TEN YEARS OLD AND COUNTING

When I was ten years old, growing up in Los Angeles in a regular middle class neighborhood with all white people, some who had problems =with Jewish people too, I met my first black person when she came to our home one day a week to clean for my mom.  Her name was Minerva 

  Minerva.  I didn't really notice her color in any significant way.  I just noticed she had darker skin, and I thought nothing of it at the time.  At 7:30AM on the one day per week she came to our small house, I sat with her at the kitchen table as she drank a cup of coffee, black with no cream, while eating a piece of toast.  We sat across from each other just talking and sharing.calmly and honestly. 

I had about 30 minutes with Minerva before I walked the two blocks to my elementary school.   Minerva was the first human being to "see" me.  She always made eye contact, and her voice remained even and kind.  She talked with me, not down to me.  I did not have words at the time for how she met me equally.  I only knew she was different than most adults who spoke to me as a younger person, not considered a full human yet.

At the age of 10, I learned how much Minerva was being paid for the eight hours of work on this one day, and her two hour roundtrip travel by bus across Los Angeles.  I immediately asked my parents to double her pay out of fairness and justice.  They did.  They listened to me.

Years later, when I was 23 years old, I received a phone call from Minerva's family in Los Angeles, inviting me to her funeral.  I lived 400 miles away at that time, and I didn't think I mattered that much to the family, for me  to attend the funeral.  I took the invitation as a "nice" thing, but not that special.   I later found out, that I was the only White person close to Minerva, and she had told her family about me. 

I was fortunate to go to the only high school in Los Angeles that had a blend of white, black and Latino students that simply came together without making it happen.  And it was my own experience with extreme prejudice at the age of five that gave me a sample of what it is like to be marginalized, hated and spit on for having an identity of being Jewish, something I was not aware that I was, when five. 

I soon learned how the dominant white world controlled things, and often made war on people of color, and did so believing they were right and justified.   I did get to visit Milton Anderson at his home with his family when I was 16.  Milton was another Black man in my high school. 

Then I went on to teach high school only to find the principal segregating the black students from the white students.  I did speak up right away.  I did lose my job, but that was OK.  Then I got to work among Native Americans for three years, and found the same marginalization, a word that seems too sweet for what was happening.   Again I spoke up and reached out, and lost the job, but gained many friends and fellow and sister lovers of people. 

Today, I can get angry and frustrated with the continuing injustice and ignorance around color, dominant cultures, and children everywhere. I am left with devoting my life to finding ways to stand with and for all people.     

In a dream I had years ago, my father, a man who died decades ago, stepped out of an elevator that had just descended, walked towards me at my present age, as I stood alone in an old wood paneled courtroom.  He walked right up to me, looked me in the eye, and said, "Your life is about fairness and Justice."  He then turned around, walked to the elevator, stepped in and the doors closed and he ascended. 

These stories keep me awake, and remind me to make contact with everyone I meet.
Even if just a simple Hi.. 

-- 

BEING A WHITE GUY

I am a white guy who grew up in Los Angeles decades ago.  My high school was the only one in Los Angeles to have a blend of people of color, and white students. 

However, I only came to know my first Native American person when I was 26 years old.  I had been teaching in a Fresno, California high school when I noticed all the Black students were in one classroom, separate from others.  When I discovered the principal was segregating the students, I brought it to the attention of the State. 

 I was a first year teacher, having just turned twenty-three.  Before notifying the State, each of the twenty two teachers agreed to share what they knew to the investigators.  Officials arrived.  A hearing was held, and I was terminated.  Afraid of losing their jobs, none of the twenty-two teachers spoke up at the hearing.  

 The principal remained for another 10 years.  The unresolved segregation continued.  I was still 23 years old, had one wife and two small children, and in search of a new job.
 
Of course, the termination was a blessing.  Not only did I find a job, I became aware that some people will stand up for others, and some are not ready to.  I was hired to "counsel" Native Americans and coordinate a government sponsored project to allegedly train young native people (Indians) to be welders and electricians. 

