Feeding Our Mental Fires

The other day our family was riding in the van on our way to a friend's house.  For reasons that escape me, we started talking about how people keep learning as grownups, even after they leave school.  Evan, who equates learning with school, was quite astonished by the concept of 'life lessons'.  McKenna, being the older and therefore all-knowing sibling, began to explain how important it is to keep learning all the time.  She decided to relate an analogy from her beloved second-grade teacher.

"Mrs. Smith says that our minds are like a fire.  And we have to keep putting wood into our fire so that it can keep burning.  So knowledge is like wood.  We keep putting knowledge in our minds and the fire gets bigger.  More wood makes a bigger fire.  Understand?"

Evan reflected on that for a moment before saying, "If you burn trash, it makes a big fire."

Outraged, McKenna almost shouted, "Knowledge is not trash!"

Evan looked at her and shrugged.  "Just sayin' . . . trash does make a pretty big fire."

Ryan and I laughed for a good long while over that one.