Extremism

I cannot touch on Sameul Paty's obligation as a teacher without also touching on all of our obligation to love.

Why is it still so hard for some to understand that there are many and differing ways to live a good life? And I mean Good as in the Platonian sense of pure, true, enriching, beneficial. 

In this information era, we can experience vicariously so many different world views. Through film, books, music. By joining various forum, social media and online activities. By looking around our streets, even here in Japan diversity is increasing. Once monocultured countries everywhere are seeing more and more migration. Most people these days can say the know someone who lives in a different country.

It is so easy to meet alternate world views.

Why is it that we are still so afraid of them?

We have had generations, now, of education about the need to be accepting of difference. About understanding that we don't have to like everything about someone's life to still like some part of them. To still recognize that there is some part of them that is valid, good and valuable as a human being. 

Where are our soothsayers to calm boiling blood, to help us reflect on and understand the actions, agency and choices of others. To understand the outcome and consequences, desired and unintended, of our own actions. 

While the West values freedom above most things. I think that peace is far more valuable than freedom. And sometimes to create peace, we must restrict ourselves. But that is my perspective, having been indoctrinated by the Japanese philosophy of harmony.

Terminating an adoption

It is all over may social networks and I am reading a lot about this case of the Tedaldis. Do you know the story? 18 months after adopting a child her husband and her decided to return it, as they weren't bonding to the child the way they had bonded with their biological daughters.

It is a pretty sad story. As is every story of a child being rejected, abandoned and left "for someone else" to take care of. The child in question had been abondoned as an infant by the side of a road and was taken into state care. Then adopted to the Tedaldis family.

It seems impossible that a family would go through the process of adopting and child only to turn it away again, but it happens...and happens frequently. But need we react with name calling and disgust? I don't know. It is a very sad story. It is sad because it reminds us how little love we give sometimes. It is sad because it reminds us of how we have abandoned those we should love. It is sad because it is so true to the experience of each of us.

Life is often a series of abandonments. But it is also full of people willing to take us in. To give us love, attention and affection when we least expect it.

It may be years, decades even before this child finds love. Although with the media coverage of the story probably he will be one of the lucky ones and soon find the people who can and will love and care for him. Who knows, perhaps even his biological parents seeing the hardness of their first abondonment repeated will be inspired to face up and give their son the love he needs. But in the end, in some way we all get the love we need.

Young love

I was recently reading about a survey in the UK of people age 13-17 and their views about their intimate relationships. The survey found that many young people experience abuse and violence in these early relationships. One of the researchers claiming that it is surprising and appalling that abuse would start so young. But, I'm not sure that it is at all surprising. Aren't children far more abusive that adults? I mean I thought physical communication like hitting and biting to be vital in childhood to express frustration, displeasure, distaste and also preference in the time before we had the words to do so. I know I am a pretty unusual kid, but I see it all over the place, even here in Japan. When kids don't know how else to say "no" or "yes" they usually say so physically. They pull you towards a certain activity, they throw books on the floor, they grab you hand or turn away from what they don't want to do. So should we be surprised that younger people in intimate relationships are abusive with their partners? They aren't adults. They don't appreciate they aren't adults. Often we don't appreciate they aren't adults too. But those of a certain age understand with certain clarity that they aren't adults, and thus it would be difficult to expect them to act as adults would in such a new and uncharted territory as an intimate relationship (even if they have had several). I wonder if it is useful to use words like abuse in describing these sorts of interactions. This very broad category can leave young people feeling helpless and paralysed as what they learn in schools is that to overcome abuse in your life is a lot of work, complete overhaul of your life and the strength to strike out against those who are "oppressing you". I think rather we need to think about how to be involved with your youth. How to be active with them, play with them, engage them in the community so that they have a rich and full life with many diverse aspects to it, so they can engage more things than finding intimate partners. For fear of sounding really catholic, we should also help our kids to value the preciousness of intimacy, and prepare them to wait to find that real person who they want to maintain long term intimacy with. While I know it is unpractical for everyone, there is a great value in the independence and self worth that comes with saying no.

Genius

I was thinking about genius this morning. I was thinking about being gifted too. About receiving the gifts of your gods, your faith, culture and the like. I was thinking about how so many of us use ceremonies to receive and prove that we are gifted people. But this is a little bit nonsense. We are not gifted because of the ceremonies of gifting that we have partaken in. We are just gifted.

It is a bit like this. Just because I don't have the postcard, doesn't mean I haven't been to Australia. You know? The ceremony is just a show, the lack of ceremony isn't the lack of the gift.

Today I will engage a fairly exciting ceremony as I begin to prove my gifts for caring, healing and health care. For even though these gifts already exist in me, my society needs ceremonial proof of their existence. I think this is fine. But it can be a bit nerve racking to have to perform these acts. Nonetheless, I am excited.

But this also hearkens on to an experience I had about a month ago. It happened while I was shower climbing for the first time. I had recently read about the grandfathers and grandmothers choosing to give their gifts to a little native girl, and the elaborate ceremonies she had to endure to receive those gifts. I was thinking, while a read about her experience, that I would never receive gifts from the grandparents of the forest, because I had no one to perform those rituals and ceremonies for me.

And yet, as I was climbing that waterfall, actually just after I finished climbing a rather difficult line, I found myself alone in a part of the river. The next member was still climbing, and it was just me, standing in the water, the sunlight trickling through the leaves of the forest. And as I stood there, I heard drumming. Simple at first, the drums became louder and more complex. The rhythm surrounded me and I found myself transported into a sort of still ecstasy. I stood still and listened and danced at the same time. I laughed because I realized just then how silly I had been to think it was the ceremony that granted the gifts.

Life grants gifts, whether we notice them or not, whether we celebrate them, stylize them, exaggerate them or ignore them. We are everyday receiving gifts from all around us. We shouldn't mistake the ceremony for the gift, and remember to give thanks for all our gifts. They are all precious and they are all real. And celebrated or not they are all valuable.