Think I'm sarcastic? Watch me pretend to care.

I grew up in a home where good grammar was stressed. I learned the difference between "good" (adjective) and "well" (adverb). Verb tenses mattered, subject & verb had to align, sentences should not end with prepositions...that kind of thing.
Shortly after starting my gig as a college prof I realized I didn't own enough red pens. Thankfully, the college established good writing, including correct grammar, as an institution-wide priority. So the grade we gave a particular paper was to include that element. Too many grammatical errors brought the grade down proportionately, and a thoroughly marked up paper would be handed back for a re-write with the appropriate penalty applied if that meant it was late.

One of the errors that bugged me students' use of "alot."
It is NOT a word, guys. Look it up. It's NOT there!
I should have had this coping mechanism.

OK, I'm not going to bore you further with the Rambler's issues. Suffice it to say I am one frustrated shade-tree mechanic. The good news: I've solved the stuck float issue. The bad news: something else fuel related has gone horribly wrong. Maybe two things. It runs strong and accelerates well, except for that part where it dies at a stop sign and won't restart. And the gas pouring out of the bottom of the carb.
AAARGH!!

I only had two cups of coffee this morning. So how do we explain the thoroughly frenetic preacher in both hours? Good grief!

It takes me about 30 minutes to drive into church on a Sunday morning. Almost everyone lives within five minutes of the school where we meet except for us, because we're out in Sun City. But it's OK because it gives me time to drive in a quiet car and think. My mind is usually all over the place during that drive and it's almost a spectator sport; I watch where it goes and wonder how it got there.

Today I was thinking about our word for this morning, "hope," and then some of the people I've had the privilege to serve over the last [never mind] years, and the words that apply to them.  Some of them were...
Educated. That word refers to the years they spent in school. I've had people in my churches who never finished H.S. while others had doctorates.
Knowledgable. That describes how much they know. Someone can be highly educated but not knowledgable outside their field. Someone else can have very little formal education but know alot (just checking) about a wide range of things. They're intellectually curious and have a good memory. Add those together and after time they'll be very knowledgable about a wide range of things.
Wise. Ah, here's the big one. Wisdom requires neither education (some Ph.D.'s are complete fools) nor being knowledgable. Wisdom, as described by Solomon in Proverbs, is skillful living, making good decisions and choices. It involves discernment and then the character to follow through on that insight. Wisdom seems to require at least some age - time in the school of hard knocks seems to be a prerequisite - but trust me, as a Sun City resident I can assure you not all old people are wise. In fact, fools seem to exist in equal numbers here.
Smart. I think this is the least recognized and appreciated. Smart, IMO, doesn't require age, or education, or knowledge. I think smart is the ability to take available information, sometimes seemingly disparate data, and process it. See it and use it. An active, nimble mind. I've seen young kids at church look at things and see them with surprising insight, sometimes differently than the adults in the room. Inventors are smart; their brains "work" in ways ours mine doesn't and they come up with stuff that makes me go, "Sure, why didn't I see that?" I've got a decent sized memory chip but they've got processors like Intel never imagined.

Wouldn't it be great to have all of those?
Which of those do you possess?
If you could pick only one, which would it be?
How about if you could have any two?