The Spiritual Middle

The New Boundary

While most Western countries are having fierce debates about immigration and naturalization -- fighting over who is in' and who is 'out' -- we are overlooking where the real modern boundary issue is:  the internet.  In the new country of the Internet, some people are digital natives and some people are digital immigrants.  This is not a division by nationality, ethnic group, racial group or religion; this is a division by age.   Children are growing up with access to the internet as something that is just part of life.  They know their way around it like a familiar country.  They know its customs, its pathways, its lingo.  Children are the 'digital natives'.  On the other hand, adults are the 'digital immigrants' -- we struggle to learn the language and rules and, compared to the upcoming generations, we will never feel like insiders.  It will never really be home. The nice thing about this immigration battle, however, is that it is truly transnational.  And even if we adults are the immigrants, there is no legal restriction to our citizenship. 

Unity

" ... [If] our own environment is too diverse to allow a philosophical unity, it must find some symbol to express at least the desire for one."  -- Mark Rothko

Surfing the Wave

I watched my first “surfing movie” last night, Thicker Than Water, thanks to our friend N.C., who comes from a surfing family in Donegal.  Not much in the way of plot, but deeply calming—mellow music and image after image of surfers finding stillness and poise in the midst of intense, dramatic waves.  I’m sure that children would benefit from watching something like this, instead of cartoons, video games, or the Wiggles.  After all, we come from water, and I’m sure that we remember it at some level of our being.

Wondering when surfing was discovered, I suddenly had this thought:  a surfer is the fulfillment of a wave's nature.  For billions of years, waves have presented themselves, over and over again, as if waiting for someone to discover their potential, someone to dance with them, someone to accept their extraordinary offer.  My partner Andrew said, "the surfer is the wave becoming conscious of itself".