Love?

[The Tengu]

Naomi wanted me to post this experience on Abrahadabra.

Today I had a difficult situation with a young boy. He was 5 years old; just a kindergarten student.

I was called to the school because the child did not have anybody to pick him up and take him home. It was 4:30PM when I arrived, and school is over at 2:30. For two hours this little boy sat in the office while the principal desperately called every relative this child has.

The little boy was trying his best to maintain his composure, but he kept ending up crying. He is understandably fragile. Eventually I got him calmed down and we drew some Spongebob Squarepants characters on my notepad.

Nobody would come to pick him up.

Eventually, a raggedy friend-of-a-friend shows up to take the boy to his grandmother's home, but we could not release the boy to someone who is not a relative. This "friend" was glad to leave without the poor little guy.

We called the mother, and she wouldn't come pick him up.

We called the father, and even though he lives in walking distance he didn't come for his son.

The grandmother wasn't able to come because she is infirm.

An aunt told us never to call her again.

Another aunt did not answer her phone.

Finally one of his other aunts showed up. Four hours after school was over.

It saddens me that there is unlimited potential for love and compassion in this world, and this one boy has nobody that he can count on to protect him. I see family pets that get more love than this child.

Naomi has a message regarding this: Judgment is coming.

[MythMath]

It's hard to imagine the struggle that young boy will have to
face in his life if he has no support or guidance at this point...

But at times, great renewal or rebirth can emerge from such origins...

If we can encourage and facilitate the spread of love. it will
multiply, and combat situations like the one you described...

Only love can conquer hate...
______________

Naomi, I hope your energies are equilabrating...

[m1thr0s]

Judgement???
Sounds like a pipe dream I'm afraid.

Some kids are better off in foster homes than with their natural families. Hopefully the school is keeping track of this crap. Clearly it is indicative of negligence but there may yet be extenuating circumstances. It takes a clear pattern of negligence to spring these kids from an abusive situation. Unfortunately the government would typically prefer not to know so it's usually pretty easy for abusers to cover their tracks...

We can count on a magickal miracle a whole lot more than "judgement" in the vast majority of cases.

If that sounds a little embittered, well, I come fom this kind of background myself. Judgement? Don't hold your breath.

Things are what they are all over the world. Do magicians not understand the urgency of their work? Do they not know that the advances they may secure for themselves are advances of behalf of all people? Most times I think that they do not. Show me just one person free to live his life according to his own true nature and I'll show you an entire world lined up in his wake...but instead we seem to get everything but this in this business...still...the game's not over yet.

m1thr0s

[feranaja]

This case is horribly sad and I would never intend to suggest otherwise, but there are millions of similar ones all over the world, and where is the judgement or justice for any of them? Love is THE hardest lesson any of us face and it seems we can all react when we read about extreme sadess such as this little boy faces, but can we apply our knowledge in our own lives? That's where we start to emerge from our hypocrisy. I sat crying the other day over this terrible story about a little Czech boy killed in the Holocaust, but I struggle to be kind to a friend who is anoying me with his self pity over an incident that happened years ago. I nearly explode with rage over animal abuse I hear about on the net but I neglect to go to the HUmane Society once a week and walk a frightened, abandoned dog. We all talk the talk, and some of us make attempts at the walk too, but until we understand - and live - the reality that love is the only rational act of our lifetimes, we will all suffer. It's just a matter of how much, and who sees it.

Justice starts with our own commitment to internal change. I can rescue a thousand dogs from shelters, and cry over 6 million Holocaust stories, but if I judge my irritating friend harshly, talk behnd his back, and thus fail to hear his pain and the desparate need for healing that his self pity reveals, I might as well not bother with the tears for strangers. Apply the challenge of love in our own lives and we won't have situations like this heartbreaking one The Tengu describes.



fera

[m1thr0s]

thanks for your insights on this fera...I think you put this better than I could have done.
This is one of those things I am a little too close to to be able to achieve a proper detachment I think.

m1thr0s

[1000ShadesofGrey]

That is sad.

