Coffee Tour du Jour

I often find  myself struggling to have more discipline in my studies. My efforts are met with mixed results. In my quest to sharpen Skill A, I rob time or effort from Skill B.

For example, I am enrolled in a certificate program at SEBTS, and I am a participant in a men’s group at my local church studying the 2LCF, and I strive to keep up my Bible reading, scripture memorization. Though these are all related to pursuit of Christian studies each of them compete for my time and the limited capacity of what lies between my ears.

Oftentimes I’ll combine study time with a fifty mile motorcycle ride to a coffee shop and call it multitasking. Sometimes it works and other times I run into my buddy, Steve, who was trying the same strategy. Then we drink coffee, talk, and ride to the next coffee shop.

This week I added another multitasking challenge. In my quest for slowing down my runaway brain from constant distraction, I began copying the New Testament by hand. This forces me to focus on the task before me. It also forces me to tackle a lifelong embarrassment, my atrocious penmanship.

For the time being I am writing in a course paper journal that I typically keep in my computer bag with my laptop. I will use this for a week or so as I learn to form cursive letters after a five decade layoff. When I reach a point where my writing is legible I will begin from scratch in a new book dedicated solely for this purpose.

Though I plan to write the entire New Testament, I am not committed to following the sequence as published in the Bible. Instead I will follow a direction based upon my desire for study. I am beginning with the Gospel according to John.

Over the past several days I have already noticed that my mind is less prone to wander while writing the Scriptures and I tend to dwell more on the words and the thoughts that are being communicated. So I expect I will retain more and I suspect it will also facilitate memorization. Time will tell.