Most of the news we hear about people with severe brain injuries (such as Terri Schiavo) is from a negative perspective: How long can we afford (emotionally, finanacially, and in terms of prioritizing the use of resources) to keep an unresponsive, totally dependent person alive? Would a person in such a state want to be kept alive? What does the term "quality of life" really mean, and should it be the determining factor in critical medical decisions? To whom to such decisions belong—the person (through a "living will"), the family, the doctors, the government?
Organizations that focus on the possibility of recovery from severe brain injuries through coma arousal efforts and other stimulation programs, such as the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential and the Family Hope Center, are derisively labelled as "alternative medicine" if not as outright quackery. In light of recent discoveries, however, perhaps it's time to rethink our attitude.
After 19 years in a "minimally conscious state" after an accident, Terry Wallis is making significant progress towards recovery, with proven evidence of brain healing and regrowth. Now that there is clear evidence that healing of brain injuries is possible, there is no excuse for reflexively dismissing the work of those who have been saying so for years. If Terry's brain could heal itself, slowly, with minimal outside stimulation, it is inexcusable not to consider the possibility of speeding up the process.When our children were young, we willingly let them leave the worship service and follow the mob of other young people to what was called Children's Church. This practice has long been common in Presbyterian-like churches, where no one wants to subject children to a 40- to 60-minute sermon. (Whether or not adults should have to endure a lecture of that length is another issue, but at least it's easier to bear without having to deal with one's frustrated offspring at the same time.) To my dismay, however, even liturgical churches, with their shorter sermons and plenty of action to keep children participating, have embraced the idea of shunting them elsewhere for at least part of the service.
(Young parents will criticize me for changing my thoughts on Children's Church only after our own children were too old to participate, and of course I can't answer them, except to say that if I could start over I would put more effort into finding a church that views children differently.)
At first my primary concern was that churches not follow the world's practice of separating children from their families. Thanks to Dr. May, however, I'm RETHINKING our whole approach to teaching children about God.
The church seems to be looking around more and more at cultural practices for ministries with children. Generations ago, contests and prizes were introduced into children's Christian education. More recently, children's ministers have begun to emulate contemporary media in order to attract children to their church's programs. In many settings, the leadership now realizes that a "wow"-filled program for children is an effective way to entice parents to attend, often resulting in rapid church growth. All too often, this is an uncritical adoption of current cultural practices with children.
Christian education adopted a schooling model a couple of centuries ago, and this model implicitly teaches that knowledge is essential to faith. With Lusk's explanation of faith as "relational trust," that relationship is somewhat of a mystery, defying intellectual explanation. "One doesn't understand a mystery; one experiences it." On this point, Lusk concurs with the findings of several researchers in children's Christian spirituality—that children need to know God, to experience God, before (or at least at the same time as) learning about God. What might this mean for parents and church ministries? Evangelical churches are experienced in teaching children about God, but do these churches help children experience God?
What I think this means is that we should RETHINK our approach to Children's Church, and to Sunday School as well, not just for children but also for adults. Yes, we need classes that are attractive to newcomers, and classes that deal with specific problems and relationships, and most definitely we need classes in theology and the truth about God. I'm not against reason and knowledge; in fact, I would have our studies be a lot more rigorous and intellectually challenging that they usually are.
However, I think our greatest need is for something along the lines of an apprenticeship model. Our children need to see our faith in action much more than they need to know the facts about our faith. What does it matter if you know the grammar and vocabulary of a language, but can't communicate with your neighbor who speaks that language? First, learn to communicate; after that, the grammatical studies will make much more sense.
What does the Christian life look like? What does it mean to be a Christian, not in terms of what one professes to believe, but in one's actions? What does it mean to love God and our neighbors? Our children need, not classes, but to engage life with the church in such a way that they see us worshipping, praying, confessing, forgiving, struggling, and serving. They need to be beside us, as the weaker of us need to be beside the stronger, so that they can take their own tentative steps in an environment that is both supportive and real.
Perhaps the model we should consider for Christian Education should be less a school and more a Gypsy band, where the young child is merely given a small-sized instrument and welcomed into the group. His beginner's squawks are not loud enough to affect the sound of the band; they are overwhelmed by the strength of the more mature players. But as the child listens and experiments in this safe enviroment, he learns more about making music, and faster, than if he'd been confined in a class with other beginners until he was considered old enough to join in the real work.
Perhaps hardest to deal with will be our own painful awareness of how inexperienced we are at making this kind of faith music. All the more should our children see us working to do better. We're not fooling them, anyway.
