OCD BIBLE STUDY
My Bible study is both helped and hindered by my being OCD (Obsessive-compulsive disorder). I’ve also got Tourette’s and dyslexia (which makes me often say “I’ve got COD” which is actually “collect on delivery”!)
The OCD part of my makes me unable to look at a verse casually — when I see a verse, my mind instantly starts analyzing it, comparing words to words, evaluating its grammar and noting repetitive terms. Then, if I’m near my computer or library, I pull out the Robinson’s Word Dictionary and the Theological Word Dictionary and any other tools available. I just go nuts.
It has its drawbacks. Obviously, it helps in better understanding the verse (and the paragraph, and the chapter and where it falls in the structure of the book — OMG I just go NUTS!) I get so inundated with detailed information I start to drown. And that’s the drawback of being an OCD student.

Do you ever experience this? If you do, somehow we need to shut down or turn down the grinding noise of the analytical gears. We got to go a little bit out of our minds to get some peace.
In the Orient, many have learned to use riddles or koans to focus their minds on something that stops the maddening race of the gears. One of the most famous (related to the idea that duality in the universe is an illusion) is the koan, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” You can take that and reflect on it to help slow down the mental gears.
Another thing I do is to grab another book and read for awhile — a NON-THINKING book. Not one on the Bill of Rights, for example, but maybe *Ender’s Game* or *Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe*. Books like these really slow down the spinning gears (and are fun, too.)
If it’s late enough, I take a sleeping pill and go to sleep for the night. Often, when I awake, I look at the verse from a completely different perspective.
These are actually study tools for the OCD minded Bible student — discovering ways to slow down the mental machinery and take a rest. One of my favorite verses is in Ps 131:
“My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quietened my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
Em
