The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read.It will be the person who cannot learn.
–Alvin Toffler
I imagine every day I learn new things, but some things are more new than others, if you know what I mean. I try to stay open to the new. Otherwise it is all too easy to get bogged down in sameness.
I laugh when I have one of those moments and say, well I’ve learned my one-new-thing for the day, so now I don’t have to learn anything more today!
As if.
Especially when you like to learn.
I had the joy of attending a neighbor’s church with her. I was the only white face there. The minister who spoke was very enlightening, and I felt welcomed and embraced by the congregation. I would have been a little sceptical of going on my own the first time, but would not have hesitated to go again by myself, if I had been looking for a church home.
Several things interested me. Folks drifted in whenever they arrived. Some were near to an hour later than we were. In my church, likely that would have been looked at askance. (Hmmm…maybe we should be more open…)
Another thing was the way the hymns were sung. First, a leader would sing one line of the hymn, then the congregation would sing it. I think this did a number of things: if there were not enough hymn books (and there wasn’t a screen on the wall) everyone would be included and could sing. Also, if a person could no longer see, the elderly, they were still an integral part of the service. But I believe it likely went back to a time when the congregation could not read, so one who could read, would lead the hymns. (It made me think of how to embrace those out of the now mainstream.) Even if they had not been illiterate, they were gaining from literacy.
And, of course, there are things that we, the literate, have forgotten or were never taught, because our society has forgotten the information.
An example comes from Chinese friends of mine. They had made a soup with meat in it, that they did not refrigerate, but they kept on the back of the stove. (In China, that information would not be forgotten because of the differences in whether someone had a refrigerator or not.) They brought it to a boil before eating, and they boiled it again before they left it on the stove. I figured if they could eat it, I could, but I would not have known to do this.
It’s a truism that we either learn through education — through what we learn from others — or we learn through the school of hard knocks. I prefer the former. When I’m knocked up the side of the head with information, I usually feel like I’ve been thrown for a loop, and I feel badly that I so missed the clues.
What have you learned new lately?
Karin
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Just thinking, Quotations
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