Summer reading

I have been trying to get a lot of reading done this summer in preparation for my courses in the Fall and as I try to work on writing articles about education in China.

I am also reading Three Cups of Tea. I got it with a view to the class I will teach in the spring: comparative education. This book has come to mean so much to me since I started reading it. It is the true story of Greg Mortensen and how he takes hold of his predestined opportunities to make the world a better place, overcoming immense obstacles to build his first school in the mountainous areas of Pakistan. The book reads like a breathtaking adventure story from the mountain climbing episode in the first few chapters beyond the successful completion of his first school. You are touched by his humility, conviction and cultural sensitivity and by all the lessons that he learns along the way and all the small victories in bridging the divides between human hearts and minds that he experiences. The book touches the soul and inspires laughs and tears like all good books. Mortensen has lived a life that I have only wished for. The fact that he is also a "child of africa" is further endearing to me. Needless to say I will include this among my class readings. Please read it. You won't be sorry. According to the Facebook group "Promoting Peace One School at a Time" if you buy the book by clicking on the Amazon.com link on the website www.threecupsoftea.com then 7% of the proceeds will go toward a scholarship fund for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"Is any larger bounty conceivable than this, that an individual, looking within himself, should find that by the confirming grace of God he has become the cause of peace and well-being, of happiness and advantage to his fellow men? No, by the one true God, there is no greater bliss, no more complete delight."
(Abdu'l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 2)