God

I know now that when I was very young, when my mother woke me with a warm wash cloth to remove the sand from my eyes, that I knew love. I knew security. I knew what it meant to be treasured above all else. Things existing beyond the sphere of my mother's watchful eye held little meaning to me. To be within it was to be fulfilled in all ways. Family was womb, womb was family. She prolonged this state for me, my mother and in that I was spoiled. All things began and ended with her word and whether her final say pleased my child-like fancies or not, there was no thought to contradict my certainty that all was right with the world.

My world grew of course. And slowly my mother's sphere diminished until pieces of me broke through the sanctuary of her tender ministrations to reveal a world without the instant gratification of her patient explanations. I shared her with my sister, not quite sure as to why there was a need for a sister to begin with. It was galling to realize that the word sister meant an implicit intrusion upon my connection with my mother. I felt diminished. With a will I did the best I could to cut "sister" off from the choicest bits of affection. I challenged the patience and understanding of our mother. Mine! I thought, felt, ached with my being. A primal take back of what was exclusively belonging to me. A hard lesson. A long hard lesson.

My poor sister. I grew to see with a magnified lense what it meant to watch someone else's pain and rage against those, other than myself, who dared hurt her. My sister was mine. My mother was mine. My mother did not belong to my sister. Sister came second, she knew this. I made sure she knew this and this was just the beginning.

I wish now that I could have beat me senseless. Or senseful. Insert an ounce or two more of compassion and empathy into my child-self, so that I could channel the love I unduly coveted into the parts of my sister that were stunted by all that I took for myself. Such a glut. Such a needless glut. And even now when I know that all of those primal, knee-jerk reactions were hardwired into me, there is a tiny bit of guilt that will never be assuaged by hindsight. I could have been kinder, more generous. Or perhaps not. If I could have been that I imagine I would have been.
Given who and what I was it's a wonder why I was so confused by the actions of other children.

I've always held myself within. Children who put their hands out for a shake upon first meeting were alien-like in their open behavior. I responded in kind of course, those were manners. Manners I knew. Why some children would arbitrarily pick on one peer but not another, was and still is baffling to me. How does a seven year old choose their victim let alone their crime. Threaten to roll a weak-spirited classmate down a big grassy hill with a gang-like ferocity. It blew my mind. And pissed me off. Why? I asked myself time and time again. Different friends, different ages. Always the marginalized children that did nothing to garner such negative attention other than to be marginalized in the first place. Was it an aesthetic choice, a hygenic one, a choice based on handicap? A darwinistic gene rearing it's ugly impulse in the hearts and minds of babes? Who knew then and who knows now.

Now I am a teacher of children. Small ones. I see what their impulses are and how they can be shown that the value of self and others can be symbiotic in even a very small context. To be included and allowed a place of merit and worth in a community of your peers, that is the eutopia of man. I don't recite that in theoretical terms. I see it as a living, breathing possibility manifested in three year olds. A thing learned, yes, but not forcibly. Fostered with empathy, demonstration and follow through. I see their bright eyes, their energy for life pouring forth from them and into all that surrounds them with joyful abandon. I know God in their every thought. They talk to me, these children, in ways that adults no longer do. And I wonder with all of this innate goodness where the rot has come from.

Even with all of their selfish machinations these little beings are discerning. They eat until they're sated, like hummingbirds do. Never sourcing their next meal. They play until they are full of one stimulation and ask to move onto something else. They need not read books on how to prioritize their needs or find happiness. They give to themselves their own happiness. And it makes sense that if we all start out in this place, that knowing what gives us happiness ought to be inherent to our very nature. Yet somewhere along the line we learn otherwise.

These God creatures will learn to shutter themselves. Sign off from the awareness of their psycho-social needs and experience, as adults, periods of time in deep confusion/anger/loss. What steers us away from our absolute knowledge of our needs, our wants? And what or who started the cycle of rot. The thing that slowly alters a childs awareness from being open and inquisitive to insular. Insular, that feeling that breeds a sense of disconnectedness. The root of all that devalues a person within their community, the not-belonging.

Where are the God thieves and who stole God from them?

I want to know. I want to know.