Hawaiians say haweo to refer to a glow of light that makes things visible. It is the light of knowledge that the darkness and confusion of the past are destroyed and our own heroic deeds are revealed. We are who we always were.
On our Chinatown tour, we walked north, then backtracked south. We ventured east, then west, returned east, trekked north again, and ended south at Golden Palace, 180 degrees from the ordinary.
We are who we always were. We are pioneers. We are on the journey that leads us on the path. We get lost. We remember our goal. And then we stand between lions of stone, between ancient history, purpose, ourselves. As educators and writers, on Friday morning, we ended up pretty much the same place we began – intrigued with the language of our many different cultures, our never-ending past, our collective destinations in ENG 100, and the words that will get us there.
Benton
Benton
I like the phrase "never-ending past." At first I thought, hey, this is impossible. My past has a beginning, an end point like the end of a chopstick, and I'm traveling towards the other end of the chopstick. But then I thought of my past as a story, which came from my ancestor's stories, which will continue in my children's stories(hopefully) and my student's stories... so I guess it really is a never-ending past because it's a never-ending story.
ReplyDeleteOk, my cheesy corn stops here ^_^.
But I'm adding "never-ending past" to my list of quotes for students to meditate on.