Glenwood revisited

I am thinking today what a privilege it is that I can sit here in this day and not be afraid. There is such a subtle danger to this because I am so privileged and so unafraid that I forget...Today in African History, we learned the heartbreaking history of the Congo. It's complicated, but basically Leopold of Belgium won rights to the Congo as his colony in the Berlin Conference, where Africa was carved up by Europe into the sections that they wanted to control. Leopold allowed a concession company to glean rubber from the Congo. The concession company began to force the people to find rubber for them. Rubber was in demand because bikes were invented, and then cars were, so there was what's called the "Rubber Boom" from 1890 to 1910. The set up rubber gathering centers with armed sentries there force the people to do what they wanted. If the people couldn't provide what they wanted, they would kill them or hurt them in some way. We looked at pictures of people, of precious children whose arms and legs were cut off or maimed. While Leopold was in control, ten million people died due to violence, famine and disease. The people still divide their history by the time before rubber and the time after. Something happened though. People, missionaries, began to take a stand. They began to send reports home telling about the atrocities. This became an international issue which led to the Congo Reform Movement in which a British journalist went to the Congo to gather reports and photos of what was happening. If the missionaries hadn't been there, they couldn't have made that stand and begun to work for change. We have injustices here in our own cities. King Leopolds still cut off arms and legs, breaking spirits and hearts if we, who are Christians and who worship a God who loves justice, do not engage. Living in quiet, removed-ness beings a safety of one kind. It brings safety for your physical self, but I'm afraid that in that safety, another type of danger takes hold. You begin to think that that is all there is.

Let's not forget that "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." I've been thinking about all week how Hebrews talks about how Jesus became like us and so He understands what we go through. It's very hard for us to love our neighbors when we don't know them. It's very hard for us to share people's struggles when, well, we don't. mmm. I might be babbling, it's hard to tell sometimes.


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Here are my thoughts on English class:
A. People cannot read and they are in college. (I'm not kidding.)
B. People have an appalling lack of vocabulary and they are in college. (They don't know what simple words like sepulchre and boughs mean.)
C. I spoke two times today and I read. Good job, Em.
D. Wallace Stevens poem "Sunday Morning" makes him bff and soul sister with Nietzsche.
E. 2 commas doesn't equal "a whole lot of commas."

That is all for today.



Currently listening to: Badly Drawn Boy
Currently feeling: Quite happy to have gotten a note in the mail
Currently watching: The boy out my window walk his really small dog.
Current time: 5:34