Always Learning

There's an old saying, 'when you stop learning, you start dying.' I love to learn. I wasn't always keen on doing new things, but I always loved learning something new. I've gotten better at the 'new things' part (I'm living on a farm and raising chickens and vegetables, for Pete's sake), but that love of learning never, ever went away.

I mentioned yesterday that I'm going to pick up my French again after a whole bunch of years. It should be easy going at first, since I still have the basics buried deep in my psyche. I'm sure it will get tougher as I go, but I'll get it done.

I'm also doing some Latin, which I've done on-and-off for over thirty years, without ever really getting deep into it. It's too bad; that's a lot of years when I could have been reading the classics in their original language. After I get the Latin done, I'll move onto Greek so I can do the rest of the classics.

And of course, I've always loved history. There's just something about history that speaks to me like nothing else does. So, when I found a Youtube series that covers World History, I had to check it out. It's by Crash Course, and it covers 42 lessons from the agricultural revolution to modern globalism. I'm thinking it will be a good homeschooling course, although I'll have to see a few more videos before I'm certain.

Finally, I'm resuming my annual Bible study. I've read the Bible from cover-to-cover every year since 2016. This year, I'm taking a different approach, using Fr. Mike Schmitz's 'Bible in a Year' program. It's a different method, since it involves reading the Bible chronologically instead of from front to back. It focuses on the narrative story in the Bible, from Genesis to Acts, while sprinkling in psalms, prophets and New Testament writings in their historical context. I'm looking forward to it. And since it's podcasts, I can listen to it in the car on the way to and from work. Time saver!

I'm also beginning to study the Early Church Fathers, the successors to the Apostles. Learning about how they understood the teachings of the early Church is an invaluable resource to understanding Christianity as it was meant to be. I've got five books of them on my bookshelf, big thick books with tiny writing that cover the first three centuries of Christian history. It's a great set, and I've got quite a few more books to go before I complete it.

Then there's the gardening and farming that I'm learning about. I'm going to be working hard this spring to get these bigger gardens going. There's a learning curve involved, and I'm doing everything I can to make that curve smaller. We'll see the results in the summer and fall.

These are just some of the learning examples I'm focusing on in 2023. And I'm also going to be doing some teaching. My son, Tanner, and some of his friends are interested in playing Dungeons & Dragons. I'm going to be teaching them how it's done, old-school. Tanner is quite excited, and if all goes well, we might have our first game this weekend. We shall see.

All this learning has a purpose, of course. It's going to help me with my writing, as well as teaching my kids and (eventually) grandkids. And, who knows? They might decide to follow us into a farming life. I certainly hope so; I planted those trees in the back yard for them. I hope they'll get to enjoy them.