Thursday, January 28, 2010
Adoption Defined
This except is from Wikipedia, the free dictionary:
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another who is not kin and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents.
Adoption has a long history in the Western world, closely tied with the legacy of the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. Its use has changed considerably over the centuries with its focus shifting from adult adoption and inheritance issues toward children and family creation...
Adoption has been called the quintessential American institution, embodying faith in social engineering and mobility. While it is true that the modern form emerged in the United States, civilization has a long history of the practice of adoption.
Ancient History
The use of adoption by the aristocracy is well documented; many of Rome's emperors were adopted sons. Infant adoption during Antiquity appears rare. Abandoned children were often picked up for slavery and composed a significant percentage of the Empire’s slave supply. Roman legal records indicate that foundlings were occasionally taken in by families and raised as a son or daughter. Although not normally adopted under Roman Law, the children, called alumni, were reared in an arrangement similar to guardianship, being considered the property of the father who abandoned them.
Other ancient civilizations, notably India and China, utilized some form of adoption as well. Evidence suggests their practices aimed to ensure the continuity of cultural and religious practices, in contrast to the Western idea of extending family lines.
In ancient India, ‘secondary sonship,’clearly denounced by the Rigveda,continued, in a limited and highly ritualistic form, so that an adopter might have the necessary funerary rites performed by a son. China had a similar conception of adoption with males adopted solely to perform the duties of ancestor worship.
Modern period
The next stage of adoption’s evolution fell to the emerging nation of the United States. Rapid immigration and the aftermath of the American Civil War resulted in unprecedented overcrowding of orphanages and foundling homes in the mid-nineteenth century. Charles Loring Brace, a Protestant minister became appalled by the legions of homeless waifs roaming the streets of New York City. Brace considered the abandoned youth, particularly Catholics, to be the most dangerous element challenging the city’s order.
Brace's solution was outlined in The Best Method of Disposing of Our Pauper and Vagrant Children (1859) which started the Orphan Train movement. The orphan trains eventually shipped an estimated 200,000 children from the urban centers of the East to the nation’s rural regions. The children were generally indentured, rather than adopted, to families who took them in. As in times past, some children were raised as members of the family while others were used as farm laborers and household servants.
The sheer size of the displacement—the largest migration of children in history—and the degree of exploitation that occurred, gave rise to new agencies and a series of laws that promoted adoption arrangements rather than indenture. The hallmark of the period is Minnesota’s adoption law of 1917 which mandated investigation of all placements and limited record access to those involved in the adoption.
During the same period, the Progressive movement swept the United States with a critical goal of ending the prevailing orphanage system. The culmination of such efforts came with the First White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children called by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1909, where it was declared that the nuclear family represented "the highest and finest product of civilization” and was best able to serve as primary caretaker for the abandoned and orphaned. Anti-institutional forces gathered momentum. As late as 1923, only two percent of children without parental care were in adoptive homes, with the balance in foster arrangements and orphanages. Less than forty years later, nearly one-third were in an adoptive home.
Nevertheless, the popularity of eugenic ideas in America put up obstacles to the growth of adoption. There were grave concerns about the genetic quality of illegitimate and indigent children, perhaps best exemplified by the influential writings of Henry H. Goddard who protested against adopting children of unknown origin, saying, "Now it happens that some people are interested in the welfare and high development of the human race; but leaving aside those exceptional people, all fathers and mothers are interested in the welfare of their own families. The dearest thing to the parental heart is to have the children marry well and rear a noble family. How short-sighted it is then for such a family to take into its midst a child whose pedigree is absolutely unknown; or, where, if it were partially known, the probabilities are strong that it would show poor and diseased stock, and that if a marriage should take place between that individual and any member of the family the offspring would be degenerates".—Henry Goddard, Wanted: A Child to Adopt
It took a war and the disgrace of Nazi eugenic policies to alter attitudes. The period 1945 to 1974, the Baby scoop era, saw rapid growth and acceptance of adoption as a means to build a family.[40] Illegitimate births rose three-fold after WWII, as sexual mores changed. Simultaneously, the scientific community began to stress the dominance of nurture over genetics, chipping away at eugenic stigmas. In this environment, adoption became the obvious solution for both unwed mothers and infertile couples.
Taken together, these trends resulted in a new American model for adoption. Following its Roman predecessor, Americans severed the rights of the original parents while making adopters the new parents in the eyes of the law. Two innovations were added: 1) adoption was formulated as a legal act meant to ensure the "best interests of the child;" the seeds of this idea can be traced to the first American adoption law in Massachusetts, 1851 which mandated that placements consider the welfare of the child, and 2) adoption became infused with secrecy, eventually resulting in the sealing of adoption and original birth records by 1945. The origin of the move toward secrecy began with Charles Loring Brace who introduced it to prevent children from the Orphan Trains from returning to or being reclaimed by their parents. Brace feared the impact of the parents' poverty and their Catholic religion, in particular, on the youth. This tradition of secrecy was carried on by the later Progressive reformers when drafting of American laws.
