In a city that is the home of the University of Oklahoma one would think there is some semblance of freedom of speech or even freedom to read a book. But not so. In its lack of wisdom the State of Oklahoma has banned To Kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee, hardly a call to revolution, a book by Maya Angelou, and many others. Teachers who give them to students can lose their license.
So Summer Boismier put up a sign in her American literature class: “Books the State doesn’t want you to read” with a QR code to the Brooklyn Public Library digital access platform. A parent complained. Goodness, gracious! Can’t infect minds with thinking!
We can’t be so smug here in New Jersey and the Northeast. New Hampshire passed legislation limiting classroom discussion on race. So what happens when a student asks a question? Students must learn not to ask questions – that might lead to thinking and we all know what danger that brings. How sad, how dreadfully, dreadfully sad.
Prayer for the Day
Searching for new horizons, we come to you, O God,
For you are the broadest horizon of all;
Seeking for your guidance in our quest for understanding,
We look to the wisdom imparted through the ages.
Save us, O Lord, from a fear of asking questions,
For your truth is broader than our minds and apprehensions.
In the name of the One who always questioned,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.
- John Milton, English poet, essayist, from Areopagitica (1608-1674)
Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.”
- Laurie Halse Anderson, American novelist, from Speak
For wisdom is more mobile than any motion;
Because of her pureness, she pervades and penetrates all things.
For wisdom is a breath of the power of God,
A pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
Therefore noting defiled gains entrance into her. for she is a reflection of eternal light,
A spotless mirror of the working of God and an image of God’s goodness.
Wisdom of Solomon 7: 24-26