(As to our own children, who know all too well how poorly we implemented this philosophy in our own family, I can only ask forgiveness, and remind them that a child's job is to build on what his parents did right and improve on what they did wrong.)When we lived in Rochester, New York, we had one car and could go for days without using it. We rode our bicycles to work; we walked to the grocery store, the bank, the post office, the doctor, and to church. Rochester's public transportation was (and probably still is) minimal, but its buses did get us downtown, and to the dentist, and a few other places we wanted to go.
I don't claim any particular righteousness for these ecologically sound actions, as much of my motivation came from the driving phobia I had at the time (that's another story); what matters is that they were possible, even convenient.Then we moved to Florida, to a semi-suburban housing development with over 900 homes, and suddenly nothing was convenient. Soon we had not one but two cars, and everything but a visit to the near neighbors required buckling ourselves in and driving away. I lamented the lack of "natural exercise"; with a one-story house and no longer relying on my feet for transportation. most of the exercise that was just a normal part of life disappeared.
Not that this season of life was all bad; all that driving probably did a lot to help me conquer my phobia. But lately I've been RETHINKING, and have discovered that I can make a few delightful changes, right where I am. There were two major catalysts in the process: One was our trip to visit Janet in Japan, where we could see and experience walking and biking distances for which, back home, we would have jumped into the car. The other was making the decision that, at my stage of life, it is critical to my health to get much more exercise than I have been, even if it means sacrificing other worthwhile projects in order to make the time. (Actually, exercise is critical at every stage of life, but it's much harder to accomplish when you have a young family to care for.)
I began making a point of walking and/or biking every day, a procedure which generally took about an hour and a half. At first I didn't go anywhere in particular, just around certain blocks in the neighborhood, or along the bike trail that conveniently cuts through our subdivision. At some point a light dawned, however, and my vision of what was within walking or biking distance suddenly expanded greatly. As long as I was devoting 1.5 hours/day to exercise, there was suddenly little incentive to drive somewhere if I could make the round trip on foot or bike in less than that time.
What is now within easy reach? Several grocery stores, two health food stores, some pharmacies, our favorite Vietnamese/Japanese restaurant (and many others), the pool store, the library, Home Depot, Target, Wal-Mart, Sports Authority, half a dozen parks, the post office, our dentist, many smaller stores and a large mall. I've already written about taking the car in for service and biking home; one way, that ride was only 15 minutes longer than my 90-minute window.
I still need the car, sometimes even for short distances. I haven't figured out how to carry five gallons of chlorine, or a 4x8 sheet of plywood, or even a pizza on my back. My trips to the grocery store must be more frequent, because I can't carry as much as the car's trunk can. But what do the extra trips matter if I would be spending the time exercising, anyway?
My newfound freedom is less accessible to those who have small children, large families, or live where to bike or walk to work would have them arriving drenched with sweat. But it's worth RETHINKING. Employers are paying much more attention these days to employees' health, promoting fitness and offering incentives for smokers to quit. How about adding bicycle racks to the employee parking and providing shower and changing facilities? (Bike racks are ubiquitous in Japan, but here I usually have to appropriate a fence or signpost.) If more attention were paid by city planners to the safety of bicyclists, whole families might cycle to the grocery store. (Then those extra mouths to feed could help bring home their own bacon!)
What chiefly needs RETHINKING, perhaps, is the association in many people's minds between non-automotive transportation and poverty, or even criminality. ("There's a man riding his bike for transportation rather than sport; he must have had his driver's license suspended.") I'm not certain I agree with those who pray for lower gas prices; perhaps our society needs this incentive to RETHINK how we get from here to there.
Several months ago, our local newspaper (or perhaps it was Parade Magazine; I don't recall) asked readers for their one-sentence suggestions for promoting positive change. I did not formulate my response soon enough to enter the contest, but knew almost immediately that it would be in the form, not of one sentence, but of one word: RETHINK.
Just as IBM founder Thomas J. Watson promoted his THINK motto, so would I have bold RETHINK signs featured prominently in every household and office. The ability to THINK, a good and noble faculty not commonly developed nor exercised, enables one to build solid structures on an established foundation. To RETHINK, one must first examine, and possibly dismantle, the foundation itself.
RETHINKING challenges assumptions so basic that we think no more about them than a fish considers the wetness of the water in which he swims. It delves deeper into why we do what we do and considers whether or not there might be a better way. RETHINKING says with John Holt, "We ought all to keep asking ourselves, 'Where are you trying to get, and are you getting there?'" and with Grace Murray Hopper, "The most damaging phrase in the language is 'We've always done it this way.'"
RETHINKING is not rebellion, although it may sometimes lead to rebellious actions. It is emphatically not the strident, youthfull cry that the older generation has it all wrong and nothing will do but to rip up the foundations of society and start over with his own, wiser generation. For such a person, to RETHINK is to reexamine, not what his parents think is normal and right, but the values and assumptions of his peers and compatriots.
