The Nature of Human Children

What is an infant?

Don't ask theologians or become entangled in illusions and delusions, long-winded metaphysical splits/spit;-) of religious thinking. Even some Quakers in the U.S. and Britain have been adopting Augustinian untruths about young humans!

Let us, instead, realize each baby is a gift from the Light.

Human beings at birth are neither divine nor depraved. A baby is a natural offspring of a primate species. Uniquely, she has the potential to grow spiritually--to seek the Good, the True, the Just...and to create herself and bring newness and improvements into existence. Human primates have been created with a sense of morality and transcencence.

What a wonder each infant is!
I recently held my 6th new born grandchild. Experientially, the moment was blessed. How perfect her tiny living body. What a true gift from the Light.

But a little later, when she got hungry, wow, what lungs and what a puckered face she suddenly developed!

I must admit, I don't think something called a "soul" enters a baby at conception, or for that matter anytime later.

At conception a new life begins with amazing characteristics from the genes of her/his ancestors. At conception, the life appears to have no awareness. But brain wave activity begins early in the womb.

Even after birth, however, a baby is sort of an eating and pooping blob;-) She has awareness, but probably not much except she wants to be fed, and fed now!

Then gradually her awareness grows month after month. Finally she becomes self-conscious. Then later her sense of conscience develops.

Finally, an awareness of her finiteness and the mystery of existence comes into her consciousness.

No, a baby doesn’t come into the world a walking, talking, mentally active philosopher/theologian/moralist/saint.

On the contrary she is a living breathing consciousness at the most simple level.

As she grows in the next 6 to 7 years in her consciousness, self-awareness, and her moral conscience develops with a sense of ought, then she will become a moral and spiritual individual who acts. Sometimes she will fail, sometimes "miss the mark."

But even then she is still an innocent child struggling to function and to understand and to fulfill needs and desires and hopes, and the demands of the big people in her life.

Is not this the stage that Jesus referred to when he said those who enter the Kingdom of God must do so as a little child? And where he said to people to let little children come to him for of such is the Kingdom?

And this was my own personal experience—when so young. I don’t remember being a sinnig child that many religionists claim all babies and small children are.

Instead, as far back as I can remember, I had very deep desires to do good, to be good, to know God and to love him. And I had a lot of childlike wonder questions about God, life, others…always asking why about everything:-)

Of course the slither of wrong thought, wrong action, wrong living does come to us all, but not yet.

A child's awareness will grow if she is introduced to God and is shown her responsibility to share, to think of others and their needs, even though she still doesn’t voluntarily give outwardly if it is to her own privation.

Finally, the moral consciousness kicks in mid-childhood. At each given moment, there will be a tussle between her babyhood past (all spontaneous need and desire) and her adulthood future (potentially all give and bliss).

At that moment by moment juncture—that possibility moment--she must make continual ethical, spiritual decisions. She is finite and so will make mistakes and fail. She is learning in her emotions, her mind, her conscience, and her body as she moves through time.
Her choices are a much more complicated version of the way she learned to walk and to talk 3 years earlier--by trial and error.

But now a new possibility rears its ugly or saintly head. If she doesn’t continue to develop holistically, widening outwardly her care, her helpfulness, her compassion, then she slows, stalls, or even regresses backward to a total need/want level.

However, since she isn’t an infant but has the outer body and will and growing mental ability of a 6 or 7 year old, her regression hurts herself and others.

To try and fulfill life as a growing child, by returning to the barely conscious self-focused life of an infant actually distorts life and will bring harm to others to varying degrees.

Continued growing, in contrast, takes her through new stages of human development and new challenges. Each developmental advance brings new ethical and spiritual choices—either good or bad, advancing or regressing or a combination of both.

As anyone knows, when climbing a mountain, the higher one goes the more dangerous the climb becomes—not because the action of climbing mountains is evil, or because individuals who climb mountains are depraved sinful beings, but because the very nature of going "higher" also offers more options of choosing.
Some of the ways are wrong, even could cause one to plummet to the bottom. Some of the ways are right, and lead toward the peak.

