I challenge any scientist, educator, business person, celebrity, politician, astrologer, physicist - anyone actually - to explain to me how life can work for life itself - for every human being and the earth - without each of us placing conditions on our expression and demands.
Much of my work is in Catholic Schools, working with staffs to facilitate, and share with them, spiritual reflections and discussions.
In these, I try to open doors and create spaces for teachers and leaders in education to take a step closer to God.
Or perhaps for God to take a step closer to them.
Either way, the aim is to open up lines of communication between those present, and God.
And perhaps that’s the first barrier.
To me God is real.
A scientific fact!
And the example of how to live set by Jesus is not only possible - is that not why he lived, to show us it could be done - but asked and expected of us by God.
That’s if our wish and greatest priority is to keep all life sacred.
And what aspects of life are more sacred and vulnerable than our children?
I know, through my own conversations with God there are none.
For the record, I also know God to be devastated and broken over our treatment of children and our desecration of childhood.
In God’s eyes, and in truth, things are either sacred or they’re not.
And whether something is sacred or not cannot be defined by words or by making claims that it is.
One only need look at how anything is treated to see whether or not it is sacred.
For example our world is not sacred.
We can say it is. But it is sick and traumatised because of the abuse it experiences at the hands of our economic-driven and excessive approach to life.
So, we are not earth and life-centred.
We are economics and lifestyle centred. Or, individually-centred, if you prefer.
Same can be said of God.
Is God sacred?
Do we have faith and belief in God?
We can say yes.
But collectively we don’t.
Not in his eyes.
To him, the barometer that measures our love and respect for him, and our faith, is how life feels and how it is treated.
He believes his reputation has been trashed and abused by those who claim to defend and serve it, and his most important instruction has been rejected by our world.
‘Honour no other God but me.’
Meaning, hold all life sacred and value nothing over the preservation and safeguarding of its physical, psychological and energetic health.
All three of which have been decimated by our economic and self-centred approach to life.
To God, it’s simple.
Things are or they aren’t.
To him, there is no have your cake and eat it.
Meaning, there’s no ‘I think life is sacred, but I’m just going to abuse it a little bit because I’m running a business and I need to make profits.’
In this situation, profits are valued over the world we belong to.
Profit and economics become the sacred priority.
And abuse of life is inevitable.
It is no different when we prioritise lifestyle, or desire for fame, wealth and influence over giving life what it needs.
This reflects our treatment of children and our approach to education.
I have cried God’s tears for our children.
And I have seen the cuts on their bodies, and captured their tears, anger and frustration.
The saddest thing?
Children today aren’t even aware of what they are missing out on, and what has been stolen from them.
Far too many will never experience the lightness and liberation that should come with childhood.
Instead, from the moment they can walk they will be locked into a battle to ward off the ferocity and intensity of life, as they walk the fine line between survival and emotional collapse.
I have been fighting for our children for many years now.
To me children are sacred.
And God, my boss!
His wishes for life are mine by default. As are our earth’s.
I remember the first time I presented, to my employer at the time, a complete process for defending the psychology of our children - and childhood - from the onslaught that was gathering above our children’s heads. Gathering like storm clouds, giving those below a few final moments before unleashing their devastating force upon them.
Many adults were psychologically broken and the earth traumatised by our profit-driven approach to life, so what better to do than inflict this approach to life upon our children.
We did, and the floodgates opened.
And today, psychologists, counsellors and therapy dogs walk the hallways of our schools.
The reply by my boss at the time?
‘We are not going to be a wellbeing school!’
Now, nowhere in my pitch did I imply we should become a wellbeing school.
I proposed that we should create an environment that supported the emotional health of our students in a world quickly spiralling out of control.
What he meant was, we are not going to prioritise the health of our children.
At least he was honest.
His priority was business and economics.
Ironically, that was also part of my proposal.
When the storm hit, I said, parents would not wish their kids to be anywhere else. And schools from all over the world would look to our model of how we did things.
I am not writing this to sit in judgment of education, but I am here to make it clear that what is real, is what is happening. Not what is spoken or even promoted.
Most education websites will inform its visitors just how amazing the institution is. When judged on marketing and advertising alone, one hundred percent of schools are incredible.
And yet, education is in a mess.
As is the psychology of our children! Or at least far too many of them.
What’s real?
The websites?
Or the mess?
The smiling child on the brochure? Or the one self-harming just to feel something other than numb.
When I challenge schools on the environments we are creating for our students and teachers, I often hear the ‘it’s a business’ defence.
With this I am fine.
