Skip to main content

a book.

i've heard about this book for a couple of years now, but never had it in my hands.

someone unintentionally put it in my hands this past sunday so i've started the journey through. be on the lookout for snip-its here and there from me.

i have a feeling it's going to be liberating.


"Because it is a distortion of being more fully human, sooner or later being less human leads the oppressed to struggle against those who made them so. In order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both..."

"...Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both..."

pg. 44, Paul Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

creepin'

Sorry about posting 3 times in one day but hopefully this one will have a little more meaning than the other two (although, they are funny). Last week we were having dinner with two girls that are working in different capacities here in UB. They have both been here for about a year or more and they were telling us about their adjustment experiences. They affirmed our rough beginnings but then they kept talking about Mongolia, after adjustments. They said that Mongolia has a way of getting under your skin. It really grows on you and you can't help but love it. One of the girls was talking about how for a while, and even still now, she tries to shield her skin, she's not ready to love Mongolia yet. I've been feeling that same way. I want to shield my skin because part of me is afraid of loving this place. Today we went to Terelj National Park with the Seo's (the missionary family that is here). We went to go have a picnic and see the park. Their girls went and it was a lo...

Among the Trees

Rhythm, or out of rhythm rather, is how I feel most days lately. I am among change and transition. My thoughts linger between what has been and what will come. Some days I hardly feel like I am present to the moments that surround me. I am here but I am more elsewhere. I like change...mostly. Change brings about new sight, seeing things and places with fresh eyes. Change is also exhausting. Learning where things go, how things work and how you fit. I find more pain in transition than in change, though. Transition begs for time to process. Transition requires you to sit among the things you've learned and unlearned in a time frame and to think about how this pushes you onto the next thing. Transition asks me to be aware of how I have been and who I want to carry with me to the next place. Transition is the mental process of the action of change for me. Not so long from now I will finish a master's degree in social work. I will tie up my time working at my current job an...

The Prayer of the Empty Water Jar

Jesus, I come into the warmth of your presence knowing that you are the very emptiness of God. I come before you holding the water jar of my life. Your eyes meet mine and I know what I'd rather not know. I came to be filled but I am already full. I am too full This is my sickness I am full of things that crowd out your healing presence. A holy knowing steals inside my heart and I see a painful truth. I don't need more I need less I am too full. I am full of things that block out your golden grace. I am smothered by gods of my own creation I am lost in the forest of my false self I am full of my own opinions and narrow attitudes full of fear, resentments, control full of self-pity, and arrogance. Slowly this terrible truth pierces my heart I am so full there is no room for you. Contemplatively, and with compassion you ask me to reach into my water jar. One by one, Jesus, you enable me to lift out the things that are a hindrance to my...