Learning Activities

The "Hurricane Story"

A version of the following appears in a curriculum entitled "If Only Today You Knew... The Things That Make for Peace" For Christian High Schools & Youth Groups, by Dr. James McGinnis (from the Institute for Peace and Justice in St Louis) with Kevin LaNave.

Objectives: As educators, I believe there are a number of important common places/territories to be attentive to as we travel the journey of justice-and-peace education with students.

I believe one of the most important places is when students express a sense of being overwhelmed by the presence, power, complexity and extensiveness of injustice in the world, and their own sense of powerlessness in the face of it.

Students arrive at this "place" at different times. Some will begin the course there, and may have even decided already to "give up" the pursuit of justice. Others may arrive at it sometime during the course (often, after studying a specific justice issue in some depth).

The following activity is designed to engage the students as a group to potential encounters with that "place" in the journey - and to support you in "being-with" and "accompanying them through" it.

Proedure:

  1. Share the following story with the students:

    It was about midway through a semester-long course in justice and peace. The teacher believed that such courses should not just be a constant study of stories and information -- that people need to pause periodically to listen to what's happening within each of us as we travel the journey.

    So she set aside a class period for reflection, prayer and sharing about "how this journey is currently affecting you." At the end of the period, a student handed her the following note:

    "This course has made me feel like I'm on a beach --
    and there is a hurricane pouring at me --
    and all I'm able to do is breathe a little bit into it.

    She was stunned -- for while she had frequently heard people express a strong sense of being overwhelmed by the reality, extensiveness, and complexity of injustice, and a sense of personal powerlessness in the fact of it, she had never before heard it expressed so deeply, and poetically.

    She knew she had to respond, but wasn't sure what to say.

    If you had been in her shoes, what message would you offer to the student?

  2. Invite students to individually reflect on, then share (first in pairs, then in a large group) how they might respond.

  3. Processing suggestions for the teacher

    • This activity is designed primarily to surface what's within students' minds and hearts, not to "give them the right answer." It will likely reveal key ideas and spiritual perspectives that they currently have, which are valuable to be aware of.
    • Hopefully, students are somewhat ready to respond to one another's ideas through dialogue (not just to listen passively to them). It can be valuable to facilitate discussion that leads everyone deeper (but that avoids becoming a debate).

The following is one possible response to consider (this is based on the response I gave initially to the student, and have developed since then)

I decided to begin by affirming his sharing -- that I deeply appreciated his openness, honesty, and depth. I've learned that communicating a sense of 'being heard' is vital. But I've also learned that he needed more than that from me.

When I reflect on my own journey, as an educator on justice and peace and as a person dealing with the call to live justly in my own life, I remember a time when my anthem was "You can make a difference!" But I knew that if I just wrote this to him, he could just write back, "Didn't you listen? All I can do is breathe a little bit into it."

I remembered how that "individualistic message" has given way in my journey to a sense of "communal response-ability". So I decided to write instead, "What happens when you reflect on the fact that you are not alone on the beach -- that there are others, countless others, who are standing there with you, breathing in the same direction?" As I wrote, I thought of experiences that have shown me how powerful communal activity and life for justice can be, and how inspired I've been when I've considered how such communities can stretch beyond space and time, including those who have 'gone before us, marked with the sign of faith in justice.'

I sensed that image could be helpful to him; but I also sensed that even this alternative anthem of "We can make a difference!" was insufficient. What if he wrote back to me, "Think about it. A hurricane can destroy all of us."?

I struggled to search deeper -- and I began to notice some messages I had heard, but in a different way than I had thought of them before:

  • I thought of the following quote from Martin Luther King, Jr: "Let us believe that we have cosmic companionship -- that the arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. . . . Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again. No lie can live forever."
  • I thought of the following words spoken by the character of Mahatma Gandhi in Gandhi: "When I despair, I remember that, all through history, the way of peace and love has always won. There have been tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible; but in the end, they always fall. Think of that -- often -- whenever you are in doubt that the way of peace and love is God's way, the way the world is meant to be. Then try to do it God's way."
  • I thought of the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. I have been raised in and nourished by the Catholic Christian tradition; yet the story of Jesus gained a new meaning as I wrote, "What happens if you consider the possibility that God is standing with you/us on the beach -- breathing into the hurricane, and yearning to breathe in and through us?"

When I shared this image with a group of students a couple of years later, one student responded, "You could get crucified doing that." I paused, then smiled, and said, "You're right."

In the face of the hurricane of injustice, I have come to believe that deeper than the message of "I can make a difference" and "we can make a difference" is the message that "there is a reality greater than ourselves that is making a difference" -- and that this reality invites us to say "yes", to "participate" in the process.

© Center for Service-Learning and Social Change (Kevin LaNave) November 2, 2002