An Intellectual Devotional: Never Stop Learning!

Every night, before going to bed, I've been reading The Intellectual Devotional by David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim, for many reasons.  I find it not only entertaining, but highly engaging as well.

     I was never much a fan of history in school.  The way it was presented to me was always so dry and boring.  Those textbooks were always full of facts and dates, and what I really like is the human stories that go with them.  If they could have made that more meaningful and real, I might have developed an interest in history back then.  I think it’s that way with anything though.  I remember my college educational sociology and psychology classes as being extremely dull, but I’m a huge fan of the shenanigans on reality shows like Survivor and Celebrity Apprentice.  I love the psychology of people, even in unreal “reality” TV game shows, and the same goes for our history, if given half a chance.

     There are certainly smarter people out there than me, and those that keep up better on what’s going on so they can form valuable opinions about it.  In one recent job interview, I had time to sit and catch up with an old friend who works there, and there was another guy at our table talking about the airlines and American car companies and all the things happening with them internationally, and all our jobs being farmed out overseas because it’s cheaper, and though I agreed with him, and learned what I could from him, I couldn’t really discuss it with him at length because I personally haven’t taken the time to explore the entire issue like he obviously had.  That seems to be my problem a lot these days, and yet I’m more aware of what’s going on than a lot of people.

     And whether it’s true or not, I like to consider myself a bit of a renaissance man.  I don’t think I am.  I falter on about 2/3 of the questions on Jeopardy (though surprise myself sometimes at some of the things I know).  I’m sure I’m not good enough to even qualify to be a contestant on that show, failing at most of the geography, math, and history questions, but I try to expand my knowledge, when I have the time and the interest.  To that end, I’ve been reading some devotionals for the last several years.  The last one was Time Magazine’s 100 Ideas That Changed the World:  History’s Greatest Breakthroughs, Inventions and Theories.  It all started years ago with a One Year Bible, and then A Year with C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works, and books on the bible and other religions, and in the bathroom I have something like one of those Bathroom Readers, but this one is called Reflections for Movie Lovers, a book that melds two of my favorite passions, using movies to discuss God and Godly things.  After The Intellectual Devotional, I’d like to keep it going with The Intellectual Devotional: American History, The American Patriot’s Almanac from Conservative radio host Bill Bennett, and I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot from School by Caroline Taggart.

     With all this information floating around in my head, my hope is that something sticks and it will end up making me smarter.  I may not remember everything there is to know about King Louis XIV of France, the Irish Potato Famine, the Mormon religion, the musical compositions of Claude Debussy, or the Christian interpretation of the movie Titanic, but my hope is that at least some of it will stick, and sometimes it does.  At the very least, I want to, in any case, be familiar with most of the important events in the history of the world.   

     Learning can’t hurt me, of course, and I may just garner a few historical insights about such things as the presidency of Calvin Coolidge, the life and death of Michael Jackson, 9/11 and the War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan against the Islamic Taliban, the McCarthy Hearings, and the history of the organization Planned Parenthood and its founder Margaret Sanger, pictured here standing with the Ku Klux Klan.

     Recently, the story of John Wilkes Booth and the shooting of President Abraham Lincoln seems to be all over the place these days with the movie The Conspirator (about the trial and death of Mary Suratt who owned the boarding house Booth and his cohorts used to plot the assassination), Bill O’Reilly’s book Killing Lincoln, and a fascinating documentary called The Hunt for John Wilkes Booth I’ve seen recently on the History Channel.  Coupled with these rather new medias, there is also the fictional book and movie that portray him as a vampire hunter!

     You see, I am a fan of history, as much as I’ve been a fan of other things, like movies.  By the same token, I’d have to admit I like my movies too.  Recently, I’ve been enjoying Underworld, Stand by Me, and I still find Mystery Men hilarious, yes I do!  I have interests that go all over the place.  It’s a wonder there’s any rhyme or reason to my journals at all!

     And in the midst of all of this are my devotionals, which started out very Christian in nature.  But lately, I’ve been wanting to find out more about the history of the world, to do what The Intellectual Devotional states on the front cover:  “Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class”.  I don’t think I will be able to do that once I finish this book because I’m not like Star Trek’s android Data or the character that Poppy Montgomery plays on that show Unforgettable, the one who remembers everything that ever happened to her.  The things I read don’t stay with me.  But I get the feeling if I keep at it enough, I will retain some things, and be smarter than I was before for the experience.  I want to be at least smart enough so that if somebody starts talking about the concept of Plato’s Forms, the Rosetta Stone, the Archangel Raphael, Joan of Arc or Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World, I’ll at least know what they’re talking about.  And with enough exposure, I might be able to start putting it all together and maybe remember a thing or two about them.

     Or should I worry about such things, especially if I feel like I’m not keeping up on modern events and happenings like I should?  There are a lot of things that can grab a man’s attention.  I don’t think these things, in and of themselves, are all that important, except what we might learn from them, and how we might apply them to our own lives.  That’s what I’ve started to find so fascinating about them.  Seeing such things as the presidency of Calvin Coolidge or the McCarthy hearings through the minds of people like Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter makes me see them in a whole new light, and I start to see the things I missed, but that are so very fascinating!  (See the captivating video linked here, and the article linked here.)  I'd certainly never seen them presented in this way before, and if left up to my teachers and educators, I never would have.  What's more, they make perfect sense, yet still - STILL - the liberals detract these new ideas, and defend the old views, just like they still defend Margaret Sanger!

     I’d simply like to know it all, and understand it all!  Is that too much to ask?  That's hard to do, even in today's day and age (perhaps especially in today's day and age with so much information, "facts", and opinions at your fingertips!)  It will never happen, but I believe it is important to strive for the Godly wisdom that comes from the events of the past and even the fictional stories we might make up in books and movies and plays that explore the human condition.  It’s all so that we might grow in our Godly understanding of everything.  We will never see things the way God sees them, but I think God wants us to try. 

     So I will continue with these devotionals, learning about the solar system, Rodin’s The Thinker, Napoleon Bonaparte, the religious concept of Karma, and the plays of Anton Chekhov, and hope that some of it stays with me.  

     The worst that can happen is that it makes me smarter, even if it’s just in some small way, so why not continue reading? 

     Never stop learning!