old school

I memorized the Children's Catechism before I could read. Actually, I memorized the catechism by eavesdropping on my mom drilling my older sister. One day after my sister missed an answer, I piped up, "I know it." Mom said, "Honey, you can't know it." Then, I spurted it out, turning my mom into a believer. (This kind of trickle-down education is one of the joys of being a second born.) So, with my mom practicing some with me, I passed the test at church along with my sister. We also had weekly memory verses in Sunday School. And, the two years we went to a Christian School we had to memorize a chapter a month; we stuck to the jazzy ones (I Corinthians 13, Psalm 23, etc).

So, now that I've been to seminary and studied Bible with an academic lens and studied the many theologies and approaches to Scripture, including Lectio. I'm back at the beginning in a TS Eliot "Four Quartets" sort of a way: I'm memorizing Scripture verse by verse. This time round it feels more mystical and less like exercise-- the memorization feels like I'm building some sort of multi-dimensional architecture involving my mind, heart, soul, strength, will, and behavior. It's bizarre how a verse pops to mind now that I'm doing it.

The three verses I'm working on are: "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the form of heaven above or the earth beneath or the waters below. You shall not bow down and worship them." Ex. 20:4-5a. (This one is so lyrical-- lilting. But, I find the second part jolting-- if you can't make it, of course you can't bow down and worship it. It's as if God's building in a plan b (when you make an idol)-- it's as if he's worked with seventh graders.)

"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." Galatians 6:7. (This one's compact but has enough ideas to keep a person coming back. The juxtaposition fascinates me. Powerful verbs. Two statements in the negative followed by the positive, straight-forward statement.

"The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." Deuteronomy 31:8. Just started on this one, but I picked it instead of more of the ten commandments. We shall see.