 I had never known a Native person except in movies.  I had believed that "Indians" were all the things that "white people" were not.  Soon, I discovered the meaning and practice of the word Sacred.  Soon, I discovered the meaning of Relationship and family.  It was Linda Worldturner, a Lakota Sioux 18-year-old young woman who told me, "everything in life is about relationship."  

My life changed.  For three years, I learned to transcend all my learned beliefs about Native people and culture, and instead found "home."  I soon became an advocate, among the all-white staff, for the 200 students from many tribes around the country. 
 
That advocacy role was a natural one.  I knew my time at this project was limited, yet 
the job and income was secondary to advocate for fairness and justice.  No choice. 

By this time, I realized that my work in the world was to find ways to bring people together, to see the third side to things, and to practice seeing, not only through my own eyes, but the eyes of others as well.   



 

WHO CREATED WONDER?

When I was twelve-years old, and in the sixth grade, something  happened to me, "or for me".  Without my permission,  my spontaneous self wondered about stuff out loud.  It all started when I was sitting in the classroom, quietly wondering, not aware I was doing something that had a name.  Until that moment, I wondered all the time, but didn't have a language for it.

I never thought to wonder about wonder.  It's what we did, kinda like breathing.  I didn't think about breathing,  it just happened.  Same with wonder.  I mean, wonder has no limits.

One day, my silent thoughts innocently burst out into the classroom of thirty girl and boy twelve-year-olds., plus one teacher.  My silent secret wonder emerged in sound and words for everyone to hear.  Like breathing,  I wasn't attached to my words nor asking for a response.  I remember the words really well.  In the middle of an arithmetic lesson, like an uncontrollable tapping foot, and speaking to no one in particular, and with no pre-thought, my wonder filled the room:   

"There must be something more to being alive than going to school, getting grades, graduating, then going to another school...or not, then finding someone to live with,having children, going to a therapist, getting a divorce, getting cancer, then dying.  If that is all there is to being alive,it ain't very interesting." 

My sixth grade teacher stopped her lesson immediately, stared at me with an expression of disbelief.  “What did you say?” she asked in a tone of, what I interpreted as awe.  ,"Wow” I thought, “she must be interested in what I said, 'cause she asked me to repeat it."  I had a momentary flash that she was impressed with my observation.   I repeated my words best I could, this time with a little more volume:

"There must be something more to being alive than going to school, getting grades, graduating, then going to another school...or not, getting a job, then finding someone to live with. having children, going to a therapist, getting a divorce, getting cancer, then dying.  If that is all there is to being alive, it ain't very interesting."  This time, believing I had said a good thing, I added, "Actually, this also sounds meaningless and boring."

My teacher reacted differently than I expected.  She walked over to my desk, grabbed my arm tightly, and walked me down the long hall to the principal's office.  “He disrupted the class,” she said, and repeated some of  my words, out of context as I remember.  I was questioned, recommended for counseling, and sent home. 

 I’ve always wondered about everything.  I didn’t know I was wondering.  It just happened without my knowledge.  I assumed wondering was what brains and heads did.  No big deal.   I didn’t even have a name for wondering.   

Thoughts just emerged silently and spread throughout my everyday world of play, thinking and finding the Yes in those around me.  I wondered who created God.  Who created the creator of God?  I wondered why we are all here on this planet, how did we get here, who or what runs things?  Because I thought these things, I thought everyone else did too.  Seemed obvious to me that everyone would think or wonder these same things.  I mean, I did.  

 

HAPPENS FOR ME, NOT TO ME (Pt 2)

At the age of 30,, I made a conscious decision to free myself from all the beliefs I carried, not my own.  And to grow past the need to react, blame and “’have to be right.”  I wanted to get free of the burden "of the psychology of things."   

I wanted to simply notice, and observe self-doubt as it flows through me, clinging to nothing, with no need, on my part, to cling to it.    
  

