Re: Death Blossoms: Reflections From a Prisoner of Conscienc
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Children
IN JONATHAN KOZOL'S BOOK Amazing Grace, he demonstrates something of very positive significance: the power of a child's hope. The children whose stories he tells live in the worst possible conditions in the world -- in drug-ridden slums -- yet they still have an innate hope.
There is of course, a negative part to it that remains despite this hope, and that is the reality of the world around them. The children have hope, but they are not blind to the fact that they are often ignored, and sometimes even scorned, by the social order.
There's a little boy, David, in the book, who tells Kozol that he saw the mayor of New York City on TV, and he says, "I don't like him." Kozol asks, "Why do you say that?" And David says, "Because when I look in his eyes, all I see is coldness. He doesn't understand how poor people have to live." That is the way that most politicians in the system, actually most wealthy people, look at poor children. And the children see this; they sense this coldness coming from the people who literally control their circumstances -- the conditions of the neighborhood, the state of their education.
Still, many of these children don't give up. Perhaps the best thing we can do for them is to nurture their hope -- give them reason for new hopes, and feed the hope already within them so it can grow into something strong that will sustain them through life. Elie Wiesel says that the greatest evil in the world is not anger or hatred, but indifference. If that is true, then the opposite is also true: that the greatest love we can show our children is the attention we pay them, the time we take for them. Maybe we serve children best simply by noticing them.
Children do not only have an innate hope; they are hope. And more than that: they are our future. As Kahlil Gibran writes, they are like "living arrows sent forth" into infinity, and their souls" dwell in the house of tomorrow ... " They carry their hope with them to a future we can't see.
Children come to us fresh from the divine source, from what I call "Mama," from life itself, and they lead us to the same: to the God-force within creation. That is why none of us -- no matter our race, creed, religion, or politics -- can look at a child and not feel joy. We look at them, and something thrills us to the depth of our hearts. They are living miracles, and when we see them we know that there is a God, that life itself is a miracle. Children show us, with their innocence and clarity, the very face of God in human form.
IN JONATHAN KOZOL'S BOOK Amazing Grace, he demonstrates something of very positive significance: the power of a child's hope. The children whose stories he tells live in the worst possible conditions in the world -- in drug-ridden slums -- yet they still have an innate hope.
There is of course, a negative part to it that remains despite this hope, and that is the reality of the world around them. The children have hope, but they are not blind to the fact that they are often ignored, and sometimes even scorned, by the social order.
There's a little boy, David, in the book, who tells Kozol that he saw the mayor of New York City on TV, and he says, "I don't like him." Kozol asks, "Why do you say that?" And David says, "Because when I look in his eyes, all I see is coldness. He doesn't understand how poor people have to live." That is the way that most politicians in the system, actually most wealthy people, look at poor children. And the children see this; they sense this coldness coming from the people who literally control their circumstances -- the conditions of the neighborhood, the state of their education.
Still, many of these children don't give up. Perhaps the best thing we can do for them is to nurture their hope -- give them reason for new hopes, and feed the hope already within them so it can grow into something strong that will sustain them through life. Elie Wiesel says that the greatest evil in the world is not anger or hatred, but indifference. If that is true, then the opposite is also true: that the greatest love we can show our children is the attention we pay them, the time we take for them. Maybe we serve children best simply by noticing them.
Children do not only have an innate hope; they are hope. And more than that: they are our future. As Kahlil Gibran writes, they are like "living arrows sent forth" into infinity, and their souls" dwell in the house of tomorrow ... " They carry their hope with them to a future we can't see.
Children come to us fresh from the divine source, from what I call "Mama," from life itself, and they lead us to the same: to the God-force within creation. That is why none of us -- no matter our race, creed, religion, or politics -- can look at a child and not feel joy. We look at them, and something thrills us to the depth of our hearts. They are living miracles, and when we see them we know that there is a God, that life itself is a miracle. Children show us, with their innocence and clarity, the very face of God in human form.