day of the dead

While the rest of Mexico will not be celebrating the Day of the Dead until Friday, I feel compelled to write about it now.

I debated long and hard about whether or not to mention this on my blog. After some words of encouragement from Jenny, I decided to break through the emotional dam that has kept the flood waters away from happy, crafty land.

This story begins 7 years ago, when I was 19. My friend Laura was killed. Michael Moore dedicated his film, Bowling for Columbine, to Laura.

I spent the subsequent years pondering questions of good and evil, free will and lack thereof, bad vs. abnormal, atheism and theism. I think a good number of my college papers dealt with these themes - thankfully I was in a Great Books program that allowed for such philosophical exploration. My senior thesis was an exploration of the development of "the human will" in the educational system (or lack thereof, really) and how this lack of development can engender a culture of violence. When you get right down to it, this is the reason I went into education, and the reason I believe so firmly in educational philosophies that treat children with the utmost respect. Children treated with respect will, in turn, treat others with that same respect. Violence breeds violence. Respect encourages respect. I just wanted to do my part to put a wrench in the cycle of violence.

Yesterday, I found out that my friend Marijke, who was in my Montessori training course with me, was killed. The circumstances are horrific. She is survived by her 3 1/2 year-old twin daughters, now orphans.

I didn't go to school today, because one of my students told me yesterday that his father is threatening to kill his mother. He is four. He is seeing this, hearing this. How will this little boy treat others when he grows up? I needed a day off to reflect and to attempt to digest the news about Marijke.

I am not the only one who has two friends that were murdered. The situation is astronomically worse in Iraq, and in many other forgotten corners of the Earth. Violence breeds violence. Perhaps this is why humans seem incapable of learning from history. They simply absorb patterns of behavior that their parents, televisions, and countries act out in front of them. What are we going to do about this?

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Thank you for listening. Fortunately, I am generally a very content, happy person. You can expect to be back to your "regularly scheduled posts" very shortly. In the meantime, I'm off to take a warm bath, sip a cup of hot chocolate, and enjoy the beauty of the falling leaves.