Thursday, January 9, 2014

Magic Box

Before the holidays, a friend of mine who works on the Tolerance Club with me presented all of us sponsors with beautiful little round boxes fashioned from handmade paper and festooned with colorful peace signs. Inside there was a little bundle of paper slips, and inked on each was a meditation word.

When the usual rowdy writers (or non-writers as the case may be) showed up for writing club today, most of them crowded around one table, and with lap tops open proceded to talk over each other, loudly. A few minutes in, I called them individually to my desk and had them each draw a slip of paper from my pretty green box. The challenge was to use the word or concept in their writing.

It was funny when the first student pulled stillness from the box, because she happens to be the most manic of them all. Next the resident griper chose gratitude. Mr. Unfocused got mindfulness, and the girl who never seems to question that things will go her way chose hope. Their brows furrowed. The student who always wants more-- more snacks, more school supplies, more writing, you name it-- pulled out contentment. The newest member who seems to quietly suffer through the mayhem chose patience, and the guy who sits all by himself and has for a while ended up with forgiveness.

Did it make a difference? Not really, or rather, who knows? That's a lot of bullseyes for a little green box; perhaps there were a few other repercussions as well.

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