It seems that the only person willing to take care of him wasn't able because she was sic.
So... Can you give me some details about the grandmother and about her sickness? Any details about her and about the kid will be welcome. I'll be able to use them to help.


And speaking of judgment...wouldn't it be better to do something to help the child, instead of wasting time thinking about punishing the family ?

[The Tengu]

The thing about this is that if I posted here every time I ran into one of these situations, I would get banned for spamming. ;)

As for judgment... people always tend to think of judgment as being harsh punishments but the truth is that judgments can also be very beneficial.

The key to the concept of judgment (in the context of justice) is that judgment is rendered by a third party that has power. It is up to that third party to make decisions that are compassionate.

[1000ShadesofGrey]

Well...You can p.m.me every time that you run into one of these situations, with as much detail as possible.

Helping the innocent is part of my self-imposed mission.

[m1thr0s]

The key to the concept of judgment (in the context of justice) is that judgment is rendered by a third party that has power. It is up to that third party to make decisions that are compassionate.In theory only. More often what really happens is that decisions are rendered on the basis of what is expedient...

But this is all academic...kids have been slipping through the cracks since this ball started rolling and they'll keep on slipping through the cracks so long as crap is more important than people...to people...

I can't believe in political solutions anymore...if solutions do exist, they exist on a whole other level than governments...or churches...or families, for that matter...

m1thr0s

[1000ShadesofGrey]

In theory only. More often what really happens is that decisions are rendered on the basis of what is expedient...

But this is all academic...kids have been slipping through the cracks since this ball started rolling and they'll keep on slipping through the cracks so long as crap is more important than people...to people...

Sad, but true.

I can't believe in political solutions anymore...if solutions do exist, they exist on a whole other level than governments...or churches...or families, for that matter...

m1thr0s

It is true...

Attention, rant
I've figured long ago, that part of the solution is to avoid being part of the problem... I will not look to the other side. I've decided that every case like this that is brougth to my attention becomes my responsability...
It doesn't matter that I'm not the greatest sorcerer that ever lived and that I probably can't do much... I do what I can do.
I've known online and o.r.l. dozens of sorcerers, chaotes,theurgists, alchemists, new agers, pseudo-shamans, healers... I've looked at all that accumulated power and knowledge, and i've felt like crying, because half of them is looking for places beyond the world, and the other half is looking to get layed.

People like us have the knowledge and the power to do something, and we don't need to do miracles...we just need to help a bit each situation that crosses our way.

[Anibis]

Compassion is a power in itself. To make the point of actually caring about this kid... or for that matter about anyone who suffers... in the abscence of being able to do anything directly, that does actually take you closer to a state where you can effect the world by your prescence in it... In fact it's not hard to feel love for this kid, possibly because we all have felt rejected fort some reason or another... Extending that love to the kids we do not know about... or for that matter kids, adults, innocents of any stripe who are being fucked over by the coldness of things like war, poverty, disease... It's hard... we need visuals... we need specifics... it's much easier to love a child we can envision than a statistic that hangs over us like a cloud... But the people are hidden in the statistics... it's overwhelming...
-Anibis
-I'm not sure how compassionate I actually am... I work at it, but much of the time feel numb... I feel for things in funny ways: a stranded worm, or a wounded bird... but then again, also to let it pass, to go comfortably back to daily life... I am often at a loss for what to do when I encounter systematic cruelty and ignorance, and I feel like it contamiantes all of us: the cynical glee of cruelty infects everybody on this planet... What do you do about it? I guess that's why I am here... the absurd (Not so absurd) notion that a large part of what is going on is *not* normal, and *not* human nature, but is a result of an incoherent circulation of human consciousness. That is we corrected the blockages, the behaviors across the board right down to the little boy's parents, would somehow start to change direction.

[m1thr0s]

People like us have the knowledge and the power to do something, and we don't need to do miracles...we just need to help a bit each situation that crosses our way.that sounds like the proper miracle-working frame of mind to me personally...I never meant to imply ridiculously impossible miracles. Those very rarely occur anyway. It's usually the little ones that really count for much.

m1thr0s