*Another excerpt from my Inspiration Journal which I kept a few years back in Cathryn Hankla’s Image and Word course at Hollins University. *
“Do we celebrate Hanukkah?”
“No.”
“Why? Because we’re not Irish?”
“No, because we’re not Jewish.”
“Do we celebrate Kwanzaa?”
“No.”
“Why? Because we’re not Jewish?”
“No.”
“Do we celebrate Christmas?”
“Yes.”
“Do Jewish people celebrate Christmas?”
“No.”
“Why? Because they’re not Irish?”
Analee doesn’t wait for me to answer but starts cheerfully singing “Light the Menorah” and then closes with this final question:
“What’s a dreidel?”
This is adorable. And kind of profound.
ReplyDeleteThanks Becky. Ana's always been a delight. She didn't wait for me to explain any of the concepts above before asking her next question. I tried to figure out what she was thinking, how she brought the Irish into the "Holiday Diversity" equation and I think it has to do with the use of "Ish" which she was learning about in language arts, how to label and separate word groups based on suffixes. (Well to me this is a fascinating thing) the way we try to understand the world through the words which we use to describe it, so I see that coming to play in this as well...as she was learning words can be grouped, she was also learning to group people (which goes against diversity in some ways? maybe? but as to the religious aspects here...well, I could write an essay on the interconnectedness of belief systems to begin with and how they too become separated by these weird things called "words."
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