The number of adoptions in the United States peaked in 1970. It is uncertain what caused the subsequent decline. Besides the legalization of artificial birth control methods and abortion, the years of the late 1960s and early 1970s saw a dramatic change in society’s view of illegitimacy. In response, family preservation efforts grew so that few children born out of wedlock today are adopted.
For sources and more complete definition, refer to Wikipedia under Adoption.
Monday, January 25, 2010
The World Within
When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.
When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town.
I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself,
and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself,
I could have made an impact on my family.
My family and I could have made an impact on our town.
Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.
~ Unknown
Friday, January 08, 2010
Two Wonderful Books
Note: I have posted this before, but I love it so, I cannot help bring it back up a few months and post it again.
The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler
Without a Map by Meredith Hall
If you want to understand your mother's generation, both books are most helpful.
If you want to appreciate how different you are than your mother and how truly lucky for the we are for the time we now live--they are equally helpful.
If you want to know your story is getting told, as a woman who went through such a terrible, dark time, well, these books are not enough but they are a start.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Faith
What is faith?
Faith is not measurable. Faith is surrender of mind but not necessarily of will.
There is a deep driving will in all forms that contain life. A form has the will to expand, to survive, to grow and to express fully. Life is an unbound force of will: slow, steady, omnipresent, relentless and oh so patient.
The will of life is evident everywhere you place your eyes--tree, moss, ivy, bugs, snails, dogs, humans. The will to be is the art you create, the songs you sing, the awakening each morning to a new dawn. The life will is clear. Life is alive and flowing.
Faith is the surrender of the mind and its questions of how life will turn out. Will life, as it is known now, flourish or fail? Faith is the surrender of this question and an abiding in the will of life, within the human form and everywhere on the planet. Faith is a quiet confidence. Faith is trust and more, faith is intelligence. It allows the form to relax.
Re lax. Re lax. Re lax.
When the form that life uses to express itself can relax the tension of anxiety and mental struggle, life can more fully flow.
Humans, encumbered (and blessed) with cognition, mammalian nurturing and primal survival functions have a miserable time with relaxation.
Relaxation is being explored at this time, to a great degree. There are pharmaceuticals, spa treatments, therapies, centers for meditation, breathing, stress relief and the entire spiritual movement. There are whole schools of thought around what is "relaxing." Travel? Food? Sleep? Drinking? drugs? Sex? Shopping? On and on.
Relaxation is not escape. Relaxation is the release of the mental tension, learning how to unburden the form from the tension created by the mind--brain--primal and mammal brain which tells a flood of stories about "survival challenges."
A human being, well fed, warm, comfortable and secure in a house can tell himself countless stories of doom that produce so much anxiety and stress for the system that there is no relaxation at all. Rather there is a massive depletion of energy through the mental processes and the system is taxed. All systems connected to that system are taxed as well, and since all life systems are interconnected, the result of one systems tension impacts all systems. It is quite stunning to see how one human being's mental anxiety can trip up the entire system of life.
Have we lost track of faith? No. Faith is the major component of re-laxation. The faith in life, the surrender to the will of life, as an entirety, is a deep and basic function of being. Faith is available, in abundance when one observes a planet or an animal. Stand and observe a dog, a flower, a tree, a turtle. Borrow a bit of faith from these forms to calm the mind and to relax. All beings on the planet, from plant to man, have the capacity to relax in the faith of being--to rest in the will of life and to trust life--as a force and as a presence.
Some say faith is a childlike quality. Simple. And this is true. But faith is also more than simple. Faith is innocence infused with great wisdom. Innocence is faith and trust and knowing of the goodness of life. And life is truly good.
Saturday, January 02, 2010
Love
Love is all there is. Love is the source. Love is the sustenance. All you need is love, love, love. A mantra, pure and perfect.
Spending a day, repeating the word love over and over again can purify even the darkest karma, mood and deepest suffering.
Love is source and it is where all form returns. The state of love is and it is not an idea. No action is required of love or to be in love and yet love is also an active principle. Love is alive. Love is life. You are alive. You are life. You are love. Love and life are not distinguishable from each other. Love is outside the bounds of reason. Love is where the planetary consciousness is heading and what is being left behind--falling away as an O-ring falls away from a space shuttle that moves out of the atmosphere-is reason, thinking and thought as a way of being.
Thought is no longer of service to the species. Thought is, has become, largely misunderstood and largely dysfunctional. The major spiritual teaching of this time is to bring awareness to the thinking process and its overall uselessness in the larger scheme of being, its utter illusion making properties.
