I’m currently attending a conference that focuses on improving student behavior with the ultimate intent being that student academic performance will improve.  It’s what I do.  Deal with kids. I deal with their behavior and in spite of receiving notes that read, “what’s you fumpking problem”, breaking up fights, and worrying that the quiet kid in the corner is watching felony domestic abuse each night when he goes home, I am also tasked with making certain they continue to show adequate improvement academically as well. It is a wonderful and rewarding job.  It is not an easy one. And after the day is done, I must go home and do the very same with my own little tribe, who, in reality possesses the very same risk factors many of my students do sans witnessing the violent domestic abuse…but they’ve been there done that too.

 Three years ago, my life changed.  I finally woke up from the nightmare I’d been living, realized no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t change another person’s behavior nor could I make their decisions for them.  It didn’t matter how much faith I had in God or how nicely and diplomatically I tried to discuss the difficult topics things didn’t change and I was experiencing some very serious health problems as the result.  It didn’t appear God was jumping in to do any miracles of protection and I was not going to survive and care for my children if I didn’t leave.  Further, if I didn’t leave I was in danger of getting hurt or my children getting hurt and then having them forcibly taken.  The fact that I stayed in the situation so long, testified to my fear and my really unhealthy perspective.  I am not that person anymore.  I woke up.   I struggled to climb out of that marital bed that I’d made for myself.  I did it mostly on my own, but I did have help from a few close friends who supported me and encouraged me and helped remind me of the vision of a life for me and my children where we were all safe, respected and respectful, and where I could teach them the skills they would need in life to successfully manage their own affairs as adults. That was my struggle over the last three years. 

Yesterday, I went to the very same conference (different faces, topics, but same big deal, you know how conferences can be) and I heard some words that I heard that very first year.  These words resonated with me then.  They brought tears to my eyes yesterday, just as they did three years ago, but for different reasons this time.  They are taken from a speech from a man who is of the Unitarian Universalist faith, and while I am not of that faith, the story is still a good one.  

 Among the most accomplished and fabled tribes of Africa, no tribe was considered to have warriors more fearsome or more intelligent than the mighty Masai. It is perhaps surprising then to learn the traditional greeting that passed between Masai warriors. “Kasserian ingera” one would always say to another. It means “and how are the children?”

It is still the traditional greeting among the Masai, acknowledging the high value that the Masai always place on their children’s well-being. Even warriors with no children of their own would always give the traditional answer, “all the children are well.” Meaning, of course, that peace and safety prevail, that the priorities of protecting the young, the powerless, are in place, that Masai society has not forgotten its reasons for being, its proper functions and responsibilities. “All the children are well” means that life is good. It means that the daily struggles of existence do not preclude proper caring for their young.

I wonder how it might affect our consciousness of our own children’s welfare if in our culture we took to greeting each other with this daily question: “and how are the children?” I wonder if we heard that question and passed it along to each other a dozen times a day, if it would begin to make a difference in the reality of how children are thought of or cared for in our own country?

I wonder if we could truly say without any hesitation, “the children are well, yes, all the children are well.”        ~ Adapted by Pat Hoertdoerfer from an excerpt of a speech by Rev. Dr. Patrick T. O’Neill

Three years ago, these words evoked emotions of sadness, regret, shame and pain.  My children were not well.  I was not well.  Three years ago, these words struck a chord in me that reached far down into the depths of my being and lodged there providing me with the vision of a better future than my present and past had been.  I wanted to be able to say with all sincerity and confidence, “The children are well, yes, all the children are well.”

And while the children are still indeed children and they try my patience greatly at points, I can say those words with all the sincerity, conviction and confidence that only a few short years ago I was only able to dimly imagine.

Kasserian ingera?

The children are well! Yes! All the children are well!