Living and Learning Peacefully

Thursday turned out to be quite a day of fun, excitement and learning! We added some fun new activities to our morning rounds. Mixing it up with fun variations provided us with opportunities to expand our minds to encompass many new ways to sustain peaceful living. Today we are also giving a shout out to our wonderful cook Molly, who has a birthday tomorrow. We thank her for all the love and support she selflessly gives to everyone. Peace Village would not be the same without her. (She also makes the best cheesecake I have ever tasted in my entire life! No joke!)

Peace Heroes, as the name suggests, offers us a glimpse into the past. This was one of our new morning activities. Through fun games we learned inspiring stories from some of our greatest peace-makers through the ages. As someone famous once said, study those who were successful yesterday to be successful today.

Next was Media Literacy. We studied the wide world of advertising and learned how to tell the truth underneath the propaganda. As a whole we learned to read the fine print and decipher what was really being said. We created our own adds and hopefully were able to carry away many skills that we can apply to our every day lives. For the media is everywhere and if one isn't wary there lies the possibility to be duped into decisions one would rather not make.

Last, but certainly not least, was art. We followed the creative vision of our fabulous artist-in-residence. On the first day all the campers drew charcoal drawings of the flowers we brought for the opening ceremony. And today we transferred our drawings onto a large flag in the shape of a heart enclosed inside a peace sign. This symbol represents our uniqueness but how we can all come together to create unity.

World peace was our theme throughout the day, and how we all play a small part in creating this ideal. In the words of singer/songwriters Leila and Ellie Grace, "We will join together drop by drop until a drop becomes a flood."

Martha