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Over at HighCallingBlogs.com Erica Hale has been leading a discussion of Bill Strickland’s book Making the Impossible Possible. She just loaded part 3 today, and it is a whopper. She writes,
Despite being young and inexperienced, Strickland refused to let the frustration of fighting against the identity of poverty and defeat stop him from achieving his dream. When people failed to come, he walked the streets in search of people willing to take a chance on finding a new identity.
And what a philosophy of identity Bill Strickland has over at the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild in Pittsburgh. He has spent his career teaching people that everyone has “something beautiful to show, something valuable to share, some powerful story to tell.
I love his ideas about beauty and hope and responsibility. Beauty, Strickland argues, inspires hope. It reminds us that we are human–and that we have a responsibility to add more beauty to the world before we leave. Strip out all of the Christian speak from TheHighCalling.org, and you’ll find a similar message.
What you do matters. You actions matter to the people around you. Your work matters to the world around you. What you create is important to the Creator. We get so busy. We get so trapped in our own tiny worlds and neighborhoods that we forget to create beauty. Sometimes we even forget how to see it.
In the worst of circumstances like the Manchester ghetto of the 1970s where Strickland found himself, there may not even much beauty to find.
But like Strickland, we have to go out and find beauty. There is truth in beauty. And hope. And we have a responsibility to the world when it comes to these things.
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- Chapter 3: Born Identity (highcallingblogs.com)
- Beauty and Hope (Erica Hale at anerissara.blogspot.com)
- The Story Artist (nytimes.com)
- Books link people together (goodwordediting.com)
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