MMM Monday Progress Report: Week 1

Every Monday in October, I plan to pop in and offer an update on my Mega Memory Month project. A “progress report,” if you will.You can, too.For Monday Progress Reports, I’ll try using Mr. Linky. Bloggers sign up by clicking on the Mr. Linky logo. Mr. Linky will automatically supply a line where you can fill out your name (or blog name) and another where you type or paste in the url of your Progress Report.To see all the links and pay participants a visit, just click on the Mister Linky logo.If you have problems, just drop a note into the comments and let me know. Also, non-bloggers can participate by writing out their progress in the comments.It’s not to late! Jump in at any point this month and simply do what you can.Finally, this is not restricted to Scripture memory work, though I’m delighted to see that so many participants are choosing a long passage or chapter. You could memorize a poem, a famous speech (Gettysburg Address, anyone?), or the preamble to the Constitution.Just this weekend, my mom was able to rattle off a long chunk that follows “to be, or not to be” from Hamlet. And I heard her recite some lines from a poem at some point in the afternoon.Please feel free to choose something other than a passage from Scripture, if you would like to.So here’s my progress report.To launch MMM, I printed off John 14, cut it up into chunks, and taped those chunks onto 3×5 cards held together by a blue bread bag tie.This weekend, some of the kids and I were walking along a sidewalk, and one of the kids stopped and picked up something shiny.”Look, Mom! It’s a little ring!”I imagined she would hold up a ring that one would wear on a finger, but guess what? It was exactly the kind of ring I needed for my memory cards in just the right size:She gladly handed it over to me. I slipped it on my memory cards and tossed the blue bread tie in the trash can, instantly upgrading my memory tool.Fortunately, John 14 contains several familiar verses, so instead of starting from scratch, the memorization is more about piecing it all together, adding in the unfamiliar parts.I’ll just try typing out what I think I know at this point. I’ll go back and highlight what I goofed up on (I’ll correct in red, like my high school English teacher. And my editor. And the guy I worked for right out of college).

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.“Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father, as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.“Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”Jesus answered, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do more than these things  even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. Ask me anything you wish  And I will do whatever you ask in my name, and I will do it so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Techniques Used:

• Read the cards through several times.
• Repeated phrase by phrase until I had each phrase correct.
• Tried to memorize the transition word or the first word of each sentence. Sometimes something had a natural rhythm (“Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work” had a rhythm and a rhyme).
• I said it out loud a lot.
• Had the kids test me to be word perfect. They had to stop me if I got a single word wrong.
• I tried drawing pictures, but that didn’t seem to help much. I think I’m very auditory.
• I tried to do hand motions, but that didn’t seem to help much, either.
• Next step: I plan to use my MP3 to record one of the kids reading it out loud this week. I tried the memo feature on my phone, but it didn’t have enough space to record much more than a sentence or two. With the MP3, I can listen numerous times, which will help an auditory gal like me.

I got a lot farther than I thought I could. I was surprised. Pleasantly surprised.But there are a lot more verses ahead of me. So I must be careful not to get too confident and of course we must all resist being “puffed up” by success.So I’m grateful — very grateful — that my mind is capable of any of this.Looking forward to your reports!