L is for LEARNING

I didn’t attend the school of learning of travel writer, Pete McCarthy, where the teachers used the carrot and stick method of persuading the pupils to learn, without the carrot of course, but I do remember my teenage years being filled with images of caning, hair pulling, backside kicking, arm hitting, shouting, sarcasm and ridicule, all designed to encourage me to retain large amounts of irrelevant information, most of which lie dormant in my brain, never to be used. What I did learn was that as we students grew older, taller and stronger and took longer to shave than our teachers, such methods became of less use to them and they began to try to make their subjects interesting enough for us to want to learn. I think everybody benefited. It had certainly been a shock to the system, coming from a cotton wool enclosed cocoon of a country primary school, where my teachers lovingly adhered to the ideal of 'in loco parentis' and everything we learned seemed almost to have happened incidentally. By the time I was ready to leave such comforts, I had already discovered the secret of learning was forever intertwined with my level of interest in a subject and so, before I was halfway to thirty, I was an expert on all things related to pop music, soccer and The Beano. For hours, I would sit and study trivia about Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky , Mick and Titch (if you remember them, you're older than you thought) or memorise the FA Cup Final teams and I always had a soft spot for the trials of the Bash Street Kids and, perhaps not surprisingly, most of that useless information is still fresh in my head, if ever so slightly crumpled. It is therefore hardly surprising to learn that, as I've grown older and other issues have tickled my interest taste buds, I don't even know the names of all the members of Coldplay, can't recall who played in last year's FA Cup Final and don't know if Gnasher is still alive.

But I still want to learn. About people, about other cultures and far away places, about how aeroplanes fly and computers think, about my ancestors' lives and those of my sons. About my former school friends and past teachers (though not all of them), about gardening, French, Spanish and Italian and about how to cook exotic Asian dishes.

Yet most of all, I want to learn more about God, about his majesty, his love, his grace, his salvation and his plans for me. And as my desire to learn more increases and I find more time to study his Word, so also does my interest and hence my learning. Jesus, the great teacher, tells me in Matthew's gospel to, 'Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.' and in those words I find my inspiration.

I had planned to progress through my writings in alphabetical order but in the sleepless hours of an early morning, I learned,unexpectedly, that this was not God's plan. Oscar Wilde once said, 'To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.' I'm not so sure but I do know that with God, the more I learn about him, the more I wait in expectancy and the more I expect to learn.