Good morning friends. Here is a photo of my latest project. Surprisingly enough, I've figured out that knitting can help me stay focused for hours of studying. It helps me with the memorizing process.
Anywho, I also thought I'd share an exerpt from My Utmost for His Highest this morning.

If a man or woman is called of God, it doesn’t matter how difficult the circumstances may be. God orchestrates every force at work for His purpose in the end. If you will agree with God’s purpose, He will bring not only your conscious level but also all the deeper levels of your life, which you yourself cannot reach, into perfect harmony.

Now that is comforting. Watch for God's orchestration today.

This week happens to be banned books week. Reading a bit about it made me think about the tension between intellectual freedom and propriety for children and young adult literature. Nevertheless, I thought the top 20 list of classics that have been challeged or banned was astounding.

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
9. 1984 by George Orwell
10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
13. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Maybe some of your favorites appear here. Aren't you glad they weren't banned so you could learn to think in a new way. Hmmm, thoughts are powerful.

Have a lovely week friends. I'm going to get back to studying for midterms. If you'd like to read more, you can check out the American Library Association Website.

Good morning friends. This morning on my commute into the big city, I heard a really wonderful essay from an NPR series entitled, "This I believe." I think it really struck a cord with me because I am spending most of my waking hours in the education system.

Kristie Bradford, a professor at Lonestar College shares;

Albert Einstein once said 'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.' I, too, believe that imagination is more important than knowledge. As a geology professor, I am often under pressure to measure the success of my students by a very limited yard stick: how much knowledge they have obtained under my tutelage. Imagination and creativity are difficult to assess and therefore it is rarely attempted.
If the purpose of a college education is to produce, thinking, imaginative, problem solving individuals for our future workforce, I believe that we are missing opportunities by emphasizing knowledge over imagination and creativity.

I thought she shared an interesting point in that, so often we become frustrated with the yardstick that is designed to make us 'educated.' What if the majority of my attentions went to putting the knowledge I'm handed everyday into some form of creative output. Instead of knowing, what if I looked at studying as doing, creating, imagining. What if I become a Physical Therapist who can dream and labor to see people do things that just don't seem possible with knowledge alone.
So many thoughts.
I'll leave you with one of my favorites...

As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations." He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. Romans 4:17

God used a very old man to be the father of many nations. Abraham was a 'thing that was not,' but God saw Abraham for what he could be. Would anyone like to believe that the impossibities are possible? Let's learn from Albert and Abraham today.
I suppose God has the best imagination of us all.

For the entire essay: NPR This I Believe