I decided to extract myself from the belief that my history was damaging.  Instead I realized that everything that has  happened in my life since childhood, happened for me, not to me.  Happened for me, not to me.  Joyful or painful, I got to experience what other humans might feel.
 

I could forever feel victimized and damaged, or find great compassion and caring for others.   Caring about, and for others, is easier and more satisfying.  

I decided I wanted to be present all the time.  I want to feel everything.  I want to be free of being at the affect of others.  I want to be available  for others.  I want to use all my senses, 

I discovered I am the one to be there, (or their) for others either with words, when invited, or in silence, or even better, by freeing them from the story I may carry about them.  This becomes a sacred journey.

WITHOUT CONFLICT, EVERYONE WINS

I made an agreement with my twenty-one-year old son.  It was one of those agreements where everyone wins.  Everyone is right.  And there is personal reward for both people. 

I began to notice that sometimes, in reaction to something he said or did, my voice tone would be judgmental, blaming, frustrated or disrespectful.  I was aware that I do not talk that way to other people. 

My son, in reaction, would quite naturally, react with a tone of explanation or defense, probably feeling wrong.  These mini-conflicts stood out as a pattern, an unnecessary one.  I wanted to change the pattern. I suggested a fun mutual agreement.  “I give you a dollar,” I suggested,  “each time my voice tone is frustrated, blaming or disrespectful.  And you give me a dollar any time you defend yourself, or instinctively defer to me."

He agreed.  Weeks later, no one owes anything to the other.  Now I immediately notice my "reacting" tone of voice in the first sentence, and he instinctively notices his defending or apologetic tone about to happen.  We then simply stop and smile instead.    

We relax smile and no conflict happens.  We don't go there anymore.  I "get to" remember to speak to him the same way I speak to others.  And he hears his defensive tone, before itis spoken.  It is this simple.  We play instead..

THE PEACEMAKER / ELDER WITHIN

RELI w      I wanted to find the peacemaker, leader and elder within me. I wanted to be free of having to make others wrong, or right.  I wanted to be free of reacting, aware that reacting to anything is always up to me.  No one makes me react. I wanted to change the game of side-taking, and the need to judge others.  I decided it was up to me to make this happen.

                 There are actions I can take, all by myself, in all relationships at work, home, and in the world, that do not require anything from anyone else. These actions are simple, immediate and inspiring. I can witness the change I want to see in the world and at home immediately. I can feel the shift of perception so that my perceived enemies become my guides and reflected shadow. They become, in the truest and most real sense, my teachers.

My intent is to interrupt some of what I’ve learned to believe about women, men, children, schools, apparent helpless body symptoms, relationships, working, and simply being alive. I can practice ways to immediately alter and change conflict, admonishment, and "make wrong" into respectful voluntary collaboration. I can practice working with myself to be free of blame, "having to be right,"  or need to sustain emotional positions.  I can even find the third side to bring the two sides together. To make this happen, I first decide I want to, and can go beyond the impossible  Impossible is a belief.  The instructions are there to follow with intent, intuition and senses.  It is a practice.  Freeing.           

DE-ADULTING #2

I believe that our son was born to show me how to de-adult myself to reveal and unravel all the beliefs I learned that are not mine, beliefs designed to construct an adult -- serious, appearing to be confident, hurried, busy, someone else’s definition of success, a world with little room for play, innocence, spontaneity - yet filled with rights and wrongs, should's, rules, regulations and a belief that these adult people should be in charge of children, demanding and authoritative.

Our son, from birth on, would have no part of this serious diversion from life. He would have no part of it, ever.  And I have met many children who would have no part of it.  They often become the so-called trouble makers, drop outs and ADD/ADHD diagnosed.

 To stay personal however, from birth on, our son insisted on forcing me to change my perception, to play, to laugh, to un-serious myself. I was in training and fortunately, for him and for me, I knew that, and welcomed it. He first reached into the hidden softness of my heart, through my veils of hardness and learned beliefs not my own, when he told me, at the age of five, "I don't need you to be with me. I need you to be with yourself. When you are with yourself, you are with me."