Thank goodness I have a Kindle

The school district I work for received a grant to purchase Kindles which we use to read books about the different cultures represented in our school district. We are presently the most diverse school district in the country. So we have a culture book club which I have really enjoyed. It has introduced me to a lot of books I would have never pick up to read. And the Kindle has a note application, so I can go back and retrieve the passages I liked.

I'm going to start with Mawi Asgedom's Of Beetles and Angels: A Boy's Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard.  I had the pleasure of meeting Mawi at my school. He is a very inspirational speaker. You can check him out at mawiasgedom.com

I won't always have seven passages (I promise):

      "People always mistreated the angels, my father said, because the angels never looked like angels. They were always disguised as the lowliest of beetles: beggars, vagrants, and misfits.
      But no matter how much the strangers resembled beetles, my father always maintained that they could be angels, given to us by God to test the deepest sentiments of our hearts."

     "What's both beautiful and scary about young children is that they will believe most anything that their parents tell them....
     they told us that we could do anything if we worked hard and treated others with respect. And we believed them."

     "But the good thing about words is that they can also breathe life into our spirits."

     "True power comes from focusing on what we can give, not just what we can take.
     Of the gifts that we can give, the greatest is to see beauty in each other - in essence, to give beauty to each other. When we give that beauty, we prepare our hearts to receive it back.
     So it is that I have been inspired by beetles and angels."

    "Remembering where you come from means holding on to the vision that you are a part of a human community that you can carry with you every day. That community has given us much. Are we not obligated to give it something back?"

     "Any one of us, however small and helpless we may feel, can spark unimagined changes. Today's small act of kindness can become tomorrow's whirlwind of human progress."

     "quite often, it will be the small things that all of us can do that will have the most impact."

The Jewel Trader of Pegu

Let's start with a book I read in July 2010. It's what I currently have on my email as a signature line, so I didn't lose this one to the virus world.

 

“How can you be alive if you don’t live in the present?” from The Jewel Trader of Pegu by Jeffery Hantover

 

It is certainly not a new thought, but it struck me as I was reading the book, particularly in the context of the character's experiences. I enjoyed this book.

Since July 1999, I have kept a list of the books I have read. My reading interests were limited then to popular fiction. As my interests have grown and the genres I read have expanded, I have started to note passages that I feel have special meaning. I am a great admirer of authors who have the ability to put into words powerful messages, so in May 2010 I started noting them in a Word document and using them in the signature line of my emails, noting the book and author. Then one day a nasty virus came to attack my hard drive and I am afraid my list is lost. So this is now my attempt to record passages that speak to me and that I feel need to be shared with others. I may include other thoughts or reviews on books, but that is not the primary purpose of the blog.

If you stumble upon this blog, I hope the passages that speak to me also speak to you.

Do you recognize where I got the title of my blog? It is from one of the few books I have reread and plan to reread again soon - Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.