When a small child cries when she hungry or grabs another child's food that doesn’t show she is sinning.

On the contrary, that is how G_D created children. If a 4-year-old child throws a tantrum and takes her little brother’s bottle because she thinks she isn’t getting enough attention from her parents, while her action is wrong and to be corrected, she hasn't failed because she hasn’t developed enough in her conscious awareness and moral conscience to make altruistic decisions.

However, if at 8, she hides her little brother’s medicine, because she wants all the attention instead, this is very wrong because by then her mental, moral conscience has developed enough to know that her action isn't the right way to get attention.
And, besides, by this point she should be widening her compassion and care for others out beyond her own needs and desires.

If at 18, she steals her younger sister’s boyfriend to build up her own ego, very deep wrong has occurred. By 22, if she joins with her countrymen and demonizes another country and lies, steals, and kills the enemies, we do have actions of evil;
just as if in contrast,
she joins an outreach organization such as Habitat for Humanity or World Vision and sacrifices her time, talent, and money and inspires her younger sister to do so as well; then we have actions of goodness.

Then the two sisters think of a way to get other people in their neighborhood, school, and city to get involved. One such inspired girl, about 13 years of age, raised thousands of dollars for starving, hurting people in a far off country.

See how the moral growth of human beings happens. A human being is in process from simple surviving to becoming the liver of moral truth.

Now that is the beginning of good news. Reminds me of several of Jesus’ moral speeches...

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Of Moose and Men

Of Moose and Men: Redux

Like moose drool down from his jaw
Liquid drip of much after thought,
The human chews his abstract cud.

Drooling brought-back cussedness

This brainy mammal with his huge
Mental jaw ruminates and masticates
Difficult philosophical concepts.

He chews and chews and chaws
Minding repeatedly, and pondering
Into his daily life for good or ill

Drooling, brought-back cussedness

The meta-conundrums, the ones
He can't stomach, that ethical gristle
Imponderable quandaries.

Like the massive moose of yonder glen,
Man stands as king and all get out
In this damned lake he calls civilization;

Drooling brought-back cussedness

Then walking admidst verbal tall trees, he
Rummages through this forest of ideas,
Philosophical redwoods towering above.

And he peers up searching the heights, but
Stands sludged mired in his soggy morass,
The moral muddle of his shallow bog.

Drooling brought-back cussedness

What festering future, or fertile destiny
Awaits this drooling race of primate
Caught in the quagmire, a hypocrite?


Any St. Bernard dog, as Thoreau said,
Has more basic moral sense than
Most men who swallow gross wrong whole,

Drooling and drooling and drooling...


--Daniel E. Wilcox

First pub.
Dark Energy,
by Diminuendo Press

Part #2: Review of Meetings by Chuck Fager

from Amazon's website:
"Chuck Fager’s transition from a conservative Catholic, pro-military youth to an active peace witness and a lengthy period of “spiritual formation” among progressive Quakers...a special religious coming of age in the mid-1970s...in a continuing time of tumult and change."

"The result is both a compelling story of our time, and the narrative of a unique personal quest for meaning, transcendence, and a useful life."

Yes, no, and maybe not.

I've finished the book. Chuck does deliver some intriguing stories from his life as he promised. Kudos for that.

And at times, stories of his intellectual quest do come through clearly. His account of professor Milton Mayer of the University of Chicago is powerful and moving.

Furthermore, Chuck's recounting of those radical days of the late 60's and early 70's, and his involvement, will bring back many memories of that best of times, worst of times.

But overall this book appears to be at first-read weaker than some of his other books. Unlike those, this one seems fragmentary, more of a starting outline. There are key stories like wall pegs; now hang deep personal reflections on them.

Yes, the book has up appealing and shocking stories, but Chuck doesn't show how they relate to his interior life, doesn't put them in the context of his personal life, and doesn't reflect on them in relationship to his spiritual belief and life.

The reader feels unconnected and is filled with many questions unanswered.

For instance, there is the fascinating story of his discovering a missal like the ones of his childhood.

But after the very detailed nuanced narrative of how he comes across the book at the Saint Vincent de Paul thrift store, he just leaves the aged ritual book stuck on a shelf in a plastic bag.

