself two years ago as we moved towards war with Iraq, and I'm still not sure I agree with him now. At least, if I do agree with him, it's with a great deal of regret. I feel a great deal of loyalty and affection for our president, and I hate to admit that something as important to his administration as the war in Iraq was done badly. But Mr. Wilson's points are correct, and what's more, he's been saying them for two years or more. But this isn't intended to be a post on my beliefs about our war in Iraq. It's intended to be a post expressing how much I respect and appreciate Jonathan Wilson.

I've known Mr. Wilson since the fall of 2002, when he entered LeTourneau. I'm pretty sure he visited the preceding spring semester as a Heritage scholar, but I just don't recall seeing him before that fall. I became involved with the second cohort very slowly (which may help to explain why they turned out so well ...). My first memory of Mr. Wilson is meeting him after POD classes. I don't remember how he got there; he wasn't a part of those classes, but he would often come after them. Together, he and I would roam around campus and talk. I don't think Mr. Wilson had met Mr. Scholl yet at that point; at least, I don't think they were close friends yet. I loved talking with Mr. Wilson, though I was always amazed at how much the man knew about history and politics and philosophy in general. I'm still amazed, and I've had years to get used to it! I miss those times; in the intervening years, we've seldom talked together quite the way we did that first semester. He met Mr. Scholl, for one thing, and POD ended, and life went on as it has a marked tendency to do. In the years since then, we've stayed friends; we talk every now and then as we get the chance ... I've always had the odd sense that Mr. Wilson wants to talk to me ... which is a rare and pleasant sensation. I've had him in several classes, and I've seen and read his work. Mr. Wilson is, to put it bluntly, the best student I've ever seen. His work is always done and well done (very well done). His thoughts are always polished, as is his appearance, except when he's extremely sleep-deprived. He is always polite and (it seems to me, anyway) charming in a dry sense. Mr. Wilson is a gentleman.

He's a fairly reserved man, and one who has learned to control his tongue - he doesn't talk very much. (For which he has my undying admiration and envy - the silence is something I frequently laud but rarely practice.) When he does talk, listen up! It is always valuable to listen to Jonathan Wilson.

There's so much more to the man than this, though! It's hard to put it into words. Jonathan Wilson is the reason we have any unity at all in this Honors Program. That might be a little extreme, and certainly, other people have played a strong role in it, and he doesn't even lead it exactly (leave that to Scholl), but Wilson is the reason we have a Shadow Council. It is his friendship with Josh Scholl that made Honors unity possible. Wilson is not as laid back as Scholl - he's much more willing to work to get things done. If it wasn't for Jonathan Wilson's determination to make the Honors program more than it was and his ingenious persistence towards that end, we wouldn't be here.

Part of me wants to call Mr. Wilson the wisest person I know. That isn't quite right, though. He's probably one of the most practical people I know, as well as the one who thinks clearest. I guess I could put it this way: Jonathan Wilson is the ultimate apologetic for a Christian intellectual. In listening to and reading him, I'm reminded of some of what I feel when reading CS Lewis or GK Chesterton - a sigh of contentment and the thought now this is the reason God made intellectuals. Intellectuals are a source of enormous pain, suffering, and stupidity in this world. Their ivory towers have wrought the dumbest, most awful ideologies ever to afflict mankind. In general, reading the works of intellectuals is like panning for gold - you've got to sift and sift and sift their words to find anything useful. Intellectuals use the vaguest, most imprecise language because (to an unhealthy, unholy extent) none of them know what they're talking about, and all of them are dead set on making sure nobody finds out how little they know. But I'm willing to put up with the Nietzsche's and the Freud's and the Darwin's and the all the pseudo-intellectuals spouting politically correct, multisyllabic babble in exchange for one Lewis, one Chesterton ... and one Wilson. A true intellectual is a rare thing. A precious thing. A valuable thing. A man who can think and does think and loves to think is worth his weight in antimatter, and can be just as powerful.

I should also make a note that Wilson's thinking on theological issues is as sharp as his on political issues. The man is not just a thinker, he is a doer. And I've heard him pray and listened to him not only debate, but also quell debates about the Bible. He knows when to argue and when to be silent. The man loves God. I've heard him. I've seen him. I honor him.

'When have I been hasty or unwary, who have waited and prepared for so many long years?' said Aragorn.

'Never yet. Do not then stumble at the end of the road,' answered Gandalf.

JRR Tolkien, The Treason of Isengard, p. 244