What is the center of you?
There is a new buzz phrase in education dealing with the replacement of “No Child Left Behind” created by President Bush, and picking up the new scenario of how to teach our children to learn. It’s now called “Core Values” or something along that line.
No longer can we go backwards in education to the framework of the 3 R’s – Reading, riting, rithmatic! (As a smart person, this used to bother me a lot!)
Actually, the concept of having a core that identifies the very basic of you is important. What is the very center of identity? Who are you? What are your core beliefs?
Back in the day when I operated, programmed and managed a computer room with an IBM 370/135 DOS VS Power computer. The power of the computer was not just in the technology of electronics, but it was the power of the machine to “remember” data. In these olden days of the mid-70’s it was called “Core Memory”. From which came terms like a “Core Dump” when we would print out the memory of the mainframe to look for errors and determine why the computer or program crashed.
Inevitably we would find the reason by some binary hexadecimal interpretation of the problem, apply a fix, and get back to the central business of processing data.
The Core is a fickle thing, controlled by electrical impulses that would create magnetized ferro magnetic rings. The magnetized / non-magnetized elements would spell out the binary code of data in a simple algorithm of on/off. On=magnetized, off=non-magnetized. Binary could be translated into recognizable data elements, commands to process the data, or housekeeping items to cause computer actions to occur. From a snapshot of this core memory we could determine what actions were being completed and from this we could correct problems of programming to continue down the path of processing.Core.
What does your core say about you? What impulses are dictating your life’s experiences? If we are talking about bad apples, then we say it’s “Rotten to the core”, thus there is nothing good left behind.
I got to thinking about our choices in life and how our core being often gets waylaid by our impulses. “I don’t feel like it” is a common impulse and we allow our feelings to dictate. “I’m too tired” and we allow our physical nature to control. “I’m too busy” and then all of our good intention of core living gets sacked by a schedule of tasks that may not be the most productive use of our time.
For example, I’m reading a book that describes the life of Jewish men of several thousand years ago. Before the sun arose, they were on their way to temple to pray the new day in. Since we all live so far from our own houses of worship, and since the traffic conditions are often a source of defeat, we would skip this routine in light of our modern day lives.
Yet, what is stopping us from having a daily conversation with God? A focused interchange? Really? Nothing. Except. Ourselves.
Our core is compromised. We do not follow biblical examples of “Early will I seek thee” (Ps 63:1), “Seek ye first” (Matt 633), “I was glad when they said unto me let us go to the house of the Lord” (Ps 122:1), “Remember the sabbath” (Ex 20:8)… Well, I guess these examples can be lengthy.I think it’s important to take an accounting of your core beliefs and values. There were times, in those old computing days, that the best way out of a crisis was to simply re-boot. Shut down all processes and begin with a clean slate. Load the correct systems and let’s start everything all over again with a solid core.