But advertise that.
Don’t promote yourself as child-centred or Christ-centred when you’re not.
The only thing that made Jesus angry was when the temple - in this case our children - was turned into a marketplace.
That being the business-centred school.
I also hear, ‘but we have to!’
And again, I’m not arguing.
But ‘JC’ was prepared to check out of this world before he would desecrate what was sacred.
So being Christ-centred means never drawing on the ‘it’s a business’ defence when it comes to justifying the mistreatment of something sacred.
Just by definition, when prioritising business first you are, through actions, saying you aren’t Christ-centred at all.
And the ‘we have to get by’ defence is also fine.
But life itself has never been sicker.
Our earth is not really getting by, at all.
And far too many human beings are either hungry or mentally sick. Including our children.
This is the result of a business and profit-centred approach to life. Profits are made through abuse. It’s how it works.
Again, you can’t have your cake and eat it.
Why do you think God is so pissed off with yoga and Christianity?
They adopted a business-centred approach, embracing fame, wealth, and influence over keeping life sacred.
Just as education has done with our children.
Is anything less Jesus – and therefore less yogic or Christian - than self-promotion of oneself or the branding of something sacred.
Including ourselves!
When a school claims to be Christ-centred or guided by the way of Christ but adopts a business-first approach to actions and decision-making, they are misrepresenting themselves.
And misrepresenting God and Jesus, while they’re at it.
They are making false claims.
God and Jesus are a part of your approach to marketing but they are not your way.
They just becomes pawns in the business-first model.
This is what Jesus referred to when he said there would come a day when it was clear people didn’t actually believe in him.
He showed us how to keep life sacred.
He lived, by example, the life that honoured the first commandment – value nothing more than the task of keeping all life sacred.
And no aspect of that life is more sacred than our children.
So, not only are many schools who claim to be Christ-centred, not Christ-centred at all. But they use the identities of God and Jesus as part of the approach to marketing and business.
In my journeys I hear many Christian educators launch attacks on the Catholic Church and other Christian organisations.
And I would argue many of these claims are well-founded.
The substance of their attacks?
They are business and profit-centred. And place wealth, power and influence before something sacred. They are abusive of what should be kept sacred.
Just like they do.
Just like yoga has done.
In Gods eyes, it’s the same crime, because it is the same crime.
And you just can’t fool God.
The main reason being, he’s real. Not the fantasy we’ve been led to believe.
Saying something is, does not make it so.
It’s so bloody disrespectful to use Jesus or God as the backbone of a business-model.
If they stand for anything, it’s against having a business or economics-first approach to life.
They knew such a mindset would lead our world to where it is today.
Sadly, our world has become one where, ‘my abuse of life is okay, but yours isn’t!’
And this just means most of us are abusive of life in some way – for even boastfulness is harmful - but then inflict on our world, the added abuse of hate and judgement when we don’t like another’s form of abuse.
It is the beauty of the law of revelation.
We are who and what we are.
Not what we say we are.
Our world is not as sick as it is because we have kept and honoured her as sacred.
Nor are our children as broken as they are because they have been.
I’m not telling any school what they should and shouldn’t value.
But I am saying it is inappropriate and disrespectful to market themselves as Christ-centred if they’re not.
I work for God. For life.
And my employer does not want to be used in any way that is defamatory to his character and reputation.
His name, to many, is already a joke because of his misrepresentation - or rejection - by religious and spiritual pathways and organisations, who cash in on his name and betray him through their actions.
They’ve made God a joke.
And he thinks they are.
Nothing we do is separate from the health of our world and, therefore from God and Life. It is either supportive or it isn’t.
And something is horribly off, about our treatment of children.
You see, in his eyes you cannot have your cake eat it.
And so it is.
Amen.
In the time since I published this piece -24 hours - I have spoken to a number of young people about their experiences in education, I will leave the wrap up to one of them.
'Tim, it's like I'm wearing sunglasses all the time. You know when you're wearing sunglasses, and the world is always a little bit dim? There's just always so much to do. It doesn't stop. Neither does the pressure to be perfect. I know there's good things in the world, but I can't get to them. It's dim. There's no colour. There's no joy.'
I assured her she was not the lone ranger in feeling this way.
Again, I do acknowledge this is not the experience of every child at school. But it is for far too many. Childhood should not have become as hazardous as it is.
I challenge any scientist, educator, business person, celebrity, politician, astrologer, physicist - anyone actually - to explain to me how life can work for life itself - for every human being and the earth - without each of us placing conditions on our expression and demands.
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