Social Change

A while ago I wrote about how there are things in our world that have changed dramatically since the 1960's. Looking back is often a wise way to measure the progress made, and also to take note of the areas in which still need work.

I am going to step out on a lonely limb here and say some things about my own personal thoughts and observations that will no doubt make some of you uncomfortable. There comes a time when being true to what you feel is more important that comfort.

In 1969 at the tender age of 15 I began to be aware that we needed to change some things in this world. It was "hip" then to want social change and to question the things that were what they were simply because they were "always done that way". By the mid 1970's I was set on changing the world, at least in my little corner of it. Apathy was about the most horrid word I could think of. Then life happened, dating, looking cute, having fun etc and slowly and like some cancer eating at my idealism, apathy to some degree found a home in me. Still life kept happening, keeping me busy, torn from the action of big world change, but maybe not in all ways. Marriage, babies etc made my world small, focused on what was in front of me but within that I had the power to change things in a very different way than what I had once thought constituted real change in the world. I had two children that were impressionable, and our responsibility to train up. Emery and I could raise these dear little ones to not be prejudice, to care about the land and animals. To understand compassion and selflessness. We could raise them with open hearts towards others in need instead of letting them make fun of those folks out there that for whatever reason, and that was not important, were down and out. We were not alone in how we parented. We had friends whose children were named Autumn Breeze and Sunshine and who wore all cotton clothing and ate natural foods. Children running around with cloth diapers and Waldorf dolls tucked under their arms, even the boys had dolls. We met in the park and picnicked with these friends, long gauze skirts forming large circles around us as we sat under giant oak trees, these circles of gauze like nests for our children to sit in, babies at our breasts. We talked about our un-schooling home schools and delighted in the lessons nature would teach our children and ourselves. Yes, you might be getting a picture of hippy families which would only be partially true to the stereotype we all seem to have. No one lived in a yurt or a tee pee, we lived in big homes, and our husbands all had suit wearing executive type jobs. Many of us dressed up quite conservatively for church each week. But deep inside of us was this desire for change in the world, for it to become a gentler, kinder place. Years blended into one another and none of us bothered to see if change had been made. But it had and it still is. My little group of friends didn't have beliefs set in stone, we were open minded, willing to learn, accepting true wisdom from wherever it came. Not standing in prejudice of the source. Truth is truth.

And now so many years later we are seeing that that made all the difference. Most of us from that little group at one time or another tried some down and serious fundamental life style. Strict and narrow. We are not sure why we all have but we did and then we all left it. Unfulfilled, unsatisfied that there in, lay all the answers.

I watched some of the new show on T.V. "Life on Mars" this past week. I wanted to remember what life was like back in 1973 and watching it assured me that although we may not be out in the streets protesting, change has been made. We are not so narrow minded and unaware of any persons right to be treated fairly. We have made progress since those days. Change is still being made, and I was not apathetic when I thought I was. I was not settling for unkindness to others simply because they were another race or religion. I was showing the next generation in my life to stand up for a higher level of human compassion. We have a ways to go, to be certain, but I remember parents not attending their own childrens weddings simply because they were marrying someone of a different culture, race or religion. I don't see that much any more, only in the most narrow minded fundamental places and perhaps that too may somehow change. We now are all aware of living green and treading gently on this planet. We all understand in the deepest part of our being that ambition to get ahead, is not all that life is about. We understand that speaking to our loved ones about how we feel and what we have been through is good and that trying to keep the negative aspects of life quiet doesn't ever fix anything. Most of us cringe when we hear people say racial and social slurs. Hopefully we never chime in and condone that sort of thing. We have made progress, but we have not arrived.

Now the part of all this that feels a bit like stepping out on a cliff with no safety rail or out on a lonely limb on a nearly dead tree. The strangest part of all this is that the most progress for social change came when we began to be open to bits and pieces of the philosophy of compassion and ending suffering from sources other than fundamental Christianity.

Church attendance has dropped dramatically in the past 40 years. Sure some poles show its stayed about the same since the 1930's but if truth be told and it was in a study by ...

"Sociologist Stanley Presser of the University of Maryland and research assistant Linda Stinson of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics completed a study of notes in personal diaries. These time-use diaries were maintained for social scientific research projects in the mid-1960s, 1970s and 1990s. Those participating in the projects were asked to keep track of their activities. The 1992-1994 diaries, for example, were used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to determine exposure of the participants to harmful substances in the environment.
Presser and Stinson found that many Americans were not at church when they claimed to be. Their best estimates are that the percentage of adults who actually attended religious services during the previous weekend dropped from 42% in 1965 to 26% in 1994.
Presser said:
"We asked people, tell us everything you did in the last 24 hours so we can know what chemicals you might have been exposed to. If somebody went to church, they ought to tell us, but if they didn't go, they shouldn't manufacture it. We didn't do what most polls of religious belief do, and ask, 'Did you go to church in the last seven days?,' which some might interpret as being asked whether they were good people and good Christians."

Then consider this fact.....

"Buddhism is now considered the fourth-largest religion in the United States. The ever-growing number of U.S. practitioners is estimated at 1.5 million or more. That growth is bringing awareness, influence and some contentious issues."

http://www.religionlink.org/tip_060123.php

That is change !