Skyearth Letters

I was in Journey Books the day before my granddaughter's birthday to find a special gift for her, and I found one for myself. As I scanned the first bookshelves, I reached for Crossing to Avalon by Jean Shinoda Bolen. As I scanned the contents page, I felt an overwhelming sadness and tears welled. I bought the book and have read it through once and am now rereading it. I was planning to write about it this month, but I've come up short on time on this Sunday, in my usual last minute not-quite-frenzy. Everything is ready to go up but my pieces, which I haven't written yet and it's evening. But my reactions and thoughts on Crossing to Avalon merit deeper introspective writing than tonight will grant me. I just wanted to let you know that it will be in next month's issue.

Instead, my friend Sheila's article on violence (Millenium Musings) caught my attention because there were articles in recent Denver Posts that speak to aspects of our cultural violence. Sheila suggests that when we truly desire to change our violent modes, we will do so. I believe that in order for the larger culture to come to have that desire, there are tasks that have to be done.

One column was written by a woman who happened to observe a man standing with his pregnant wife and little girl in the pedestrian mall in downtown Denver. Nothing remarkable about that, except the man had hung a sign around his wife's neck "informing the public that she is an unfaithful wife while her husband was at work" and telling all within the sound of his voice the details and that he would probably have to quit his job in order to keep his eye on her. Part of her penance was this public and torturous humiliation. The woman columnist spoke to the couple and discovered that they had arrived from Texas four months ago and were staying in a homeless shelter. She questioned whether or not the reason for the move was the greater job market in the Denver area or to get his wife away from whatever support system she might have had in Texas. She described the pregnant woman as "rail-thin." I say there's valid reason for this woman to look elsewhere for love, and that this is murder waiting to happen.

Just about the same time there was a news story of a man in Grand Junction who dragged his wife, by her hair, from the supermarket checker station she was working at and out the front doors and killed her with the gun he had and killed two other people who tried to stop him and then killed himself. She had just initiated divorce proceedings.

I am not a violent person, per se, but what I want to do to men who think that they own women is shake them until their brains have been sufficiently addled and they have become mentally incapacitated. In fact, I am sitting here, my hands itching, because I can't type what I'd really like to do to such creatures that go under the guise of human beings.

Help me, men out there who haven't the least capacity to do such horrendous things to women. Where are the men's circles that aren't focused on football, hockey, gun sports, and other forms of spectator and participatory violence? Circles that can help men talk through the violence in their feelings before they erupt and can teach that there are others ways of feeling? Circles that make it okay for men to have feelings to talk about?

William Raspberry, a Washington Post columnist repeated in the Denver newspaper, wrote a column last week which I can't find at the moment, but what I recollect is his suggestion that our schools, in among all the other activities and lessons we demand of them, could create a curriculum that would teach about human relationships. Such a curriculum, however, would not reflect Mr. Dobson's notion that the wife always defers to the husband having the final decision, for that is not a humane relationship, to my way of thinking. That is a "pretty" form of power over another human being.

There have been attempts, such as the classes that create couples and give them an egg to care for as a baby. But somehow that doesn't seem to deeply explore how one can be in relationship to others. What I hear of human sexuality courses is that they really don't teach much in the way of what good relationship is. They go in for the physical aspects, but not the emotional.

There have been many times, while watching my children's experiences growing up and the experiences of their friends, that I have wished that classes in human relationships were taught from an early age. Classes and groups that would learn and practice how to live without the need for power over another, how to move out the fear-based modality that creates hate within individuals, which can erupt so catastrophically.

This morning's paper brought an article on teaching tolerance. A teacher in San Clemente, California, had developed and has been holding classes for the last six years on teaching tolerance, and the article stated that it has helped kids coming out of hate-filled households to learn how to be tolerant of differences and to practice, and believe in, tolerant behavior. (Visit his website at http://www.teachtolerance.org for information about two national presentations on preventing violence in youth which will occur this month.) Programs on tolerance are also being distributed to teachers by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Schools can provide such positive learning experiences; the question is, will they and will they also require every adult that is part of the school system to take such classes? We all know that bigotry and implicit, if not active, approval of violence exists in all too many of the adults in our schools. When the administrators and teachers "get it," there is hope that the children will at least have the benefit of an atmosphere that encourages, nay, demands tolerance.

Teaching tolerance to children is easier if it is fully modeled by the adults that they are learning from. Then we can reach out to the parents of the children in each school community and offer such learning opportunities to them. Offer, and strongly encourage, and even require, if there is a strong community feeling that individual parents are the source of hate.

Sheila correctly points out that there is truly no more violence in the world these days than has existed in the past. (Proportionately, at least—we have a trifle few more people to experience violence from.) It is that, as a general culture, we have discovered that violence toward others violates our own selves. We have lessened the acceptance of violence, overall, even if it doesn't appear that way, based on the newspapers and other media. In my job, I scroll through several newspapers each day, and I feel the need to read the article titles quickly and not let my eyes rest on the 80% "dead"—"killed"—"abused" titles that fill the on-line lists. (80% is a purely subjective number on my part.) Too much of dwelling on them fills my soul with a sense of illness.

I believe that Raspberry's on the right track in looking toward teaching about healthy, non-power relationships in the schools. So is the school in San Clemente, but one class a semester of 35-40 students does not cut through the hatefulness quickly enough, in my opinion. And I feel that our nationwide focus on standardized testing and teaching to basics won't help students that are dead to the world of humane feelings.

It would truly be a break-through if the teaching of humane relationships in schools didn't have to be mandated by our various levels of governments. But there again, we have the wonderful example of what has happened to federal welfare monies given to the states as block grants, which some states are actually using to help former welfare recipients to increase their working capability and some states are hoarding. It would truly be wonderful if each school system made the choice to actively pursue this teaching sooner rather than later. (Although, heaven knows what the Kansas state school commission would encourage.)

Well, enough thoughts and opinions to leave you with. Think hard; act soon. And if you have some good ideas for implentation, share them.