Some Questions
What if we taught young people the names of their feelings....?
What if we had understanders instead of judges?
What if we taught people how to love instead of how to obey?
What if you were being controlled by people who didn't know you and didn't care about you?
What if we tried to help people instead of punish them?
Do we want more people in jail or more people in love?
Two questions I have asked children in South America
Two questions I have asked children in South America
I have been in South America since January of 2004. First I was in Ecuador for about nine months. Then I was in Peru for over a year. In Ecuador I felt very disturbed by the amount of people claiming to be Catholics and professing to be followers of Christ, but at the same time, hitting their children.
When I got to Peru I saw this sign at the entrance of the main Catholic in a city called Chiclayo.
After seeing that sign I started to ask children these two questions;
- Do you think Jesus would ever hit a child?
- Do you think Jesus would wear a tie?
I found that the children would quickly say no to both questions.
Then I started asking teenagers and adults. Generally speaking, the older the person, the more they more they hesitated to answer, and the more likely they were to say something like, "Well, it depends..."
By the way, the last line of the sign says "Respect the house of God!" And I wondered, "How do we know which is the real house of the Christian god, or of any "god"?
Is it more likely to be a building such as the one with the sign keeping people out because of their clothes? Or would it be one where anyone could enter? Or would a god be more likely to live in nature and be found among the trees or the mountains and not in any building at all?
Another question I have asked children
While in Peru, I also started asking children: What is more important love or education?
I have also asked this question to teenagers and adults. As with my other two questions above, I found that the answers change with age. The children are more likely to say that love is more important. The teens and adults are more likely to say education is. So now I wonder....
If we are teaching children that education is more important than love, could we say they are getting a good education?
S. Hein
April 15, 2006
Salta,
Argentina
What if it were against the law to threaten a child?
What if family values were based on children's values?
Would Jesus really care if a 13 year old's room was "tidy"?
Would Jesus care if they got high marks in maths?
Would Jesus care if they used "bad" grammar?
Would he care if they misspelled words when writing a letter to comfort a friend?
If an 11 year old was being hit by her father and had lost her mother, would you criticize her spelling if she wrote a plea for help?
If a 12 year old's father never hugged her or told her he loved her, would you judge her by her clothing?
If a 13 year old started using drugs because she had lost her mother, her father hit her and never hugged her or said "I love you", and people were criticizing her spelling and judging her because of her clothing, would you want her to go to jail for breaking the law against using drugs? And does putting a person in jail help fill their unmet emotional needs for love, understanding, and acceptance?
If a fourteen year old were cutting herself almost daily with razor blades because she was in so much emotional pain from never feeling safe, never feeling loved and not being allowed to be with the one person she does love and who loves her, would you want her to be locked up in a mental hospital and then put in solitary confinement if she struggled for her freedom?
Does locking a teenager up in a mental hospital help fill their unmet needs for love and belonging? What about sending them to an obedience camp in Jamaica?
Would society be better off if we tried to help fill each other's unmet emotional needs instead of trying to control each other with threats and punishment?
Would the human race have more chance of survival if we started spending more time learning from children and teenagers instead of spending so much time trying to teach them in what are called schools?
Does an 11 year old, a 12 year old, a 13 year old or a 14 year old have anything to say worth listening to and taking seriously?
What about a 10 year old, or a 9 year old or an 8 year old?
What about a 7 year old or a 6 year old or a 5 year old?
Do we want more people in jail or more people in love?
Here are my notes from the journal entry where I thought of this question, slightly edited.
I was wondering if it is illegal for a 18 year old to fall in love with a 17 year old?.What about 16 or 15? Will it be someday? Will we put someone in jail for saying "I love you"? I guess it would be hard to legally prove whether someone was in love or not. You could prove they said "I love you" but could you prove whether or not they actually loved the other person? If people were in love would it be okay for them to have children together, even if there was an age difference of three years? But again, how would you know if they are in love?
I am not sure how the laws here in South America work. I know there are a lot of single teen mothers and pregnancies. I don't know who is getting them pregnant or if it is illegal to be pregnant. I don't think it is illegal to be pregnant. Not yet anyhow. It seems countries have put the father in jail though even when the mother and father were in love. Go figure. (I remember hearing about this in the USA)
But most of the time fathers don't get put in jail here, no matter what age they are. So I really don't know what is going on. Do we want more people in jail or more people in love? Interesting question. Kind of like do you want someone to feel cared about or controlled?