WHO ARE THE CHILDREN, REALLY?

Racism in the world demands justice and fairness.  Everything and everyone demand fairness and justice.  Children around the world, of all cultures, demand fairness and justice.  And what would that look like?  What about the concept of authority, parenting, teaching  and raising "them," ultimately being in charge of the children in our lives---our own, or someone elses?

Many of our ideas about children are rooted in the same kind of fear and beliefs that form the artificial division between people of different races, gender and religions ….the belief that those different from us, are less than, or in some way, so different, that we tend to marginalize, dismiss and patronize them, if not out loud, then in our thoughts.  These attitudes are not naturally occurring in children or us.  They are taught.  

If we wanted, what would it take to step out of our adult/parent/hiearchal roles and beliefs, to see clearly who children are behind their size, age and appearing to be, disturbing behaviors?  We were children once.  We noticed how the adults in our lives knew little about who we were, what we knew or how we felt.  .  It wasn’t that they couldn’t, they just didn’t know how.  And there is no blame intended here.  None at all.  They too, were following rules, beliefs, fears and habits they had learned from the adults in their lives. 

If we were fortunate, we had at least one adult in our childhood that saw who we were completely and equally; able to connect with us beneath our size and age.  If so, we can be that for all the children we meet and know and live with now.  Age and physical size do not automatically exclude children from choice, decision making, respect and freedom from condescending, patronizing attitudes. 

As we access our own innocence, lightness of play, sensitivity, spontaneity, and pure presence, that may rest dormant within our own bodies and minds, we can more easily be with the children around us – almost all children, with ease, humor, kindness, and, free from any role identity.  The children “out there,” are us inside.  When we do not know and feel that, we become easily disturbed by them.

It is fair and just that children be seen as whole, exquisitely sensitive, wise, highly perceptive human beings that are no less, nor more than the bigger, older people in this world.  As we free the children from our learned beliefs that may not be our own, we free ourselves.  We reclaim our own innocence, play and inclusion of everyone.  We become what we want to see in others, and in the world.

REPENT

A young man was standing on the street, calmly and quietly.  He was handing out religious thoughts.  For some reason, I stopped and talked to him.  He handed me a small piece of paper that read, "Repent."  That's it.  One word. 

Respectfully, I faced him and asked, "What would I be repenting from?"  He was silent, holding the question for a moment. "Your sins," he replied.  "What is that sin?" I asked.

"Your conscience," he replied, "When you know the right thing to do, and you don't do it."  

 I had expected a different answer. The truth of his words startled me. I had nothing more to say. Out of my own silence, I thanked him and put the piece of paper with the word "repent" in my pocket. 

Moments later, my son and I came upon two street musicians, a white man and a Black man.   I stopped to listen for a moment. The black man noticed us and walked over.  He thanked us for being there.  As we started to walk away, he smiled a real smile and asked for a donation. His voice was simply a question.  I said something about bringing money
back later when we return, an empty statement I have often said to end the contact.  He smiled again. 

I felt the word "repent" in my pocket.  I walked back and stood directly in front of him.   I gently placed my hand on his shoulder and thanked him. I told him the story of what I had just learned with the religious man.  I showed him the word Repent.  I gave him some money and said, "The right thing to do is give you this money."  I felt a great release....  a gentle repent.   He teared up and we embraced.. 

SOFT HEARTS:

I continue to find that men in our culture, almost all, including me, are brought up in ways by the parents, schools, and culture, to be harder than they are inside. My own journey with softening, and finding the Yes in people, required lots of experience judging others, and a carrying of beliefs not my own, unaware I was carrying them. 

 When many of us "males" get down to tears, we are free. Really free. Getting to those tears, which represent our hearts shining through, requires a softness greater than our own, if for only moments. Our tears transcend judgment, make wrong, and all our learned beliefs. Our tears, or at least moments close to them, break the cultural trance, and all the teaching we received from our parents, teachers and bosses. 

Three women in my life, saw through my hardness and coldness, and blame stuff.   One male friend did too. It only took moments for me to discover that I was holding a belief, an attitude, a "distance" from those around me. It took a few people, and still does, that see me inside, (the hidden innocence), and have the gift of holding silence and space for a minute while I rant, blame or find fault. That quiet heartful space allows and invites me to come home to myself....the self when I was a very little child.  

Emotionally safe is what is required.  It is as though whatever I say with my mouth is less important than holding me, remembering who I really am inside, and
knowing that my blame and judgment are a protective shield I developed when young....surviving a world of parents, teachers often finding me wrong, or not quite good enough....or a sea of rolling eyes when I felt deeply. There is no one to blame in this evolving world, only to thank for bringing my awareness to the surface, where I can feel it. 


 

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The little boy

LINDA WORLDTURNER: WHAT IS SACRED?

It was Linda Worldturner, an 18-year-old Lakota-Sioux Native woman who taught me that everything in life is about relationship, and, what that looks like when practiced daily.  Linda grew up on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota.  Her home life was filled with alcohol, drugs, violence and stuff that can destroy the spirit.  Yet, for whatever reason, her spirit soared  

 

When I first met Linda at a unique program for, what were referred to as American Indians, I was just a standard white guy who grew up in L.A. on sandy beaches,long freeways and an awareness of Native people only from the movies.  Linda shared her life story once, and never again.  She didn’t need to.  Instead, she practiced connecting with everyone, even the all white staff that tended to hold Native people as needing to be civilized. 

By watching Linda interact with people of any age, color or racial belief, I saw what sacred looks like when practiced, and lived.  Relationship, I learned, wasn’t just about getting to know someone, or living with another person.  It is a way to be in life daily with all people, all the time, everywhere.  Without using or thinking the word sacred, I came to practice, more often, relating to people as sacred no matter what they believed, or who they were. .   

Linda never spoke of these things.  She simply smiled often, looked into your eyes and and cared for everyone. 

 

DE-ADULTING

Children know stuff already at birth.  They know things inside themselves at a cellular, genetic level.  Stuff they do not know they know.  When Uninterrupted or judged by the big people around them, they have access to an endless, limitless source of information: information that can fascinate and startle the adult world of "what is for sure," and has always been "that way."  Adult big people tend to believe that "they" the new little ones, must learn what we learned, and in the same way we learned it.   We came to believe that.  That little person still inside us, our own innocence, knows and feels what is right and true too.  It wants to come to the surface and be lived out.

Sometimes, one of these new beings falls through the cracks of the everyday world, and is seen as a prodigy, brilliant, exceptional, even special.   Yet, she may simply represent all the other brilliant, special and exceptional young people that have gone into hiding from a world that does not see them, thus they do not see themselves either. 

There is no fault here, nor blame, nor make wrong.  It is an adult thing.  We did not grow into adults, we were pushed.  Where it all came from, I do not know.  Doesn't matter.  Well, it does matter a little.  Ummmm, a lot.  Perceiving myself as an adult, and all the self-identities and beliefs I carry, can cut me off from children, from play, from instinct, mostly all that is real and true and loving. 

An adult person is a set of beliefs and behaviors, not our own.  An adult is self-perceived   as a woman or man that behaves in specific ways.  She or he often speaks in a voice of authority, seriousness, and a language never quite their own. Take the adult out of me, and what is left?  Me.  The original me.  In my case, when I was 12 years old.  I remember me.  I freely danced, did hand springs, somersaults, rode my bike down hills that the adult would never do.  The 12 year-old, yet to be adult me, laughed a lot and made other people laugh.   Not at other people, but with them.   He found it difficult to take seriously much of what the adult me now finds important, often requiring a therapist, a "serious" talk or quite possibly, another meeting.    

A young child once told me, "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."

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