Enquiring Minds Want To Know!
Or so said an advertising ploy from one of the common supermarket rags that irks sensible thinking people, and suck in the gullible who are looking for the latest and greatest tabloid news.
But the concept of wanting to know often means you have questions about something. Or, you know there is a hole in your knowledge base. Regardless. We go on the hunt to find the answers to our questions and lack of knowledge. If you are like me, the joy is more in the hunt than finding and knowing the answer. Why? Getting to some point of knowing tends to open up new areas of not knowing and you get in the hunt again.
So. I’m always looking for answers!
Each question produces an answer
That produces more questions…
Q&A’s are like ripple’s in a pool of water.
Concentrically we push our boundaries
With every question.
And I’m okay with that. Often you wish there was a simpler way to fill in the gaps. You know, like some future learning scenario where your brain is pumped full of knowledge while you sleep. Seems like Asimov wrote a story about this a few decades ago. Guess this has been a common theme among future thinking writers!
Still. Knowing something and applying knowledge is like comparing apples to oranges. Knowing and doing nothing with the knowledge is probably a complete waste of brain space. But knowing and doing, well that’s the most positive thing we can accomplish! Knowing can cram up the mind with facts, and unless those facts come into play to produce, then it’s nothing more than a repository of information.
My granddaughter was visiting my home office with the inquisitive mind of a soon to be a first-time first grader. “What’s this?” was the most common question as she wandered around the room looking at all my stuff. (The 2-hour drive to and from her house I constantly heard, “Are we there yet??) I was able to show her some wonders she had never seen before, and when she opened the closet door and saw the floor to ceiling arrangement of even more stuff, well, let’s just say there’s an enquiring mind that knows there are answers waiting to be found. In the future. When she can handle it. I mean, I have all 37 diskettes of my Microsoft Office Pro from the mid 90’s. How do I explain software as it existed 3 decades ago? Yes. I have some examples of all kinds of disks and diskettes from the day…
I passed on some of my trinkets to keep her interest piqued about future visits!
In fact, I shared with her our Junk Drawer in the kitchen. “Anything you find you are welcome to keep!” She was constantly pulling out treasures and finding new ways to make them into something less than junk. We made her a magic wand. Two of them. And she proudly took them home to be enjoyed in her daily search for something new. She would pick up some potential piece of treasure with a ready idea how it could be added to her pile of collectibles!
How do we get our answers? It can be as easy as Google and Bing, but we’ve all learned not to trust everything we see on the World Wide Web. There are spiders, vipers, whirlpools and sinkholes that can draw you into a conspiracy or set of encyclopedias complete with the fake, slanted and just plain wrong news. We have all learned how its difficult to trust the slant of the news station. No longer is there a Walter Cronkite affirming to us, “And that’s the way it is…” Nor can we trust everything found in a book. Books are generally always slanted to share knowledge, news, and stories from a perspective of the writer. Still, it was Dr. Seuss who taught a good view of books.
“The more that you read,
the more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
the more places you’ll go.” ~Dr. Seuss
So. I’m fortunate to say that I’m a reader. Eclectic reader. There are all kinds of books at my disposal. Some picked up at garage sales, Goodwill, or simply purchased on sale at a bookstore. My university books were hundreds of dollars of investment, but as with most books, they become dated and rapidly lose their place as a research tool. The main source I find valuable are the resources the writers turned to when researching for the book. It often points to new resources to research on my own!
As a kid, we often turned to the World Book Encyclopedia and other answer books that were in our bookcase. We knew there were other options but that meant a trip to the library and it was not always a journey easily planned. Our local library was about the size of a 1-bedroom house with limited space for a selection of goods required by the local populace. It was fun, however, to go into an air-conditioned comfort zone during a hot muggy day and simply enjoy sitting around and checking out books.
I have a few sources that I continually return to when looking for specific knowledge. Most of them are internet sites that I’ve come to trust as a resource of knowledge. I keep the pages bookmarked because it seems I’m always on the hunt for information.
Back in the 1970’s, you could call the Houston Public Library with any question and they would be more than happy to open a ticket where a researcher would look for the answer and tell you where it could be found. At a particular job, we called HPL and asked the question of where does “east begin and west end”. Why? There was a radio contest with some grand reward if we could produce a reasonable answer. The reply? The International Date Line would be the logical place for East to meet West. We did not get an answer in time for the contest but it was a fascinating way to research for answers.
Did you know that our English language standardization came about because one man took 28 years, learned 26 languages, and traveled the world to find the 70,000 words in his first publication? Noah Webster! Yes. The Webster Dictionary.
In 1807 Webster began compiling a fully comprehensive dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language; it took twenty-eight years to complete. To evaluate the etymology of words, Webster learned twenty-six languages, including Old English (Anglo-Saxon), Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. [Source]
Needless to say, the standardization of the English language into a book of words, etymology, and definition helped to streamline knowledge.
When it comes to researching biblical answers, I have found it easier to first do an internet search for an answer, and then turn to my bible software and various library books to deepen my knowledge. The internet search algorithm often helps me answer questions on the fly. But I always back the answer up with my personal tools. I like to “Prove my Theorem” as I learned in Geometry. Strongs Concordance was probably my first major research tool. Hebrew and Greek source words for the English translation of the Bible. I still use this today, only my physical book is about to be donated to a good cause. It’s about 2 shoeboxes in size and hardly fits anywhere in my library. The digital version meets most of my needs.
Here’s my thought. You should know where to go to find what you need to know, but it’s wise to know whether the source you have found is reliable or not. This is why we check the veracity of the provider of the information. Journals from learned institutions often have peer-reviewed articles when someone is presenting a new thought. Those doing the review are “experts” in their field and have the background knowledge to understand the foundation of thought and the direction of the writing. This is perhaps the main reason we do not depend on the Wiki sites to give us the most correct answer to every question of research. Just about anybody with a computer can update the information!
Knowledge without action, again, means we are stockpiling the information. Knowledge put to action produces results! We hear the phrase, “Speak truth to power”. Long before you put much stock in the mantra of today, consider what Paul taught to the church at Ephesus (modern day Turkey).
“…but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—…” (Ephesians 4:15 NKJV)
Speaking truth means we must know the truth (and that sets us free! ~Jesus, John 8:32) and we understand love, which produces action (John 21:15-19). There are 3 special writers in the Bible who wrote more about truth and love than any other biblical person.
- David – Throughout his Psalms and based on his life as a man who was after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22) we find many words and examples describing truth and love.
- John – The writer of the Gospel message and the one who loved Jesus the most (John 13:23) spoke on levels of truth and love like no other person.
- Paul – He was full of truth, but lacked love for his fellow human. When his truth met love on the road to Damascus, his compilation of knowledge became action to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ more than any other first century personage.
Maybe this is why we need to find answers so that we can speak truth to everyone, but to do so from a position of love.
#Thimk on it…