Last week's post was, "Wake Up" so naturally this week is about getting to work. If I want us to live in a democracy I need to get to work.
I don't feel like I'm particularly trained or skilled in any particular area, so I have to volunteer to my strengths and inclinations, to my, let's call them enthusiasms.
As much as taking a baseball bat to my frustrations sounds cathartic, it is really not the way.
So what are my enthusiasms, what draws my admiration, what gives me joy?
Camping, ceremony, preparedness, ecology, democracy the live long day, Baden Powell, James West, William D. Boyce, and so forth.
One of the first things Hitler did when he came to power was outlaw the Scouts of Germany. Several of the members of the White Rose belonged to underground, illegal Scout troops. There were underground, illegal Scout organizations behind the Iron Curtain in Poland. I firmly believe if ANY of the boys on the island had been scouts the Lord of the Flies would never have happened.
I had become slightly disillusioned with the Boy Scouts of America (soon to be renamed Scouting America) because of the way the organization had gone about making changes. I don't necessarily disagree with the changes, more the way they were handled.
Fundamentally, though, scouting is still the same. You can't go wrong with the Scout Law.
A scout is:
Trustworthy
Loyal
Helpful
Friendly
Courteous
Kind
Obedient
Cheerful
Thrifty
Brave
Clean and
Reverant
So I re-volunteered with my local Scouting America council (Northeast Illinois Council).
I've also been very interested, fascinated, and concerned about the indigenous people of the Americas. I have a BA in Anthropology because I wanted to be as educated about these people as I could be. I feel very embarrassed to find out only recently how many Native Americans live in and around Chicago and how many organizations they have in the area.
On top of that, November is National Native American Heritage Month.
I also volunteered with the American Indian Center of Chicago.
I think the first way is to try to help get the word out about the Native American organizations in our area. If anyone reads this that didn't know anything about these then I hope that I helped even a tiny bit. I'll post some links below.
I do love writing fiction, but I don't have the skills at this point to write things like Animal Farm, or 1984, or Fahrenheit 451. Maybe someday, and when I can I will do that also.
Here are some links to Native organizations in the Chicago area:
The D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at The Newberry Library
1 comment:
It seems small and unrelated, but I volunteered at my local botanical garden in their archives. It seemed like a nice way to be helpful and be around plants. But then I realized archives are part of the way we engage with our stories and tell new versions of them. Addressing colonialist natural history history starts there. I can be a small part of rewriting historical interpretations, righting the wrongs of extraction, and making sure we build towards a decolonial future.
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