The Switch-A-Roo the sacred for the mundane (20 slides) creatively compiled by dr. michael farnworth

This next part involves some fancy philosophical side stepping and deception I hope I can articulate it well enough for you to see the paradoxical contradiction and dishonesty of it all.

We happen to have been socialized in a culture that sees anything as natural, as being bad and evil, needing to be overcome and subjected to human will! Some use the scriptures and God’s declaration to Adam to have dominion over all the face of the earth as justification. Some then typically interpret that as doing anything they want, how they want and when they want to whatever they want!

Dominion is taken from the root word domain (domicile) which is a place of residence, a home, a kingdom, a territory, an earth. Domestic is also a form of the same word having to do with home, family life and household, a place of living and habitation. Very consistent with what an husbandman is concerned with.

Dominion versus Domineering? The interpretation of dominion can be varied and confusing. Dominion, domestic, domination, domineer, domicile, domesticate, domain. And we have to ask our self the question: which is the most appropriate interpretation of dominion given what we know about our vulnerable nature as children?

The kind of cultural domination parents engage over their children can and often does engenders contempt.

“Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defense against one’s own despised and unwanted feelings. And the fountainhead of all contempt, all discrimination, is the more or less conscious, uncontrolled, and secret exercise of power over the child by the adult, which is tolerated by society.” Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller, p.69

The implications of these cultural ideals of domination is illustrated in the following story told by Joseph Campbell.

“I once heard a lecture by a wonderful old Zen Philosopher, Dr. D.T. Susuki. He stood up with his hands slowly rubbing his sides and said, ‘God against man. Man against God. Man against nature. Nature against man. Nature against God. God against nature… very funny religion.” The Power of Myth, p.56

What kind of world do we create for our children when we believe that they are evil, fallen and animalistic? What are the results when we feel in our hearts that children are supposed to be broken so that they learn obedience? And we use the tools of the culture (shame, threats, physical punishment, love withdrawal, and logical consequence manipulation) to do it!

This may be the reason that many of our children feel nothing of the sacred in them because they have never been told to look there and certainly haven’t been treated as if there were anything sacred about them. And why many adults still feel the shame and flawed brokenness of their own childhood years which drive many of them to prove their worth by productive accomplishments at work, church or in how their children turn out!

The nest few slides compare the nature of children in the Native American culture to our own.

Nature was and is sacred to the Native American and is a manifestation of the mysteries and powers of the Great Spirit. Their view of childhood was a pristine mountain meadow: “May I walk so delicately and carefully so as not to leave any trace of my passing or presence there. I must not disturb the presence of the sacred.”

Middle class white America would hire out back hoes, heavy machinery and we would have that little meadow leveled and whipped into shape in a matter of months. The trees would be cleared, the little stream damned up and we would have a little house and garden to settle down in. And we would look at our creation and think: This is good and a whole lot better that it was!

So here is the dilemma: What if much of our child rearing values and energies were simply provided to us via the culture’s agenda, traditions and philosophies? And we, trying to be good parents raise our children to those standards all the while peacefully slumbering under the created traditions of men. (who by the way-- seem preoccupied with control and power– who do you think created 98% of the child rearing theories?!)

So our children grow up believing that they are only good, if they meet our somewhat defended, polluted and perverse notions of childrearing mostly served up by the traditions of men who dominate, control and have power over others!

And what about the sad paradoxical issue of domestic violence in the loving family: “The group to which most people look for love and gentleness is also the most violent civilian group in our society.” Murry Straus

So the switch-a-roo is taking the sacred heart of a child and exposing it to shame, threat, physical punishment and the like of the culture and then wondering why that same child has no feeling or sense of the sacred within them. This enculturational switch is thorough, profound and resistant to change later in life.

the end