Top Ten Actions of Literacy Lovers

Having focused on literacy most of my life, right alongside the privileges and obligations of family life, I’ve finally decided that literate people have more in common with each other than the obvious ability to read and write.  Their thought patterns appear to derive from the cerebrum far more often than the cerebellum.  And you say, huh?  What’s that? 

That’s right.  I maintain that lovers of literacy think more often from their cerebrum where creative and constructive thought processes begin, not from that old brain cerebellum where its rigid, primitive, restricted, mindlessly automatic and programmed responses occur. 

Yes, we have and need both operations in order to reason and create consciously as well as think quickly and perform repetitive actions.  Our collective problem here is too often we allow the quick and repetitive cerebellum to take control over too many critical decisions.

Without getting political, I’ll let you read between the lines at any point.  Below is what I consider to be the top ten actions of literacy lovers, now referred to as LL:

#1  LL get in touch with nature whenever they can. Some people I know have gardens with compost heaps and wash lines.  Some live in Colorado and post their hiking photos every week on FB.

#2  LL consider eating sacred.  Preparing food for others is even more sacred.  They use pure organic foods whenever possible and seldom leave their bodies to chance.

#3  LL meditate, love quiet time, pray, and make a serious effort to relax.

#4  LL connect with animals.  Some even spend big bucks on life saving surgery for pets. And one couple I know began feeding the voles that crawled under the back fence for the bird seed scattered on the ground and built a little fence to protect them from feral cats.  That is, until they began feeding the homeless cats.

#5  LL regard their body as the temple of God and take special care of the precious gift of life.

#6  LL look at cash as an enabler, a means to an end and not the end itself, especially if they can spread it around.

#7  LL help others and have a serious concern for the welfare of all people, especially hungry children.

#8  LL create art, music, literature and if they can’t, they surround themselves with the art, music and literature of others.

#9  LL love the feel and smell of books even though they’re intrigued with technology.

#10 LL constantly work to improve their writing, speaking, and listening skills in order to communicate more effectively with people.  They aren’t afraid of hearing ideas different from their own and appreciate learning about the “other.”

We are often fooled into thinking very basically.  The unfortunate effects of that kind of thinking can lead us to cold dogmatism and automatic rule following that strip us of our power, not to mention creativity.  My friends, it’s a vicious cycle.  We must love our literacy enough to let it permeate our lives, for the end result will be freedom, security, and harmony with men, women, and children, and with God and the natural world.