Human beings are in a phase of evolution where such a small part of the "thinking function" is utilized and where the "thinking function" is being co-opted by the primal aspects of the brain. Most--no all thinking for the great majority of humans goes to some aspect of ego satisfaction and to the service of survival. Thought is largely conditioned and largely in service to the condition of anxiety.
There is much more to say about this issue of thought, about a recognition of how much thinking inhibits ones awareness of the field of love and even brings a high degree of misery to the planet and to the human species, but the overall message of love is most important.
To recognize love, as your source and where you return to as the source of all life and intelligence and of life itself is most important. Too much thought can go into thought. Thought, whether or not it is recognized, is shifting and even dissolving. The flow of love is too great to be hindered by thinking functions. Thought, as it now exists, is as useless as wisdom teeth or the appendix. Love, as source, eviscerates thought completely. Thought burns up in the white light of love. This infusion of love is already happening. Thought is the caterpillar in its final stages of dysfunction and love is the butterfly about to emerge from the cacoon. As a practice, to say "love, love, love," as a mantra, is to enter the flow of what is happening. Surrender to love, invite love, come home ot love and you enter the flow. Notice how it feels, in your cells, to say "love, love, love." See the smile lift to your lips. Feel the light-ness. Notice the relaxation of tension. Love is home. Love is bliss. Love is where you are going without moving or taking a step. All you need is love, all you are is love. There's no more to be said.
Friday, January 01, 2010
Religion
Religion? Why does religion drive me away?
Control. You do not want to be controlled. You are a practioner of Buddhism, because the Buddha--according to the current mode of interpretation and translation of 2500 years ago--told his students, " don't believe anyone, not even me." The Buddha wasn't the only master to teach such a lesson. Christ taught this, Khrisnamurti, Maharishi, Rinpoche, Dalai Lama.
Human beings are so hungry for leadership, for philosophy and spiritual guidance, they find a teacher and open their hearts and minds and they become like little children. You are included in this, Jennifer. You follow like a little lamb, out of hunger and from a core belief that you do not know--when this is simply not true. You know--all people know. The power in a single human being is enormous and breath taking--as vast and as dizzying as the Grand Canyon, the pyramids, the sunset, the stars in the sky. What is lacking is belief. Human beings believe themselves to be small and consider others to be either dismissible or elevated. Since humans hunger so for divine guidance --a desire that orients from within--yet they look outward, set sights on a spiritual leader or teacher and give over their wise knowing. When questions enter their mind (and questions are vitally important) they press them down with doubt and a conditioned belief that they do not--cannot--know their own minds and then need rises up and gobbles the question away. The follower reduces himself and the priest, spiritual leader, teacher is elevated to a higher place. From this infantilization of self, dogma is born and exploitation results. Industry, the industry of religion is born.
Religion bugs you for this reason--you are infantilized--by your own condition believes of being small and worthless and unworthy--false humility as a woman (and there is a great deal to say about this) and then you are also exploited by the spiritual leaders--so called--who don't invite questions and debate and even complete disbelief.
Invite such a situation with your own writing students, your readers, your children, and your partner. Invite debate. "Don't believe me, look for yourselves." This is the true foundation of truth. Seek as a child of God--as God--as a life force in form.
If you are here, in a human form, able to ask the highest questions about being, suffering, transcendence, human evolution, intelligence and God, light and life, then you are capable of finding the answers within. For anyone who reads your writing and who asks questions, always remind them (and yourself) that you don't know. You seek as well. Invite debate and disagreement and ask--always ask--"what do you think and see and believe?" So many people will quote a test from the ancient writings of the bible or other spiritual teachers--they will pound on the table with conviction--refusing to accept that the text is old, has been translated a thousands times by that many egos and agendas. The words of ancient test are--in so many ways--old too. What is fresh and now is the knowledge within beings now. Humans--with a vast knowing--as great as the universe--have access to the library of all time and knowing. They need only reach inside and begin. Begin in a simple way. Ask the questions. If only by writing them down. Ask a notepad (and truly, this is how you began Jennifer. 15 years ago, that was your beginning. You had one unanswerable question. "Who was my mother?" The question, which you wrote into a journal, became the boat and the river and your life--all flowing to where you are today).
Ask questions without needing to know the answers. Your questions--today--come out of hearts and minds of this age, this moment. The questions are alive, they are wisdom, they are truth. Your questions get your boat off dry land and into the flow. Your questions are a form of surrender. You accept that you do not have access to answers--exact answers--and also open yourself to the greater intelligence of the universe--the unmanifested and yet alive pulse of being.
Labels: channeling, dogma, God, human evolution, intelligence, Jennifer Lauck, Philosophy, religion, Spirituality, suffering, transcendence, writing