We don't know how he felt and thought about religious ritual, and Catholic ritual especially, about how filled with superstition it seems, about it relationship to Church history, about cannon law, about hell and purgatory in relationship to himself and all humans.

This is so unlike his recent posts on the same sexuality controversy in North Carolina Yearly Meeting, where even in those brief blog posts, Chuck ferrets out the motives, reasonings, etc. of the not-so Friendly leaders in that tribulation, that ocean of darkness.

Here's another particular example of a disconnected story from Chuck's book:
Suddenly, half way through his autobiography, we learn that his wife, Tish, has a severe drinking problem, and he moves out. Then he speaks of his own "sin."

Wait a minute!

We readers didn't even know he had met a girl, gotten married, had a kid, developed relationship problems, etc.

We have no idea about his views of sexuality.

Or his coming of age as a teen guy in the late 1950's.

Or how his wife developed her alcoholism, and why they couldn't work this out.

Meetings is a short autobiography so Chuck didn't have time or space to go into great detail, but a short 2-page lead-in on his youth and girls, his views on sexuality, and his life relating to women was very necessary.

And we get only a very brief glimpse of his relationship with his mother. And we learn nothing of his relationships with his siblings. We don't know about his views, his ethical and spiritual wrestlings.

All of those aspects are very important in understanding the sudden split, of his moving out to a friend's.

And how did he meet Tish, and their marriage?
Was it a Roman Catholic wedding?
Was she a practicing Catholic?
What were their views on birth control?

And most importantly: What are his reflections of how his spiritual and religious experience relates to his sexuality and marriage?

Then there is a girlfriend, called Sylvia. Again, we have no idea who, why, when or how this relates to his religious life.

Even more importantly, he fails to reflect on all of this and other unexplained vague statements about "sin."

And he mentions having sex after his wife and him split? Does he mean he engaged in fornication?

Does he go to confession? Or not? Why or why not?

At another point in the book, Chuck states that his class ring, "the red and gold band" is much more important than his wedding rings!!

He wrote that the ring took on "much more important" meanings.

Again, as a reader, I am left confused.

We readers don't need lots of private details, but we do need to understand--to feel and experience and think what he did.

I don't expect an autobiographical writer to completely bare his soul or his very private life, but without some details, some description, and extensive inner reflection, the reader is left confused and unmoved.

If Chuck does a revision--
I did about 7 on one of my book after its first edition--
he needs to keep in mind the old very truism of writing:
Show, don't tell.

And in a religious autobiography, REFLECT on your motives, your inner directions, your shadow, and how all parts of your life relate to the spiritual.

And Chuck needs to remember that in many cases, he didn't even tell.

He's right, "any religion that's worth it is built around stories."

And he ought to have added, any religion that's worth it reflects on its stories.

Shows potential.

Evaluation: C-

Of Prince, Princess, and Frogs

Remember the fairy tale of the princess and the frog? Ready for a poetic explanation of Life;-)?

Over 50 years ago the famous psychologist Eric Berne, creator of Transactional Analysis, published Games People Play. In fairly quick succession, other self-help books followed including his What Do You Say After You Say Hello? And I’m OK, You’re OK by Thomas Harris and Born to Win by Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward

And they were all about how all of us humans became frogs but can become princes and princesses...

First published by Liturgical Credo, we give you--

Of Prince, Princess, and Frogs

*People are born princes and princesses until their parents make them into frogs.
Dr. Eric Berne

But, of course, our baned, blameful
Cursed parents—those mean bewitchers—
Were once descended royalty too, little infants and toddlers
In their own parents' arms! And back to back, too many grand-grand

Princed-ancestors, turned endlessly receding, hopping in reverse
Into slimy frogs (warty toads) once upon a time as nearly ill-well
Down to the first crouched human, not so grand, the beginning of all croakedness.
What so unlovely theoried words for the froggy in us all.

So where did this repulsive 'tail' of the soon-to-frog progenitor start,
The tadpoled-former prince of mortalness begin?
Back before the primordial oozed pond changed into concrete
Drainage canals and high tech zoos, yet slime and 'grim' remain?

