Chapter 11: Memorizing Lists

In the heart of Papua New Guinea some friends of mine were translating the Bible.  They came to the place of predicament, the genealogy.  Up to this point the translation of portions of Scripture had been only marginally received and they wondered what effect the genealogy would have.  Would it turn them away?  Too boring?  Could this really be Scripture?

What they discovered was quite the opposite.  The people group they worked with became excited and began telling everyone else, “It’s true! The Scriptures are true!”  In their culture, if you had a genealogy, you had a heritage and therefore the story was true.  It became a door opener for the validity of the gospel.  Even lists and genealogies still have their place in Scripture.

MEMORIZING LISTS

When it comes to memorizing lists, we look to a slightly different method but one that still captures visual images in our mind.    To do this requires the combination of several aspects.

The mind has an ability to store strongly in its mind 2 images at the same time solidly.  With each additional piece of information, the ability to hold on to those items becomes less and less.  But it can handle 2 items well.

But what do you do when you have a list of 10 items?  Let’s look at 10 completely random items that have no relationship to each other.

Refrigerator—basketball—arrow—curtain—toothbrush—mouse—microwave—cell phone—shoe—milk jug

Based on the understanding that the brain can remember solidly two images in the mind, pick the first two images and placing the second image 1)  On top, 2)  To the right or 3)  Piercing the first image. 

For example, imagine the word “refrigerator” and your next word is “basketball.”  Set the basketball in your mind 1) on top, 2) attached to the right, or 3) piercing the refrigerator.  For our sake place the basketball in your mind on top of the refrigerator.  Now look only at the basketball in your mind and let’s picture an “arrow,” making the arrow pierce the basketball with its tail sticking out to the right.  See only those 2 images strongly.  Now in your mind enlarge the arrow and have a giant curtain hanging from the end of the arrow.  See only the arrow and a curtain.  Then imagine a toothbrush piercing the curtain,  in your mind seeing only the curtain with the toothbrush sticking out.  Without looking, test it out now and see if you can list the first 5 items beginning with the refrigerator.  Now practice adding the remaining elements.  If you had have trouble remembering, it’s probably because the pictures need to be more vivid in your mind. 

Once you are able to do this successfully, let’s move to the genealogy of Jesus as we read in Luke 3.  For me Jospeh is the obvious parental figure of Jesus.  I have an image of Joseph in my mind based on the details we know of his life.  For me the work of remembering the genealogy starts with the name “Heli,” Joseph’s dad. 

The way to handle this is to code the words in such a way that they can create some kind of visual image in your mind.  For example with Heli I think of the Greek word Heli which means “sun.”  So right away I picture a bright shining sun.  The next name on the list is Matthat.  Not a problem there as my brother’s name is Matt.  So I picture my brother standing on top of the sun.  The next name is Levi.  I think of the priests of Levi so I picture someone in his Levitic robe putting his arm around my brother.  The next name is Melchi.  I don’t know how to pronounce the name but it looks like milk.  So I put a jug of milk balancing  on top of the Levites head.  Each subsequent image like we did before is on top of, to the right or piercing the first image.  I only keep two images in my mind at a time.

So now I think to myself Jesus is the son of Jospeh (easy one), the son of Heli (picturing a sun), the son of Matthat (picturing my brother), the son of Levi (picture a priest with his arm around my brother, the son of Melchi (milk jug on top of priest’s headl), and so on…  The key is to code the words into somewhat familiar pictures and only keep 2 images in your head at the same time.  Try it and see how you do.

Some memory methods encourage you to take the first letter of the word and make a pneumonic.  Instead of these images in the mind, they would encourage you to take the letter J (Jospeh), H (Heli), M (Matthat), L (Levi), M (Melchi) and so on.  Then come up with a sentence with those letters such as Joseph Has My Little Mouse.  This can work but the mind is much better suited to memorize with imagery and with so many “M’s and other letters, it might be difficult to remember if it’s Matthat or Melchi.