January 25, 2007
Required Reading
On Fox News I caught just a snippet of the ticker scrolling across the TV screen. In part, the report said a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced a drug lord to memorize the Koran in six months. If he failed to do so he faced lengthy prison time. I find this a fascinating attempt at rehabilitation. Certainly the criminal will be a changed man if in fact he does the memorization. This sentence could never be handed down in the USA…but just imagine the changes in criminals if they had to memorize the Bible.
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Gail;
----When I was in grade school one of my friends threw a rock that struck another boy in the temple. Being a child at the time, I don't know how much conference among the teachers and principal was made in determinning this kids punishment, but we did not see him on the playgrounds the rest of the year. They levied upon him the penalty of spending all of his morning time after arrival of his bus and before start of class, all of his recess time, all of his free time after lunch, and all of his time after class and before the afternoon bus arrival copying the dictionary. Since the rock incident happened early in the fall, his entire school year was spent in torment. His social life was ruined. But I often wondered whether or not he would realize what a foundation in communication he was going to have!
----Some people have an easy time memorizing things, others don't. While it can be seen as a merciful chance to avoid many years of prison-time, the daunting task laid before this drug lord most likely will consume every waking moment of his next six months. He will be taken out of social circulation for that amount of time by his own choosing. And the focus of his mental time upon continuous memorization and recall probably will have psychological implications as well.
----I know his daunting task by experience. In the mid 1970's I fancied to memorize the Bible. I began my adventure at Romans 1, because I wanted the practical and doctrinal material at the front of the project. Everyday I typed a section of scripture onto an index card, and all the time I carried a few of those cards. Constantly I was memorizing and rehearsing, memorizing and rehearsing, memorizing and rehearsing. But the further I got into the project, the more I realized my mind would not hold a detailed memory of a mass of information forever. So I soon found myself memorizing and rehearsing, and re-memorizing and re-rehearsing.
----After a few months it became that I could quote most of Romans through Galations and much of Ephesians through II Thessalonians, and I was working on I and II Timothy. But frankly, I was going crazy. All of my free time was spent doing nothing but memorizing and rehearsing, rememorizing and re-rehearsing. The mind has to be creative, at least mine does. It has to have time for relating, conceptualizing and understanding. As much as I enjoyed having a small piece of the Scripture handy for my thought, I was suffering for the lack of enough time for producing creative thought. (But for a criminal, maybe that would be a plus!)
----Some people have minds that do not need to generate and create thought continually. They probably have succeeded where I failed. I hope this guy is one of those. If he is not, then he is in for a rough six months, and a longer number of years. The task is not impossible, but it will certainly be next to it. The benefit will only be great for him if in having the Koran at his thinking disposal, then good logic will turn on the light and he will see it for what it is: a bunch of musings, arrogations about world mastery, and blind guessing in general. On the other hand, you point out a great opportunity for our prison population. They need not drive themselves crazy like I did, but putting to use that free mental time in learning the Manual of Truth would give them an opportunity for a real foundation upon which to build rehabilitation.
----But as you have pointed out, slim chance of that happening amongst our gaggle of governmental geniuses. Isn't it sad that a country founded and shaped by the thinking of Christian people now operates by the idiocy of a bunch of blind guessers?
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