Come Moodle With Me

I learned a new word today – and I like it very much:  MOODLE.

Moodle (rhymes with canoodle, but doesn’t have anything to do with that sort of activity – well, it might, but we won’t go there!).

I first noticed “moodle” within a web address, and my curiosity caused me to investigate further. In that setting, moodle relates to a pedagogical application that facilitates the delivery of online academic courses. It is an acronym, standing for 
Modular 
Object-
Oriented 
Dynamic 
Learning 
Environment. 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle)

According to Wikipedia, “Moodle provides a flexible environment for learning communities” with its constructivist and social constructionist pedagogy, suggesting “that learners (and not just teachers) can contribute to the educational experience”. Moodle, in the context of being an e-learning software platform, has been evolving since 1999, but the word “moodle” was in use long before that.

(cartoon is courtesy of: http://elearning.miis.edu/mod/resource/view.php?id=15970 )

The original meaning of moodle is somewhat less focussed. Moodling is a bit like doodling, a mindless, nonsensical activity that doesn’t necessarily have a productive outcome – enjoyable, maybe, relaxing, perhaps, but none-the-less a trivial pursuit.

I like the definitions that “Allwords” gives:
(http://www.allwords.com/word-moodle.html)

moodle   verb (moodl, ing) To dawdle aimlessly, to idle time away. The process of lazily meandering through something, doing things as it occurs. An enjoyable tinkering that may lead to insight and creativity. Etymology: The true etymology is unknown. The following prior usage has been noted: (1921) "That old one who saw you out of your shell has gone off to moodle about doing nothing." Back to Methuselah v. 223 http://www.gbs.pi8.com/methuselah/partvasfarasthoughtcanreach.htm (1928) "Napoleon often moodled about for a week at a time doing nothing but play with his children or read trash or waste his time helplessly." Intelligent Woman"s Guide Socialism lxix. 328 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-4305-1698915,00.html (1938) "So you see, imagination needs moodling, -long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering." If you want to write - Brenda Ueland http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN3D1555972608/annejohnsonA/103-8115856-5071807http://www.womenfolk.com/creativity/moodling.htm

I can’t help but think that a lot of moodling happens these days, particularly on the Internet, but not always in well-intentioned use of time through online study, or in a dynamic learning environment, but perhaps more frequently in “surfing”, playing games, social networking and the like. Not that there is anything wrong with any of these activities, but, uncontrolled, they are killers of time.

Time is not ours to kill. Time belongs to God. Time should not be wasted, although I must confess, I have wasted more than my share of the precious commodity! The older I get, the more valuable time becomes! I often wish that I had realised the value of time when I was much younger! How I yearn for a little more time – the things I could do with it!

Scripture tells us that there is a time for everything, except for killing time itself (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).

There is a time for everything,
And a season for every activity under heaven:
A time to be born and a time to die,
A time to plant and a time to uproot,
A time to kill and a time to heal,
A time to tear down and a time to build,
A time to weep and a time to laugh,
A time to mourn and a time to dance,
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
A time to embrace and a time to refrain,
A time to search and a time to give up,
A time to keep and a time to throw away,
A time to tear and a time to mend,
A time to be silent and a time to speak,
A time to love and a time to hate,
A time for war and a time for peace.

There is indeed a time for everything and God expects his children to be efficient time-managers, faithful stewards of the time that he has given them. Don’t expect God to reward you for killing time. Colossians 4:5 (KJV) tells us, “Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time” and Ephesians 5:16 speaks of “redeeming the time” or “making the best use of the time”, “because the days are evil”. The Greek word used for “redeem”, exagorazo, suggests redeeming, or purchasing, someone out of slavery. When, as Christians, we redeem the time, we are ensuring that our time is freed up from everything that would prevent it being used fully and effectively for God. Now that’s a challenge, isn’t it?

John Wesley equated “redeeming the time” with getting up early, and I think that if getting up early means making the most of the day, it certainly is a commendable way to redeem the time. But I suspect that his real intention was to tell his listeners that early rising is a discipline, and only disciplined followers of Christ can demonstrate the self-denial and resolution to take up the cross of Christ in their everyday lives, and go on to experience the holiness that makes the Christian complete.

“But do not imagine that this single point, rising early, will suffice to make you a Christian. No: Although that single point, the not rising, may keep you a Heathen, void of the whole Christian spirit; although this alone (especially if you had once conquered it) will keep you cold, formal, heartless, dead, and make it impossible for you to get one step forward in vital holiness, yet this alone will go but a little way to make you a real Christian. It is but one step out of many; but it is one. And having taken this, go forward. Go on to universal self-denial, to temperance in all things, to a firm resolution of taking up daily every cross whereto you are called. Go on, in a full pursuit of all the mind that was in Christ, of inward and then outward holiness; so shall you be not almost but altogether, a Christian; so shall you finish your course with joy: You shall awake up after his likeness, and be satisfied.” 
http://www.umcmission.org/Find-Resources/Global-Worship-and-Spiritual-Growth/John-Wesley-Sermons/Sermon-93-On-Redeeming-The-Time

I truly want to “wake up after his likeness, and be satisfied”! Don’t you?

God, I offer you my time, not that it’s really mine to give. It belongs to you. Thank you for entrusting this valuable resource to me. I acknowledge that I’m not always a good steward of my time. I want to use all of my time for your glory, Lord. I want to walk every moment of every day with Jesus, my Saviour. I want to have his mind in me. I want that inward and outward holiness, so that I won’t just experience holiness but I will exude it, too! Unless it can be seen in me, what’s the point?

I’d like Charles Wesley’s prayer to be my prayer, too:

I would the precious time redeem,

And longer live for this alone,

To spend, and to be spent for them

Who have not yet my Saviour known;

Fully on them my labours prove,

And only breathe to breathe thy love.

Amen!