The teacher realized that the community was changing and was concerned about its fracturing over various ethnic and religious lines. Remembering the stories her grandmother had told her of old quilting bees, she decided that the school where she taught should make a quilt.
The quilt became a community project, with people finding pieces of material and donating them to the school so the children could make the quilt. Boys and girls, kids of different colors and backgrounds soon learned that in order to make a quilt, they had to work together.
Little by little, the school children engaged their parents, who began searching to find interesting pieces of material. The parents began to engage with each other, learning that although some came to this town from different places, the people who had lived there all their lives weren’t so different after all. Not a bad lesson for the rest of us.
Prayer for the Day
Sometimes we feel like lost sheep, O God, wandering about,
Looking for easy answers in the midst of difficult questions;
Struggling with the petty, we miss the important things of life,
And do not recognize You in the world around us.
Open the eyes of our souls so we return to your truth,
Living and sharing your life with all.
In the name of the One who shows us what is important,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
There can no vulnerability without risk, there can be no community without vulnerability, there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community
M. Scott Peck, American psychiatrist, The Road Less Traveled (1936-2005)
I realized if you can change a classroom, you can change a community, and if you change enough communities, you can change the world.
Erin Gruwell, American teacher
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fal, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. Again if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone? And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand against one. A threefold cored is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12