Prof Karen Swallow is an amazing teacher. Once I can get all of the class members together I will post a group picture. The gentlemen sitting with Karen in the cafeteria are attendees of the Glen Workshop who aren't in her class this year. At lunch they had some questions about Flannery – which she was happy to answer.
If you ever get the opportunity to speak to a three-year-old, ask them this question: “How old are you?” Chances are they will look you in the eye, hold up three fingers and say, “Free.” Ginny Junttila, my sister Claudia’s mother-in-law, who was a kindergarten teacher for decades, told me she had asked this question of many three-year-old children over the years and almost all of them had responded the same way. And then Ginny added, “Isn’t that lovely? Everyone should have a year to be “free,” don’t you think?”
Yes, I do think everyone should have a year, or more, to be free. And a place to be free, also. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Christian churches were thought of as places where one is free? places where one is free to ask questions about Jesus and other important subjects? places where one is free to discover what it means to be truly human?
Perhaps we need to change our adult thinking and regain the unselfconscious mind of a three-year-old in order to grasp what it means to be free, to live in freedom in Christ.
“He called a little child to him and placed the child among them. And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’ ” (Matthew 18:2-4) NIV
English: icon of Keep Your Word by bambooapps (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I have noticed that the word “snuck” has become quite acceptable to use these days, both in speaking and writing. It wasn’t acceptable when I was in 4th grade and wrote my first story, however. Sister Cecelia asked for volunteers to read their homework stories for the class, and as shy as I was, I raised my hand, and was chosen to read. I spoke with as loud a voice as I could muster, and amazingly, the story was well received by the class! I glanced up from my reading to find Sister Cecelia looking at me with her piercing “are you trying to put something over on me?” gaze.
“Did you write that by yourself, Teresa?”
“Yes, Sister.”
Pause.
“I guess I have to believe you. I don’t think an adult would have used “snuck” in a sentence. “Snuck” isn’t a word, you know. You may sit down.”
I sat down, emotions whipping through me. My classmates had obviously liked the story, but I had managed to do something wrong by not knowing that “snuck” was not a word. Emotionally I was a mess as I sat at my desk, but intellectually I was determined never to use the non-word “snuck” ever again. So it is with some chagrin that I have seen that very word used rather frequently as of late.
Which makes me think, where is Sister Cecelia when you need her?
BOOKNIP 