Feeling Distinguished?

As I spelunk the dark caverns of further academic study–an exploration in which always carries it the question: “Did I pack properly, can I handle this task?”–I have discovered one potent provision of the academic task: distinctions.

When you say a girl is “smart,” you could mean several things:

She knows lots of data. She may be the veritable “Wikipedia” of information on a certain topic.

She can follow steps of logic to really think something through.

She has an excellent memory: she is a steel trap.

Or you could mean that she can clearly distinguish parts of a big idea in order to better understand the whole. She can make distinctions: much like I am doing now in my definition of “smart.”

You might want to distinguish the nature of something: “That’s not what I meant. I meant this…”

Or you might want to distinguish all the parts of a whole. Sometimes being able to split something up is the best way to figure out the whole thing.

I have found that this is the best way for me to write a paper, write a sermon, or exegete a passage. In fact, I almost stopped in the middle of a ten-page Greek paper to call my 6th grade grammar teacher: “Mrs. B, thank you for teaching me how to diagram a sentence. I realize that because I can identify the ten different verbs in this passage I now have an idea of how to follow what it’s trying to say!”

I guess all those grade-school mornings of diagramming sentences with prepositional phrases or participles really paid off.

So, next time you are staring at your screen wondering where to start on this huge hunk of information you are supposed to discuss, get out the pie server and eat it up one piece at a time.