My grandmother sent me a copy of The Fruit of the Vine in the mail this week. For years when I was a child I listened to her stand up during announcements at the end of Meeting and say "I have copies of Fruit of the Vine if someone would like one." And I never asked what it was. I thought it was like another Quaker Life, which was the most boring-looking periodical around the house (it seemed to have pictures of farm animals on the cover strikingly often - I never read it).
I called her from Richmond a few months ago and asked what version of the Bible she liked reading for daily study. I'd been trying with various devotionals written by people of different faiths, but I didn't agree with most of the interpretations that I was reading, so I figured I had better read the book itself.
She said she read something traditional like the New Revised Standard Edition. In characteristic thoroughness, she followed-up by sending me this copy of Fruit of the Vine. It is a daily devotional written by Friends. Living Friends. The one for yesterday was actually written by a Friend who works for Reid Health in Richmond! One of the perks of living in the Quaker Mecca of the Midwest.
Today's scripture was 1 Corinthians 13:11-12
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
I am finding becoming a man, and putting away childish things, is a process which takes many years, and which indeed I suspect will last my whole life.
Today bell hooks spoke at Earlham, and I left the high school early to hear her. She spoke about the white supremacist capitalist patriachy, which is the subject, at least in part, of her writing. Her writing is also about being fundamentally opposed to violence and promoting love.
The most powerful part of her talk, for me, was when she spoke about Black Lives Matter. She said, in fact, police brutality, while a grave issue, is not the essential issue facing black men. "If all the police brutality stopped, would the plight of the black man be overcome?" No, she said, because police brutality is not the same thing as, or even the cause of, mass incarceration. That social ill starts elsewhere, and largely in the classroom, with a lack of literacy. Black men are the group with the fastest growing rate of illiteracy in the nation, she said. Without literacy these men can't get jobs, they can't think critically, and they certainly can't fight the system.
I felt her words so keenly. As she spoke about the difficulties facing young black men in our society, I thought of J, of K, of D, of J, of I, most of whom I'd seen earlier today. It fired me up about being part of a process of showing these young men that they are valuable, that they are smart, of helping them learn to think critically and to question those in power in a smart way.
This summer I wasn't too excited about reading Fahrenheit 451 with the 9th grade, but now I'm very keen to. It's been my lens through which I've experienced much other literature and many other events this fall. This piece which came up in my bell hooks research is one that makes me keen to ask the students whether they think literature has any value worth defending.
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/reach-for-the-bookit-is-a-weapon
I called her from Richmond a few months ago and asked what version of the Bible she liked reading for daily study. I'd been trying with various devotionals written by people of different faiths, but I didn't agree with most of the interpretations that I was reading, so I figured I had better read the book itself.
She said she read something traditional like the New Revised Standard Edition. In characteristic thoroughness, she followed-up by sending me this copy of Fruit of the Vine. It is a daily devotional written by Friends. Living Friends. The one for yesterday was actually written by a Friend who works for Reid Health in Richmond! One of the perks of living in the Quaker Mecca of the Midwest.
Today's scripture was 1 Corinthians 13:11-12
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
Today bell hooks spoke at Earlham, and I left the high school early to hear her. She spoke about the white supremacist capitalist patriachy, which is the subject, at least in part, of her writing. Her writing is also about being fundamentally opposed to violence and promoting love.
The most powerful part of her talk, for me, was when she spoke about Black Lives Matter. She said, in fact, police brutality, while a grave issue, is not the essential issue facing black men. "If all the police brutality stopped, would the plight of the black man be overcome?" No, she said, because police brutality is not the same thing as, or even the cause of, mass incarceration. That social ill starts elsewhere, and largely in the classroom, with a lack of literacy. Black men are the group with the fastest growing rate of illiteracy in the nation, she said. Without literacy these men can't get jobs, they can't think critically, and they certainly can't fight the system.
I felt her words so keenly. As she spoke about the difficulties facing young black men in our society, I thought of J, of K, of D, of J, of I, most of whom I'd seen earlier today. It fired me up about being part of a process of showing these young men that they are valuable, that they are smart, of helping them learn to think critically and to question those in power in a smart way.
This summer I wasn't too excited about reading Fahrenheit 451 with the 9th grade, but now I'm very keen to. It's been my lens through which I've experienced much other literature and many other events this fall. This piece which came up in my bell hooks research is one that makes me keen to ask the students whether they think literature has any value worth defending.
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/reach-for-the-bookit-is-a-weapon
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