Bridging What Is and What Is Possible

by LeAnn

“Parents are the bridge between what is and what is possible, more of the same or evolution’s next leap forward. We consider children to be the future but what that future becomes is shaped by every parent and the communities that support and mentor them.

“The fact is, children are not the future. The future is now. If we, parents, teachers, grandparents, care providers – don’t change now – tomorrow will look just like today. Our children will think and act just like you and I and what could be – will not.”

Joseph Chilton Pearce and Michael Mendizza, through Touch the Future are demonstrating new ways to inspire children, and parents, to reach their highest potential. When I see this article by Michael Mendizza, I feel joy and excitement about what’s possible for us all, whether we’re parents or not.  (What responsibility do we have to children who are not “our own”?  Now there’s an interesting question…)

Both men, by the way, will be leading a symposium and a conference April 8 – 11 at Krishnamurti’s former home in Ojai, California. (more info)

Bridging What Is and What Is Possible

Michael Mendizza

Parents are the bridge between what is and what is possible, more of the same or evolution’s next leap forward. We consider children to be the future but what that future becomes is shaped by every parent and the communities that support and mentor them.

Children, what Jean Huston calls Godseeds, creation incarnate, are planted in the adult-culture-soil. Undreamed of possibilities, limitless capacity hit the wall of fixed ideas and beliefs along with their implicit behaviors and institutions – each designed to forge what might be into what is – again.

The fact is, children are not the future. The future is now. If we, parents, teachers, grandparents, care providers – don’t change now – tomorrow will look just like today. Our children will think and act just like you and I and what could be – will not.

Paraphrasing Einstein; the consciousness that created the problem cannot possibly fix the problem that consciousness created. As Gandhi pointed out ‘we must be the change we want to see in others.’ And that change must take place now, right now, this instant. Tomorrow is a dream. What’s real, powerful, capable of creating a completely new world is how we meet the world – now.

If we do this, bring greater energy and attention to this moment, reawaken the genius of creative imagination and wonder that every child is, that we once were, and model this in new ways for every child we meet – behold we make all things new by the renewing of our hearts and minds – now. And the most important people to express this renewing, this reawakening into wonder, are parents.

Why do we give so much attention to children and neglect the living models they will become? It makes no sense at all. Children already embody this vast intelligence and creative potential by design, always have. The challenge at hand is to awaken adulterated adults, shake them from their misguided habits like a cold shower and by so doing prevent all that is possible from becoming what is – again.

We all know this is the moment. Peak oil, melting ice caps, pollution, mass extinctions, and we watch the telly, read People magazine, check out Facebook and the sport page on our iPod complaining that a cup of joe costs $4.40 instead of the $0.05 it did a few decades ago – just like our parents did, not the iPod of course, the complaining.

Parents are the bridge between what is and what is possible. But parents, like Gulliver, half asleep, chained by their routine, their fears, the insane cost of living, distracted by so-called Fox News and 10,000 hate radio stations, were neutralized long ago – neutralized, rendered impotent, eliminated as a social-political force. This was accomplished through social systems that continually erode the intimate family bonds; government controlled compulsory schooling and television are good examples. There are many others.

You see, becoming a parent is a developmental stage as profound and powerful as learning how to walk and talk is for children. What happens when mom works full time, now out of necessity, as dad has always done, and little ones are sent to professionals – by design? Both parents miss out on the developmental experiences appropriate at this stage in their lives, and because of this, they fail to provide the whole child the fully developed adult model that child needs to become fully developed adult. Compound this day-to-day failure of mentored modeling for a few generations and we land right where we are – and it isn’t pretty.

Parents are the bridge between what is and what is possible. This impacts every child, in every city in every corner of the world. Expanding this further I maintain that parents are the only force intimate enough, powerful enough to bring about the social, political and environmental changes that must occur.

When parents embody these changes and model the perceptions and values these changes imply, children become these values, behaviors and relationships spontaneously, beneath the level of their and for the most part our awareness, the same way they absorb and express language and a million other environmental and cultural patterns. Like tuning forks children mirror what the environment-culture models. If we model new patterns and possibilities they become it, naturally without effort. If we don’t, evolution grinds to a halt, stagnates.

To be continued.