declare The Lewis Family. Campus Outreach Thailand

brain power, poetry, and God

After church tonight I spent some time with our high school youth pastor and some high school guys at our towns new Taco Bell. As we ate, we talked, laughed, and tried to figure out some of the worlds problems. We covered many topics that ranged from ethics, faith, constitutional rights, drums, food, cheating in school, college, choices, atheism, debates, teachers, Shakespeare and brain power.

The last topic we talked about was brain power and usage. We were wondering how much written word memory our brains could hold. Does it get to a point where we can't memorize anymore or does more memorizing actually feed or exercise the brain and make more space so to speak. It's not like we can upgrade our left temporal lobes to more gigs or terabytes as we go along in life. Regardless if we could, who could afford it? We all had heard that we use only about 10% of our brains. One of the other guys was like me when we were kids, thinking that if we could unlock the other 90% maybe we could move stuff using psychokinesis, like a true jedi.

But tonight I would like to focus more on the last topic, Shakespeare. Ryan, our HS youth pastor, asked a leading question of why we study poetry like Shakespeare in school. This led to the guys talking about how deep into poetry interpretation they have to get in school. We know that it does help them to think creatively and has its place, but does it get a little excessive? They were saying that they could spend much time and many sentences talking and writing about one line in poetry. I don't doubt it, because that is what we did it in school too. This made me ask where the interpretation comes from, especially if the teachers teach the interpretations as the writers true intentions. Is there a commentary that Shakespeare left with the keys to his works? Maybe there is. I know we can read into them some, but did the man really mean all of what we think he meant? Maybe that is the "beauty" of written art, let it mean what speaks best to you, regardless of the true intentions of the one who penned it. As long as it makes some sense, and especially if it makes you look or feel really smart.

This kept me thinking even as I got home and put my little girl into her bed. Shakespeare and other poets themselves can not speak (in the true sense of the word) to us today. Their writings can some, but not fully and accurately. Their words are constantly read, but are not living, they don't tell us what to think exactly or how to interpret. But there is such a work of beauty that is alive and does speak. God's Word. One of the great things about the Bible, for the Christian, is that we have a teacher that knows exactly and fully what every word and passage means. This teacher is God in the person of the Holy Spirit, part of the Trinity. He wants us to know about God the Father and God the Son and does so through the Scriptures. As we read, we can ask for understanding, yes, we can use our basic understanding of things but we can only know in part what the Holy Spirit can help us know in full. At the same time, in God's wisdom, there are still mysteries that we will never be able to get any part of our brains around, despite new brain memory development.

It would be cool if Theodor Seuss Geisel could sit beside me and explain his works to me, but he can not. I can only have fun reading and wondering about them. Do I get excited and take advantage of having God teach me what He wrote through people in the Bible? I have access to learn from the greatest Teacher alive on the greatest and most important Subject that has ever been made know to man, God Himself, Teacher and Subject. Will I listen? Will you?