Go back, back and back, what a birthing pain in the you know what,
Generation upon generation to the human start—
That doesn't solve why frogginess croaks and hops in us all,
Down through the millennialed generations, a tad bit yarned.

Why do millions of us birth oh so good, but devolve into ne'er-do-bads,
Little ones growing, cycling down to dysfunction, neurosis, selfishness,
Even suicide and war; or throw money around ourselves like confetti,
Gorge to overweight, and spend spend for dieting in deluxe gyms

While others, skin and bones, pick small finger-fulls of corn kernels
Out of horse manure on the muddy road, become child-soldiers with guns?
Yes, the civilized twentieth century proved to be most murderous one;
What so unlovely theoried words for the froggy in us all.

Yes, we're dealing with the cussdedness of our human kingness
Says Mark Twain (oh, the prince and the pauper).
Of course, Eric Berne, the astute psychologist knows our inner self
Of the three aspects of awareness—our felt, taught, and thoughtness,

The Child deep inside, then what our Parent instructed us for good or ill and our Reason
Which tries to sort some sense into this quagmire of feeling and prejudice;
But the analyst knows that deep within rules "the little fascist,"

That small warlock who started it all and ever seeks chaos and defeat.
But from where did this little daemoned martinet come?
What so unlovely theoried words for the froggy in us all.

The Catholic in heated discussion will point to Adam's Original Sin
When the wily snake cast doubt and tempted us to dragon's pride.
His nemesis the Calvinist will shout our reptilian fallenness came
By the predestined will of the Sovereign who ordained all sin.

Woe, to be damned to eternal fire forever for God's pleasure;
What so unlovely theoried words for the froggy in us all.

A different source of our loss of princely innocence comes from liberal
Folk, the Enlightened ones, who reason we are born into this evolution
Of becoming, from the natural cosmos where life blossoms and cancers
(The duo of opposites) so babes are both squires and tadpoles,

Will become both princes and frogs together split,
(Though snake or dragon aptly fits more than a few),
And we must strive for the crowned mind not the sludge-paupered pond
Though most of the countlesss millions fail to reach such a sought throne.
What so unlovely theoried words for the froggy in us all.

Tragically, in many cases lost children struggle in dysfunction,
Almost from birth because they were born unfortunately
To very froggy parents living brazenly wrong, in our malfunctional society,
Ever tempted by the glutted media praising our worst inclinations.
What so unlovely theoried words for the froggy in us all.

Thus we princes and princesses at birth, not consciously self-aware,
But 'natural' like smart animals, soon awaken to moral consciousness;
Perceiving finite nature, we turn to gimmie gain and then guilt,
Not getting beyond our selfish tempted pond. Even

Our false religions mask the slither and wily guile gone to bad,
And again bites the hand and 'soul' of our every action.
What so unlovely theoried words for the froggy in us all.

Egocentric, we cycle down from the constant test to our own demise
Or if we seek our true Love's embrace, responding to Ever's mercy,
Awaken to our Lover's kiss, rise in thankful compassion,

Bow and kneel in meekness to true spiritual life, renewing our royal births,
Becoming prince and princess ruling down our lower froggy passions,
Rising to knight and ladyhood, birthing eternity in our full-hearted actions.
What potential lovely truth for the prince and princess in us all.


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Problem with Sin or the Sin of the Problem?

In this new post, I planned to write on the wonder of worship--about a deeply moving time of spiritual encounter we had at Central Coast Friends yesterday. However, as a lead-up to writing, I stopped by Quaker Quaker and clicked on a link
http://onequakertake.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-do-some-quakers-hate-to-talk-about.html
to "Why do some Quakers hate to talk about sin?" by Timothy Travis, a convinced Beanite Friend. His blog reflection jumped out very violently;-) and grabbed me by the spiritual throat.

