Report: Thinkers' Club Session 20

Date: 21^st December, 2014
Session # 20
Attended by: 13 participants
Report written by: Zainab Salman

Today was the 20^th Session of Thinker’s Club. When most of the children had arrived, we gathered up in the library, dragging chairs to form a circle. When all of us were seated, we recalled what we had done in the last two sessions as some children had joined us after a long time.

Then, we were told to make ‘I can’ and ‘I have’ lists, separately, in two minutes each including the best things you have and can do, right now.  (This task had been done before in another session, but most kids hadn’t completed it before so we were doing it again.) When we were done, we observed that our lists consisted of both types of ‘I cans’, the one we can do right now, and the ones we can do but haven’t done yet. We also shared the best things we have, and some things from the list, I can. 

We realized, that we have numerous blessings, and little time and we can’t thank God for all the things we have. 

Then we were asked if we had ever met a blind or a deaf person and spent time with them? Some of us had, and they shared their experience and how they felt after meeting that person. We all thanked God for making us perfect and blessing us with all the senses. Then we were asked the question “Was God unfair to those who he made blind or deaf?” Some discussed the question with each other, while others thought quietly about it.  Here are the answers we came up with:

   1.    Maybe god made some people blind and some deaf because he wanted to save those people from the sins we commit by looking or listening to wrong or inappropriate things.

   2.    Perhaps those people were very close to God, so he decided to test them if they would still thank him if he took something away from them.

   3.    Those people have other senses that are sharper than usual to help them in their life.

   4.    Maybe God wanted to punish them about the wrong deeds they did, so he took away their eyesight/hearing.

   5.    God made everyone equal, but in a different way. Those people have some hidden talent or rare ability that will make up for their disability.

                                                       
 We also talked about the American Writer, businessman, and motivational speaker, W.Mitchell, who had miraculously survived two accidents in which he had burned some of his body. He has said that “Before my accidents, there were ten thousands things I could do. I could spend the rest of my life dwelling on the things that I had lost, but instead I chose to focus on the nine thousand I still had left.”

Then everybody asked lots of questions related to our discussion in today’s session, and the questions were noted. They will be answered by the next session.

We ended the session by watching a Video Clip of a short talk by Nick Vujicic, a man who was born without limbs, also a motivational speaker and author of three books.

Overall this session was meaningful, and it made me think.