"The key to the universe is that you can change your perception of anything." -Tom Robbins
What kind of Summer Reading group heads into the woods and climbs trees, gets covered in dirt and mulch and bug bites and is responsible, quite literally, for the safety and well-being of each other member?
What business do we have straying from the traditional format of academic drudgery, that of sitting quietly in classrooms whilst summer wheels on around us? Why in the world would taking eleven high school students to a ropes course at UNH Durham and encouraging them to push themselves in team building activities, on high cables suspended between trees, respecting their desires to not be a part of activities, and learning more about each other have to do with books? With reading?
Really, now. I think the more relevant question should be why have we not done this sooner? Books and reading, discovering the joy of identifying with characters, with their difficulties and joys, their imaginings and idiosyncrasies; these things are as heady as trusting friends and classmates as fears of falling--and flying-- are faced and overcome.
The challenges we faced--whether they were as simple as a fear of heights or as overwhelming as arachnophobia-- were of similar intensity to overcoming the trepidation some of us feel when we start a new book or meet a new author. Both take faith. Both take work.
Facing physical and intellectual challenges can bring about phantastic insight to ourselves and our perceptions of the world. Having the guts and Sisu to undertake both has the potential for awakening within us shifts of perception--and being open to such things allows the universe--whether that universe extends to the borders of Pelham or the borders of the known world--to become ours.
What business do we have straying from the traditional format of academic drudgery, that of sitting quietly in classrooms whilst summer wheels on around us? Why in the world would taking eleven high school students to a ropes course at UNH Durham and encouraging them to push themselves in team building activities, on high cables suspended between trees, respecting their desires to not be a part of activities, and learning more about each other have to do with books? With reading?
Really, now. I think the more relevant question should be why have we not done this sooner? Books and reading, discovering the joy of identifying with characters, with their difficulties and joys, their imaginings and idiosyncrasies; these things are as heady as trusting friends and classmates as fears of falling--and flying-- are faced and overcome.
The challenges we faced--whether they were as simple as a fear of heights or as overwhelming as arachnophobia-- were of similar intensity to overcoming the trepidation some of us feel when we start a new book or meet a new author. Both take faith. Both take work.
Facing physical and intellectual challenges can bring about phantastic insight to ourselves and our perceptions of the world. Having the guts and Sisu to undertake both has the potential for awakening within us shifts of perception--and being open to such things allows the universe--whether that universe extends to the borders of Pelham or the borders of the known world--to become ours.
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