Ah, the problem of sin or the sin of the problem or of the sin problem-- "Missing the mark," "Original Sin," "national sin." Trying to reduce this horrendous topic to thought and then to print is no doubt like trying to tame Hurricane Katrina to take a shower:-) But here I go--

First a couple paragraphs of autobiography:
Growing up in a devout home and religious community in Nebraska in the 1950's, I very early came to awareness that all was not right within me and in my own moral choices. I was about six or seven. I loved my sister dearly but would sometimes be vindictive and tease her. And I knew stealing was wrong, but oh how I did want (and take) that item at the corner drug store..etc.

And I had a very deep sadness with how adults so often hurt others by their immoral choices both in my small town and in the world. I also received many, (probably more than my share of) spiritual talks on sin and its results and on justice.

What delivered me from my own guilt, helped me make wiser choices, and gave me a deep passion for seeing spiritual change and harmony come to all humans was an encounter with Jesus Christ (in my own childish way)one night on a gravel road coming home from prayer meeting. I was only eight years of age, but I still get spiritual goose bumps remembering that night and, now, when I feel the wonder and joy of God's love for everyone.

So I am not big on focusing on the negative, on the problem of sin, but rather dwelling on the Good News of God's love--sharing of the deliverance from sin and all the messed-upness that we experience in this broken world, from petty gossip to war in Iraq and Sri Lanka.

We all do have a problem with wrong-doing. Some think it is a problem that others have, not us, at least not Friends. Others think they are worthless and there is no cure. Others that there is a problem but no right or wrong--we're just one form of primate living out survival in a meaningless cosmos. And, of course, many religionists such as the Calvinists think we are born evil, have no choice but to sin, and there is only help for s few selected ones, while God leaves the rest of us to wallow down to despair and eternal judgment.

So what's the truth?

Original sin, total depravity--What about those abstract ideas? This last week, I again encountered individuals who hold very strongly to such a theological worldview:
We're all born evil and sin constantly and can't do right or seek God.

When I started this blog this morning, I thought maybe I would have something to say of such a philosophical outlook, but now that I am to this point, I realize that such a view of life is totally contrary to everything I have experienced and everything I hold dear.

As a literature teacher for many years, every five months I taught the famous Puritan poem "The Day of Doom" to high school students (and Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," too). I sought to help them intellectually understand the Puritan mindset, though within my own spiritual self, I couldn't (and still can't) understand Michael Wigglesworth or Jonathan Edwards at all. Their view that infants who die shortly after childbirth go straight to Hell to be tortured for ever because of Adam's sin is abhorrent theology which makes no rational or spiritual sense to me whatsoever.

While I as a child did have a sense that I had deeply "missed the mark" and needed forgiveness, I also distinctly remember how I, too, had very deep spiritual yearnings. So while there was an ocean of darkness in myself and in others, I also saw Truth and Love, and Goodness--and trusted that the latter was far more powerful than the former. And that we all have a choice for God loves each one of us with limitless mercy and compassion.

Then, of course, there is the other extreme--the so-called "liberal" view of human nature where only murderers, tyrants, and "fundamentalists" commit evil. Most of us are decent human beings. We may err, but certainly aren't sinners, nor by any stretch of the imagination, are we evil.

This, too, doesn't resonate with either life experience or reasonable thought (in my opinion). While I consider myself a "liberal" Friend, I can remember very vividly times in my life when I have been tempted to commit horrendous sin. I can remember times, I chose wrong and how it hurt others.

And it strikes me as highly hypocritical that at the present time Americans of most persuasions oppose terrorism by others such as the Palestinians, yet the United States in the twentieth century carried out some of the most horrendous terrorist attacks in history! And this was done by "liberals." Maybe we nice "liberal" people are not nearly as nice and good as we think we are.

And when was the last time among Friends, that wiser ones, privately, sought to guide members who were making immoral choices?

As a "liberal" I would not want to go back to the days of the 1800's when members were excluded for wrongdoing. But should we not in love speak the truth to erring ones?

I guess all this leads to my next point which is the experience of Friends such as George Fox and John Woolman. In their journals both speak of the darkness of evil and sin, of humankind's need of deliverance. But their focus is not there; it is on God who loves us, on the Ocean of Light, on the spiritual symbol of the atonement.

Well, that's a start.

Any comments?

To be continued--