In Acedie and Me, the writer Kathleen Norris asks her readers to think about the tasks and chores of a day as "acts of hospitality" to yourself. That is a perspective where you are a guest and a host at the same time. When you organize and maintain your life so that things work out and move forward for you, you are playing the role of host. As a guest, you have needs and … [Read more...] about Acts of Hospitality
Self
Read the World
The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire famously said that although we often think of reading in terms of reading words, the true activity of reading or literacy is reading the world. Write about some of the ways that you read that do not involve the reading of words. When we read words, we take in information from the printed page in order to understand something or share in … [Read more...] about Read the World
Categories of Clothes
Write about your clothes by category. That is, group them somehow, and write something about the different groups of clothes. You can group them in dozens of different ways: by location, by function, by color. Comfortable clothes could be a group. So could clothes that you would never wear to church. Clothes you love, clothes you hate, clothes you keep but never … [Read more...] about Categories of Clothes
Spirals of Care
Create a page about things that matter to you which doesn't have any words on it. On a scrap paper, list 10-20 things that are important to you. Next to each item, draw a symbol to represent it. On a clean sheet, draw a circle in the center that represents you. Draw each of your symbols on that sheet. Spread them out over the page evenly. Arrange them so that the … [Read more...] about Spirals of Care
Certain Women
As all good students of Paulo Friere know, literacy isn’t simply about reading print words in sentence order. “Reading” means “reading the world as well.” For your reading pleasure, I offer a flim: Certain Women, written and directed by Kelly Reichardt. After I saw this film, I thought about it for weeks. I’m still thinking about it, flashing occasionally on an image or a … [Read more...] about Certain Women