#WQWWC – #Writers Quote Wednesday Writers Challenge – “Faith”
BEACON
Imagine a world where you are trapped in a soundproof box with no light.
You learn what fingers are by feeling your own. You recognize the sensation of a foreign hand around your arm, never knowing when that hand is going to grasp you, push you…strike you.
Imagine never knowing what is out there touching you, or why? For a person of lesser strength, those are the seeds of insanity.
You learn to recognize “outdoors” by the sun’s warmth on your face, a breeze flowing by, the scent of flowers, the touch of odd veins on a leaf, and the wiggle of grass under your feet. Wood burning, a hard floor, bumping into tables and chairs are a signal that you are indoors.
You can smell food, learning the scent is oatmeal. Mushy. You recognize the scent of different meats roasting in an oven. Chewy. You learn to stay away from the hot of a stove or fire and feel for the sensation of wool to wrap around you when you’re cold.
For one such person, she learned how to tell when someone was coming toward her by the vibration of footsteps. She learned to understand language through signs on her hand and listen to voices by touching her fingers to the speaker’s lips. And she became a writer capable of describing that which the eyes could not see and the ears could not hear.
But how do you learn to write if you don’t understand the meaning of words such as; is, am, were, the, which, or shall…the glue words that hold together a sentence?
How do you express the concepts of color, bright, light, dark when their absence is all you know?

From Wikipedia: Helen Keller 1912
Helen Keller achieved that in the quote I chose to write about.
Ms. Keller described the first time she understood an abstract concept. She was learning how to string beads in a sequence, making one error after another:
“Finally I noticed a very obvious error in the sequence and for an instant I concentrated my attention on the lesson and tried to think how I should have arranged the beads. Miss Sullivan touched my forehead and spelled with decided emphasis, “Think.”
In a flash I knew that the word was the name of the process that was going on in my head. This was my first conscious perception of an abstract idea.”
Brilliance is the potential to understand concepts greater than yourself. The faith that helped her accomplish it is what makes Helen Keller stand as a beacon to humanity. She is proof that we can overcome preconceptions and achieve so much more than our senses are capable of perceiving.
© Joelle LeGendre
I don’t think we fully comprehend her achievement. Or realise our own capabilities. If you think about it too much, you get a headache. That’s a measure of our limits.
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That’s probably why I have headaches most of the time. 🙂
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Meet your brother. I just read a blog about MFAs and commented, ‘Making an academic exercise of creating writing is an oxymoron, surely? It scares me how academia can over analyze an art form that struggles to challenge the limits of structure.’ Now I have a headache and I’ve just begun a new chapter. Doh.
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I hear you, brother. 🙂
Doesn’t it seem that many of the people who discover or create amazing things didn’t take college courses to learn why it was impossible? 🙂
I heard a TED talk from a guy in India who developed an inexpensive machine so that women in villages could make a monthly sanitary products. This product is too expensive for most women and girls. Without it, girls couldn’t go to school. He had no formal education, just determination to break through stereotypes and to find ways around a government who wanted to be in control of dispensing pre-made products.
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❤
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Wow! This gave me goosebumps. I loved that you used Helen Keller as your example of faith. That was outstanding. I loved this: “But how do you learn to write if you don’t understand the meaning of words such as; is, am, were, the, which, or shall…the glue words that hold together a sentence? How do you express the concepts of color, bright, light, dark when their absence is all you know?” If you think about what she accomplished in her life with her limitations, it is mind boggling. You did a stupendous job with the idea of faith! ❤
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Thanks. 🙂
As writers, both of us have hit those points where we wonder if our writing is good enough. It’s like a spark of energy to find that someone sees talent in our words.
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I feel the same way. Isn’t that why we write? We want our readers to feel something? I know that is how it is for me… 😀
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Absolutely.
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Pingback: #WQWWC – Writers Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge – Beauty – Silver Threading ~ Fairy Whisperer ~
A very interesting and informative post about a hugely inspirational lady 🙂
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To say about someone, “s/he lived a full life,” seems simple on the surface, but to live a full life when 2 of your senses are missing is phenomenal, and admirable. It is hard for words to express it.
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