Moreover, once the process is complete, the RETHINKER may return to the old foundation, just as it was, with this crucial difference: he is now certain it is a good and solid place on which to stand and build. The goal is neither the rejection nor the justification of our assumptions, but an examination of those things that are so much a part of our nature and experience as to be nearly invisible to us.
What might need RETHINKING? Almost anything, and nearly everything. Here are a few suggestions upon which I hope to expand eventually.
- School/Education What is the purpose of school: education? civilization? child care? Do our schools accomplish this purpose? What do we mean by education? What do we want for our children? For other people's children? What does an educated person look like?
- Medical Care What is health? What do we expect from our doctors? What do they expect from us? What kind of health insurance actually promotes health? When is it more dangerous to go to a hospital than to stay away? Whence the sudden appearance of new threats to our children, such as severe peanut allergies? Would we be healthier if we spent more time looking at what goes right than what goes wrong?
- Transportation Are there workable alternatives that will alleviate the problems of crowded highways, pollution, lack of parking space, and high fuel prices? Is it realistic to break out of the one man – one car model we've grown up with? What assumptions about how to get there from here can be challenged?
- Marriage With all the fuss about who can get married to whom, perhaps it's time to do some serious (re)thinking about just what is the purpose of marriage. Being able to obtain certain advantages bestowed by the government? Formalizing a companionship? Access to sexual privileges? Providing a stable home for children?
- Childbirth What were the circumstances under which your grandmother was born? Your mother? You? Your children? If you are like me, they're vastly different. Is one all bad, and another all good, or can we learn from them all? What does an ideal childbirth look like?
There are many reasons people won't talk about the cracks in the bridge, one of which is that our lives are too frantic. A deadly waterfall may be waiting for us downstream, but it takes all our energy and effort just to keep our boats upright in the rapids right now. Another is a shutdown from overstimulation. All news stories, from the tragic to the trivial, are presented by hyperventilating news anchors desperate to keep us from changing channels. Everything is of critical importance; every event is a crisis. And when everything is special, nothing is.
I used to be more negative about how much worse the world is than it was, until I realized I was cutting the feet out from under our children. This is their world, and they aren't negative about it; they think it's full of opportunity and promise. Realizing how bad things have become is a privilege and a sign of age.
Actually, I see lots of reason to hope, if, and it is a big if, we can hang on to our freedoms. We must allow nonconformity, permit people to take risks, and encourage innovative thinking. I am greatly encouraged by people I've seen who have said, "STOP!" to the world as it is, families who sacrifice much to gain more. Two parent, single income families. People who ride bikes and take public transportation by choice. Homeschoolers. Large families with small, homestead farms. Women who have rediscovered the joys of non-institutionalized childbirth. Men who turn down promotions to preserve family time. Families who dare turn off the television and eat dinner together. I speak only from my own experience—you can think of many more examples.
Of course you may say that Peggy Noonan is speaking of a larger arena, of presidents and world events, of large-scale cultural problems. And there's every possibility that her concerns may be the tsunami that sweeps away the families and the farms. But I believe that if we are to survive this crazy trolley ride, it won't be governments, schools, or megachurches that hold back disaster, but individuals and families taking a stand.
I would restate Neil Postman's excellent advice from The Disappearance of Childhood, given in response to the question, "Is the individual powerless to resist what is happening?"
The answer to this, in my opinion, is "No." But, as with all resistance, there is a price to pay. Specifically, resistance entails conceiving of parenting as an act of rebellion against American culture. For example, for parents merely to remain married is itself an act of disobedience and an insult to the spirit of a throwaway culture in which continuity has little value. It is also at least ninety percent un-American to remain in close proximity to one's extended family so that children can experience, daily, the meaning of kinship and the value of deference and responsibility to elders. Similarly, to insist that one's children learn the discipline of delayed gratification, or modestly in their sexuality, or self-restraint in manners, language, and style is to place oneself in opposition to almost every social trend. Even further, to ensure that one's children work hard at becoming literate is extraordinarily time-consuming and even expensive. But most rebellious of all is the attempt to control the media's access to one's children. There are, in fact, two ways to do this. The first is to limit the amount of exposure children have to media. The second is to monitor carefully what they are exposed to, and to provide them with a continuously running critique of the themes and values of the media's content. Both are very difficult to do and require a level of attention that most parents are not prepared to give to child-rearing.
None the less, there are parents who are committed to doing all of these things, who are in effect defying the directives of their culture. Such parents are not only helping their children to have a childhood but are, at the same time, creating a sort of intellectual elite. Certainly in the short run the children who grow up in such homes will, as adults, be much favored by business, the professions, and the media themselves. What can we say of the long run? Only this: Those parents who resist the spirit of the age will contribute to what might be called the Monastery Effect, for they will help to keep alive a humane tradition.
