The Discipline of Thinking

This may sound strange, but lately I've been having trouble thinking. No, not the kind of thinking that analyzes the last episode of LOST or decides what to make for dinner. I find myself mentally stumbling when I'm forced to think about the ideas that are the undercurrent of our whole lives - ethics, theology, philosophy.

This is what I've spent the that last five years doing, learning to think and, in response, act. I've read and discussed, read and discussed, and then lain awake at night thinking about what has been discussed. I was trained to be a careful student of life, noticing threads of intertextuality throughout the scriptures that necessarily informed the arenas in literature and history too. Books were no longer merely text on page, but rose into the three dimensional displaying a spectrum of color. Books lived and demanded to be interacted with.

Daily I was reading. Weekly I was writing. Monthly I was leading seminars. I was forced to be disciplined thinker and it made college, and life, so very rich.

However now, I don't have the same pressure to thoughtfully think about key issues. Conversations about the warrants of Liberation Theology, Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics or Colonialism and modern Mission don't come up in the grocery line, or even over dinner. The days come and fade, and this discipline of thinking has started to fade as well.

I'm not quite sure what to do. I don't want to be that over - critical, slightly annoying college student who has something to say about everything (for I was/ have been that person for far too long), I want to be realistic about my stage of life. Is there a way to continue developing this skill, even if there is no class to join or peers to debate with? Is there hope for thinking after college?