Garbage

“The world sends us garbage . . .

. . . We send back music.”

You won’t believe this story!

Human worth, value, and dignity come only from God who gives it.

Watch our two minute video to find out why (full text below). 

No person is a “throw away,” because all persons are made in God’s image.

Subscribe to “Truth in Two” videos from Comenius (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), hosts a weekly radio program with diverse groups of guests (1 minute video), and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).

Picture Credit: Snappy Goat

FULL TEXT:

Alan Jacobs, distinguished professor of literature at Baylor University, tells this story.

In a city in Paraguay you may find a curious assembly of musicians called The Recycled Instruments Orchestra of Cateura. But these instruments are not professionally designed and built objects that have been discovered and repaired. These instruments are made out of recycled materials. Violins are constructed from cans and twisted forks. A cello is formed from a discarded oil drum. A saxophone is built from a drain pipe and a few bent spoons. Most of the musicians are teenagers from Cateura, which is a slum – slum built on a landfill. They too are among the world’s discards, thought to be without value, people in whom society invests no hope. But Fabio Chavez, the creator and director of the orchestra, has invested in them. He has said, “People realize that we should not throw away trash carelessly. Well, we should not throw away people either.”[1]

At The Comenius Institute, this is our takeaway: No person should be “thrown away.”

Babies in the womb. Elderly with dementia. Single mothers working to support their children. Students with differentiated needs. Financially strapped families. Members of any social group different than our own. All people, no matter their looks, their status, their finances, their identity, their work, or their affiliations, all people are made in God’s image. Everyone is imbued with worth, value, and dignity – no matter who they are. The question we must ask ourselves is “Do we accept people for what they do or for who they are?”

As Fabio Chavez says about his teenagers, an orchestra built from and on a landfill, “The world sends us garbage, we send back music.”

For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, President of the Comenius Institute, personally seeking Truth wherever it’s found.

[1] Alan Jacobs, “Filth Therapy: A Cunning Word,” Comment Magazine Summer 2017, pp. 35-36.