colorfully said & read.

Part of my lineage is french, we live in a bi-lingual country ... naturally, I've always wanted to be able to fluently speak it.  I took basic french in my schooling years and would say, I could "get by" if I needed to, but would really like for my boys to know the language.  And what better time than now to learn it?  So we (Judah, Hunter, and myself) recently started a baby & me french class.  It's very basic but I feel the exposure to the language is a good start.

Some of the rhymes we're learning are lyrically humorous.  Some really fragmented and confusing.   Some are the same what I grew up with - which, I am realizing, were funny and a bit confusing at times too.  Like:

A tisket, a tasket, green and yellow basket ...
Sing a song of six pence, a pocket full of rye ...
... The little dog laughed to see such a sport and the dish ran away with the spoon

Like my grade school french (or mathematics for that matter), these types of things I committed to my memory and never really thought about or got into.  It's like I memorized it and never allowed myself to actually visual it.  Which is funny, as I am a visual learner (so, in this case, did I just remember it and not really learn it?).

When I've sung, "a tisket, a tasket, green and yellow basket..." I don't think once I've actually seen a green or yellow basket in my mind!  I've just always skipped to visualize a love letter being dropped.  *found this interesting way of playing the game ... never did it this way as a kid!  Or, I've never actually pictured a dog laughing at the "sport" of a cow jumping over a moon!

The fact that I've not actually let simple words I've memorized or repeatedly read absorb makes me wonder about more important information.  Like reading God's word.  How many times have I read/heard certain phrases or stories that I've stopped visualizing?  Or stopped knowing what I was reading or even saying?

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Albert Einstein

It comes back to keeping it simple.  Reading/hearing things with a clear mind...with a clear heart.  If I want my heart to be impressed by good things, I can't hold onto garbage because there just isn't enough room for both.  If I want my mind to soak up the meaningful things, I can't let nonsense and "time-fillers" take real-estate.

I want to be sharp, vivid and expressive and have all that I fill my mind with to exude the same.  When sharing or teaching, I want to think clearly and concisely and be able relay information with meaning and color.  So that it sticks for the listener.  Instead of just skimming over words , I want their pictures and meanings to be alive and jump off the page to me.

"Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know 
your Creator and become like Him..."

~ Colossians 3:10

I'd say God [Creator] is pretty colorful, wouldn't you?

pic pix: tulips, 12.Mar.2014, at home