Ruminations from the Week

Every two weeks or so I post a new word on my board that is the not so secrete password into my class.  Recently, I used the word ruminate which means to think deeply on something.  However, in my community, several people think it also refers to what a cow does to its cud when it is eating.  A history teacher and friend filled me in on that one!  I'm such a city slicker that I had no idea about this alternate meaning.  The situation just reinforces to me that life experience is valuable and dependent on circumstances.  We must enrich our lives by expanding our possible experiences in order to include a broad range of definitions.  This is essential in helping us to understand people from different places who are not exactly like us.  One reason that reading is so very important is that it helps the reader to connect with and understand other people.  As a result, we can act more compassionately toward other people in real life.

In The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas, the father tells his son that those people are not really people.  The people to which he is referring are Jews in a concentration camp.  The family has moved next door because the father is a high ranking official in the Nazi army.  What a cold and unfeeling statement to make!  However, I can see already that the son may not see things the same way.  Reading helps us to see people as people.  We come to connect with their thoughts and feelings that we otherwise would not encounter.

Another important thing I've been thinking about is spending time with my family.  These are the people with whom I need to connect the most!  Sometimes I would rather escape in a book, but I can't resist my cute kids.  Here are the highlights of our less than successful fishing afternoon.  We didn't get any keepers, fish that is, but I did get some great pictures!

  

Wild Hog Track

Coyote Track

Raccoon Track

The road to and from a little piece of Heaven on Earth!