“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8......
You think Jeremiah might have spent some time thinking of Psalm 1? (it was written approx 500 years b4 Jeremiah). In it, there is a huge emphasis on constantly "dragging through my mind" the words of the bible. This is impossible without memorizing it. Then we have to "train" our minds, which flit everywhere, often to thoughts that are silly, unproductive, or just plain wicked... we "train" them to return to what we are working on memorizing, and wind up turning those vacant silly dumb and bad thoughts into a kind of internal river of peace and stability. I am not sure how that works in the human psychology, but I know it DOES work.
I have been looking at the teachings of Jesus and am astonished at how many of them are essentially reworkings and repeats of Proverbs. Same principle at work.
Jewish children did not have printed bibles laying around like we do. Their schools were analogous to the modern Madrassa of Islam, which teaches children to recite by memory large sections of the Q'uran. I have been doing a little reading on HOW this happened, both then and now. They are fond of using mnemonic devices, song/chant, stringing together sections of the alphabet and tagging the different verse "pods" to it, and the device of Cicero. He would give one to two hour stem winding speeches, universally acknowledged as interesting and compelling, completely from memory without notes. Now, granted he probably had a good memory from birth, but he said he would write out the speech, and then take the sections and "tag" the major headings to items in his house. He could remember the intro from the entryway, the next speech by items in his sala, the next block of contents by his couch, coffee table, tv stand, lamps (1,2,3 4), overhead light etc (obviously modern equivalents.. I have no idea what he had in his living room or even if he HAD a living room). He would recite the speech a couple of times, moving through the various rooms and reinforcing the tags. He then said "when I give a speech, I just walk through the house."
I do believe the computer and the rapid "movement" of ideas through our brains is unfriendly to concentrated deep thought and memory, though that is not a hill for me to die on. May not be true. Just my impression. I do know that the commitment to spend 30-45 mins reciting, writing (yes, typing into a word processor at times), speaking and praying over sections of scripture give me a kind of peace and fortitude unafforded by anything else I have ever done.
Just a few thoughts about where I am. It is much harder to memorize stuff now that I am older. Two weeks, and what I have is:
1)The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel
2)To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight
3)To receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity
4) To give prudence to the simple, knowledge and instruction to the youth
5) Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance (error here, checked and corrected)
6) To understand a Proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles
7)The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction
8) Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching (error here, checked and corrected)
How does this work for me? I pray over it as I recite it. I sort of "pick it apart" and focus on "this.. and not that... and how does x relate to y... and why does he compare this and contrast that.".. and sort of picture myself standing in the vast presence of God with the verse asking Him to teach me, or make something true which does not seem to BE true, or give me this or that character quality. I find that the bible "unfolds" and yeilds a sort of series of pop up surprises of understanding of things I never noticed. Little treasures of observation and happiness that bring peace and contentment. One really cool thing has begun to happen in my inside. I used to study and think and meditate on the bible and I would get one of these "ding ding ding" things, like an easter egg in a Mario bros game or something, and I would immediately begin trying to think of how and to whom I would communicate it. I don't think there is anything "wrong" with that. I am in fact doing it here, with the hopes that it may help someone. HOWEVER, nowadays, I am less that way and happy just to have it as a personal conversation between me and God. I don't know, but I think He sort of likes that. Like valuing something solely for my relationship to him, and not how it might reflect on me in front of others.
I do focus on the objective and rational side of faith, and don't view the subjective and "emotional" side of things as the areas I value as much, but this reminds me that ultimately and at the core, it is the OBJECTIVE AND REASONABLE truths that are subjectively experienced that form the core of faith. The devil knows the objective stuff, and can quote it better than me.
I do know that there is a fountain of goodness in the practice, and a promise from God to have blessing in "everything I do" (cf Psalm 1).
It is worth a try, imo. Hope this is helpful to someone.
You think Jeremiah might have spent some time thinking of Psalm 1? (it was written approx 500 years b4 Jeremiah). In it, there is a huge emphasis on constantly "dragging through my mind" the words of the bible. This is impossible without memorizing it. Then we have to "train" our minds, which flit everywhere, often to thoughts that are silly, unproductive, or just plain wicked... we "train" them to return to what we are working on memorizing, and wind up turning those vacant silly dumb and bad thoughts into a kind of internal river of peace and stability. I am not sure how that works in the human psychology, but I know it DOES work.
I have been looking at the teachings of Jesus and am astonished at how many of them are essentially reworkings and repeats of Proverbs. Same principle at work.
Jewish children did not have printed bibles laying around like we do. Their schools were analogous to the modern Madrassa of Islam, which teaches children to recite by memory large sections of the Q'uran. I have been doing a little reading on HOW this happened, both then and now. They are fond of using mnemonic devices, song/chant, stringing together sections of the alphabet and tagging the different verse "pods" to it, and the device of Cicero. He would give one to two hour stem winding speeches, universally acknowledged as interesting and compelling, completely from memory without notes. Now, granted he probably had a good memory from birth, but he said he would write out the speech, and then take the sections and "tag" the major headings to items in his house. He could remember the intro from the entryway, the next speech by items in his sala, the next block of contents by his couch, coffee table, tv stand, lamps (1,2,3 4), overhead light etc (obviously modern equivalents.. I have no idea what he had in his living room or even if he HAD a living room). He would recite the speech a couple of times, moving through the various rooms and reinforcing the tags. He then said "when I give a speech, I just walk through the house."
I do believe the computer and the rapid "movement" of ideas through our brains is unfriendly to concentrated deep thought and memory, though that is not a hill for me to die on. May not be true. Just my impression. I do know that the commitment to spend 30-45 mins reciting, writing (yes, typing into a word processor at times), speaking and praying over sections of scripture give me a kind of peace and fortitude unafforded by anything else I have ever done.
Just a few thoughts about where I am. It is much harder to memorize stuff now that I am older. Two weeks, and what I have is:
1)The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel
2)To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight
3)To receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity
4) To give prudence to the simple, knowledge and instruction to the youth
5) Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance (error here, checked and corrected)
6) To understand a Proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles
7)The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction
8) Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching (error here, checked and corrected)
How does this work for me? I pray over it as I recite it. I sort of "pick it apart" and focus on "this.. and not that... and how does x relate to y... and why does he compare this and contrast that.".. and sort of picture myself standing in the vast presence of God with the verse asking Him to teach me, or make something true which does not seem to BE true, or give me this or that character quality. I find that the bible "unfolds" and yeilds a sort of series of pop up surprises of understanding of things I never noticed. Little treasures of observation and happiness that bring peace and contentment. One really cool thing has begun to happen in my inside. I used to study and think and meditate on the bible and I would get one of these "ding ding ding" things, like an easter egg in a Mario bros game or something, and I would immediately begin trying to think of how and to whom I would communicate it. I don't think there is anything "wrong" with that. I am in fact doing it here, with the hopes that it may help someone. HOWEVER, nowadays, I am less that way and happy just to have it as a personal conversation between me and God. I don't know, but I think He sort of likes that. Like valuing something solely for my relationship to him, and not how it might reflect on me in front of others.
I do focus on the objective and rational side of faith, and don't view the subjective and "emotional" side of things as the areas I value as much, but this reminds me that ultimately and at the core, it is the OBJECTIVE AND REASONABLE truths that are subjectively experienced that form the core of faith. The devil knows the objective stuff, and can quote it better than me.
I do know that there is a fountain of goodness in the practice, and a promise from God to have blessing in "everything I do" (cf Psalm 1).
It is worth a try, imo. Hope this is helpful to someone.
