My Late Life Goal

Musing is easy for a person of my personality. My wife tells me I live too much in the past. Possibly. She’s right about most things she comments on. Musing is one thing, writing about them with a serious reduction in available finger power is quite another.

Not only are my two shortened fingers still too tender to use for typing, I am going to have to train my left hand to turn on its axis much more than it has had to do before. If you watch your hands while you type (if you are a touch typist), you will find that the fingers naturally reach the majority of keys needed in normal typing and don’t require that your hands to rotate perceptively on an axis running from the center of the wrist out through the long finger. I had always called that finger the middle finger, as in giving someone the finger (middle being implied). That was before the evening of my "incident." In the ER they called it my “long finger.” Well, it might have BEEN my long finger, but it is still my MIDDLE finger. Guess the medical people may have to rethink their terminology in my case.

I guess I now have on my left hand an index finger; a length challenged long finger, a ring finger and a pinky finger. Ignoring the thumb, which even in my somewhat incapacitated state, does not come into play while typing.

Or, conversely, I have an index finger, a same length as the index finger but fatter finger, a new long finger, no ring finger (too fat for the wedding band anyway) and still the trusty pinky.

Typing speed is down about 90%. I’d be better off installing dragon speak.

All that to say you will read this musing in far less time than it took to type.

Some of my closest friends know that I enrolled in a distance learning program to get my master’s degree in Bible with a concentration in Christian Education.

I have over the last 5 to 6 years become increasingly alarmed at the lack of knowledge many people who call themselves Christians have of their faith. Most of them have total faith and no fact. They blindly believe whatever they are told and don’t even realize when they are told opposing processes and or doctrines. Many can’t substantiate their theological position and rely instead on the classic but foundationless phrases “Our church believes…” or “Our church teaches…”

I attended a moderately sized church for the better part of 18 years whose affiliation was with a sect that long prided itself in biblical knowledge, even to the point of being able to cross reference situational pertinent scripture from memory. Most of the people that had been raised under that umbrella in this particular congregation were sorely lacking in substantiational material with which to respond to a challenge of their position, from memory or otherwise. Some even took scripture so completely out of context to so obfuscate a thought that they either confused the other party involved, or convinced the other party they were a heretic.

My late life goal is to find a way to stem the proliferation of empty Christians. How do you take a generation that has been so indoctrinated in technology and teach them to really read for themselves. As great as technology is, most of the really worthwhile references for life shaping principles, those that make us individuals that impact lives around us for the better, is still mostly available in written, ink on paper, format, bound and unbound.

We hear a constant murmur from the masses that they don’t understand what they read. Without understanding, disinterest sets in, and reading ceases. Without reading, we are left with mass media and trusted people as sources for molding lives. In my opinion, those are good to great as supplemental resources, but never valid as replacement resources. Learning is never quite so vivid in any form or environment as it is in self discovery. It is that “Aha” moment when the timeless light bulb comes on that we put truth to deep memory and it then spawns more truth and enlightenment.

Teaching the way to produce those moments is my greatest goal. To inspire in new or old people of faith, the methodology of self discovery through time tested sources, would be my greatest goal.

So my quest in getting a degree and my journey to teach myself to facilitate others learning is my highest calling.

Why this would be of interest to you, you are now asking yourself. Well, actually, it was more an exercise in me being able to articulate why I am pursuing this path. You just get to sit in as the electrons flit from cell to cell in my mind.

You can wake up now. Had this been an actual test it would have come with instructions in at least two languages.