After years of doing Sudoku puzzles I have finally, finally advanced to the level past “hard” to “evil.” Now I realize that most of you are thinking, “Duh, why did it take you so long? I did it in a week or a month at the most.” All I can say is I am a slow learner. I get comfortable at certain levels of understanding and thus grow stagnant. The word “stagnant” has connotations of looking gross and smelling horrible. But for me “stagnant” means being comfortable and not having to push my brain. Recently though, I have noted a slowing of cognition and decided it is time to start pushing it. I am fighting back the mental ravages of time. If I have to spend my last years in a nursing home, I want to be surrounded by books, computers and Wii games.
Memorization is an excellent tool. When we were little we learned memory verses. Then for most of us as we entered our teens it wasn’t cool, hip or fashionable to memorize poems and verses. That was a tragic shame. When I drive around New England Robert Frost’s poems come to mind. It is wonderful to think, “Hush October morning mild. Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; . . . Begin the hours of this day slow.” I want to thank my high school English teacher for making me learn those words. I wish I had stored so much more when my brain was more facile.
Psalms 119:11 says, “Thy word have I hid in my heart.” In a way the proliferation of books has made us lazy. Why memorize when I can read it? Google is making my students mentally lazy. Why learn it when I can “Google” it? The answer is plain and simple. Learning it makes us smarter!
Written by Roger Bothwell on October 19, 2009
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
rogerbothwell.org