READ THE TEXTBOOK

One of the best pieces of advice I always gave my Physics students was to ‘read the textbook.’ We have all been students before. We like to rely on our short term memories to help us to make it through our exams or quizzes. Nobody likes to read the text book. It takes too long. It’s boring. I’m not going to need all of this information anyway. For the most part you might be correct, however the results of my text book experiment were pretty accurate. All of my students who took the time out to read the text book scored A grades in their national exams. What was the secret? The answer is discipline. If you are disciplined enough to read the text book then chances are you will be disciplined enough to take the time to process information and be able to embrace it not just to draw it out for an exam. Things learned from the textbook tend to stay with you for the rest of your life.

The same can be said of religious books. Every major religion has their own version of the text book. For us as Christians it is the bible. It is a very long read. Actually it is a library of books written and assembled over a period of many hundreds of years. A lot of what is printed in the bible are stories. The Old Testament talks a lot about events that happened in the life of the Jewish people. The Gospels talk a lot about the life of Jesus and the things that he got up to. The remainder of the New Testament talks about the person of St. Paul (the patron saint of our school) and his writings to the newly formed congregations of the church around the time of his life. In comparison, the writings of the Koran, the Talmud and others tell similar stories. The purpose of these text books is to tell the story of us as human beings.

Since the beginning of time people have stopped to think about the big questions of life. What am I here for? What is my purpose? How will I know if and when I achieve it? Am I having an impact? Is my life making a difference? How do I navigate through the challenges of life? Is there a God out there? Why does evil happen in the world? For every question of life there is a story associated with the answer in the religious writings of the world. A lot of timeless wisdom exists in the ancient writings of the sages. We human beings haven’t really changed that much over the last couple of thousand of years. The only real difference is the level of technology that exists within our created envelope. So the next time you have a deep question about life that you are struggling to find the answer for why not search for the answer in one of the text books of life. As the rain falls outside I am reminded of a quote ‘Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.’ I hope you find some of life’s answers in your text book today.