We have forgotten who we are.
We have alienated ourselves from the unfolding of the cosmos.
We have become estranged from the movements of the earth.
We have turned our backs on the cycles of life.
We have sought only our own security,
We have exploited simply for our own ends,
We have distorted our knowledge, we have abused our power.
Now the land is barren,
And the waters are poisoned,
And the air is polluted.
Now the forests are dying,
And the creatures are disappearing,
And the humans are despairing.
We ask forgiveness.
We ask for the gift of remembering.
We ask for the strength to change.
~ U.N. Environmental Sabbath Program
Yesterday, I substituted in a local middle school. I had heard that the school could be challenging. It wasn’t; they were just normal middle school kids – that’s challenging enough.
Did they try to push the envelope? Of course they did. I used the excuse, while on the phone with my mom later while wishing her a happy birthday, that I expected them to act that way, that we all did with substitute teachers while growing up. And as the words left my mouth, I felt a twinge of regret that it was so, that I was even expecting that the students would try to see how far they could go.
I know that it’s partly because they don’t know me. They haven’t had a chance to develop a level of mutual respect and trust with me. And I wonder what it says about our educational system, that for generations now, we have assumed that we should begin our relationships with teachers with a sense of distrust, suspicion, an unwillingness to enter into a relationship of accord, even with strangers who enter the classroom to help for a day when a teacher need be elsewhere.
Somewhere in a deep string within my body, an atonal chord has been plucked. It’s all twisted up with knowledge from my adolescent psych class about how young adolescents are taking steps into adulthood, and the twisted way we in the western world have kept them in babyhood and helplessness for far too long. We want to shelter our children all our lives – I know my mom feels so helpless for me right now, and wishes more than anything that she could magically make a job appear, or magically heal the breach that occurred in my marriage.
We don’t give our adolescents the ability to grow into adulthood gracefully or meaningfully, so they find other ways to assert their independence. No lion to overcome? Well, then, let’s overcome the traffic laws and policemen trying to enforce them, or let’s overcome the teachers in school, or let’s overcome the boredom of enforced infancy for far too many years, as our parents deny their children the ability to wander in the woods, learn from their own mistakes, or head off to college on their own….
That chord reverberated wrong in my heart because at some deep level, I know that we need to have respect for elders. Some of my most amazing conversations and insights have come from casual conversation with my elders. And in our twisted Western world, elders aren’t respected, revered, trusted. They are shunted off into homes with caretakers, where we can’t see them, where we don’t need to face our discomfort with their physical ailments, their slipping minds, their slowing ability to keep up with our insanely frenetic pace of life.
I’m not sure what the answer is. This reading struck another strong chord in me, as I read it this morning. We have truly lost touch with our world, physical and emotional. While the words reflect on the environmental damage done to our world, to me, they also reflect the damage we have done to our psyche as humans, when we stopped being oriented toward community, and started orienting ourselves to self above others.
Perhaps that’s the explanation for why children (and adults) no longer have a deep and abiding respect for elders. Perhaps that’s why we suffer from alienation and powerlessness. Perhaps we need to think about others again, to remember how it is to put others first, to live unselfishly, to work for the common good above our own needs.
It’s a nice thought.
