While there have been possible signs of hope the last few days, there are as many or more signs of continuing troubles in daily lives in homes, streets and schools.
I think: if you don’t have anything good to think, don’t think anything at all.” I don’t know that thinking will move me out of the wondering about what to do. So I pick a quote to help me keep wondering, to lee seeking paths ahead.
I think of the places where my voice might be heard. I am collecting quotes to use in an activity where each person gets a random quote–then they circulate and gather to discuss the quotes they have–for a few minutes. Then they move again. This activity works with all ages—simpler quotes, even pictures, for young children. You can pull quotes from a text for a pre-reading activity. I have also used it with a group to spark thinking prior to a discussion on a topic, particularly a provocative topic–helps group members come to own new thoughts on a topic.
Step by step protocol can be found here.
“The measure of our mindfulness, the touchstone for sanity in this society, is our level of productivity, our attention to responsibility, our ability to plain and simple hold down a job. If you’re still at the point when you’re even just barely going through the motions–showing up at work, paying the bills–you are still okay or okay enough. A desire not to acknowledge depression in ourselves or those close to us–better known these days as denial, is such a strong urge that plenty of people prefer to think that until you are actually flying out of a window, you don’t have a problem.” Elizabeth Wurtzel (U.S. journalist, 1967- )
“Racism cannot be separated from capitalism.” Angela Davis (U.S. author and social activist, 1944- )
“It is more than their land that you take away from the people, whose native land you take. It is their past as well, their roots and their identity. If you take away the things that they have been used to see and will be expecting to see, you may, in a way, as well take their eyes.”
Isak Dinesen (Danish writer, 1885-1962)
“The genius of any slave system is found in the dynamics which isolate slaves from each other, obscure the reality of a common condition, and make united rebellion against the oppressor inconceivable.” Andrea Dworkin (U.S. feminist author, 1946- )
“Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind; and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.” Ralph Waldo Emerson (U.S. poet, 1803-1882)