When I was a girl in elementary school, my school had a big celebration on the 100th day of classes. We would all get out of class and gather on the playground. We were supposed to bring in 100 of something. It was a competition, of sorts. The only rule was that all 100 had to fit in a sandwich sized ziploc bag. The one year I participated I thought I would win for sure. My idea was so creative, I was convinced no one had ever thought of it before. I sat there in Oklahoma, on the map of the United States that covered our cement playground, with my bag in my hand, waiting for them to call my name and announce that I was the winner. Of course that moment never came. I didn't win. The girls and boy that won were much more creative than I was. I brought 100 ziploc bags. I had squeezed 100 of them inside the other one. I thought it was the most creative idea. Much more creative than the 100 pennies I had brought the year before. I suppose I was not meant to win that competition.
I am remembering this, but I am also spending a lot of time learning about the past of the World Student Christian Federation. I spent Monday and Tuesday reading articles for consideration in the Centennial Edition of Student World. (This is our academic journal that is published annually) It was first published in 1908. 1908! I can't even imagine what it was like back then. I read about 30 articles from these journals. Many were clearly representing the values and ideas of their time. I didn't choose those articles. The articles I have chosen are the ones that still speak. The ones that seem alive. The ones that could have been written yesterday. Those are the articles I chose. The article from 1968 that describes the economic difficulties the Global South faces was so prophetic. I wish we had listened to her ideas instead of following the road that she saw us going down. The article I read from 1952 defending apartheid in South Africa was clearly racist, but couching the racism in such terms as allowing the African to "fully fulfill his racial potential." The terms that might be used today to support "non-racist" development policies. The article rebutting that said that if true Democracy was to develop in South Africa apartheid could not exist. Today we see that Democracy has overcome apartheid. (The effects of it are still very severe, but hopefully the people there are strong enough to continue down the road they have chosen.) I am so privileged that I get to spend my days reading some of the great writers in this journal.
I am so lucky.
I am so lucky.
i like that idea about 100 zip lock bags inside of a zip lock bag.
ReplyDeletethat reminds me of a trick i tried once in elementary school. we had these weekly vocabulary exercises, where we had a list of words, and we then had to write one sentence using each word. i thought it would be funny to have each sentence incorporate the previous one. i still remember the first 2 words : baroque and lightning. my first sentence was "the baroque broke." my second sentence was "the baroque broke because lightning struck it." etc. Except that by the time i got to sentence 8 or 9 or so, i no longer thought it was such a good idea.