Distracted by a colon

A big thank you to all of you that read the title as "Distracted by my colon" rather than "Distracted by a colon." The former title would have made it a much better blog post. Philippians 3:13-14 was read when I was with the church yesterday and I followed along in my TNIV:

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead...

It's a small thing, really, that colon after the word "do" and before the space that immediately precedes the word "Forgetting". Yet it was enough of a distraction to me that I wrote "Distracted by a colon - blog post" on the top of my bulletin so that I wouldn't forget to offer another example of my shiny ball syndrome that plagues my mind. The virtue of the month for our kid's program is determination and I seem to be needed a lot more of that than usual lately.

I have been doing some proofreading of Will's essays of late and I have instructed him on the proper use of the colon. When I saw the colon in this passage of Scripture I immediately went back to all of those mini lessons and thought that the translator used the colon exactly right. Then I got all impressed with myself concerning how deftly I had explained the use of the colon to Will and then...before I knew it the person delivering the sermon finished reading the passage and I was not quite sure where he left off nor was I sure what he said to help explain what was just read.

So yes, Virginia, I find ample opportunities to use punctuation to assess the utility and brilliance of my grammar lessons and to take mind vacations when I should be engaged in other pursuits. It doesn't mean I am a hopeless case. It just means that

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