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| 2008/05/02 13:16:12瀏覽582｜回應0｜推薦1 | |
| First Prize, "Share the Dream" Essay Contest by Joyce Koo 1995 I can't talk to you about justice when i'm sitting in my suburban house while five-year-old Shana sleeps in a shelter somewhere. I met Shanna at Our House, a daytime nursery for homeless children. i don't know how she ended up at Our House, if she knows who her father is, or if she thinks her life is normal. Insecurity is normal in her life. She's probably seen more crimes take place on the streets of Atlanta than episodes of Sesame Street on TV. There's no peace with justice in Shana's world, but Shana doesn't know any other world. She is just as energetic and willing to play as any other five-year-old. There are so many thoughts I want to share with this little black girl with sparkling eyes. But how can I tell her that she isn't supposed to live in shelters every night? How can I tell her that it's unfair that I live in a nice neighborhood and she doesn't? I want to show Shana that I believe in her. No matter what kind of obstacles she'll face in the future, I want to tell her she can overcome them. But of course, I couldn't explain this to a five-year-old, so I did the only thing I could do: I played games with her; then we colored. That's when Shana convinced me that she must dream of a better world. She asked me to draw a picture of a house for her. I told her to pick out the colors for her house. Shana thoughtfully handed me a blue crayon. I outlined the house, and Shana colored it in. Together, we built a dream house. As she added a front yard with flowers and ten suns to her picture, I drew another picture covered with different colored hearts and stars--the hearts for the love and the stars for the hope I wanted to give her. Artistically, the picture I drew was far from beautiful, but to the eyes of a five-year-old, it was a masterpiece. Shana and I shared our dreams by exchanging pictures. Without words, she expressed her vision of peace with justice in our world. It is a world with blue houses, flowers in the front yard, and ten suns in the sky. Shana's picture may not be realistic nor bring peace to the Middle East. In that moment, however, thoughts of unrest in the world never entered my mind. I was too busy thinking about a little homeless girl's vision of peace to think about the injustices. When we share our hopes and dreams with each other, an amazing thing happens: we stop thinking about what we can't do, and we start thinking about what we can do for each other. I may not be able to solve problems of world peace or even stop crime in Atlanta, but every time I look at Shana's picture, I am reminded that I can share the dream. |
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