I get rather opinionated and vocal about this topic, because we've been in a lot of home ed groups in our many moves, and they all seem to promote diversity by scheduling visits to mosques and temples. I've never understood this approach to 'diversity', and I still don't.
Aside from the fact that I simply don't want to shove the idea of organized religion in to my kids tender thoughts, I also don't see how making a field-trip to a place of worship promotes diversity. If anything, it hinders it and promotes separatist views on life. We make field trips to museums to stare at objects and study them and possibly find that you appreciate their beauty. We are separate from those objects. To me, it then seems insulting to visit a mosque or temple or church to stare and study.....to look at it as something different you want to learn about in some academic way.
If you belong to the religion that worships in such places, then you won't look at it in that fashion. It will feel like 'home' to you, it will bring comfort, warmth, and security.
I know people attempt to achieve diversity by intermingling cultures via an academic route, but I just see it as an insult to spirituality.
This does not mean I am against diversity, quite the contrary, I make friends with people. I don't wonder about their race, culture or religion when befriending someone. Those sorts of things seem to come up much later in the relationship and, by then, myself and my children are fully immersed in a deep friendship. This seems natural to me, and in this natural way we tend to learn about others holidays and celebrations, and customs and cuisines. At our previous home ed group, after much time getting to know each other as friends, we found ourselves upon the winter holiday season. Someone mentioned a Christmas party, so others who are Muslim mentioned also hosting a day to enact a Ramadan play, and others who are Jewish suggested also to host a day for Chanukkah celebration. As friends, we all participated in many fun celebrations showing appreciation for diversity and friendship, possibly learning something along the way.
Scheduling a trip to a mosque seems foreign, unnatural, forced, and also disrespectful to the religion. Though I'm sure the rest of the world doesn't see things like this. I've always looked at other angles.
On the flip side of this topic, I also have no desire confuse my kids by 'studying' other religions at their tender age, when I feel that they are naturally discovering their own spirituality. Too many children have religion forced upon them, and they grow up not knowing any better.
All of my senses connect to a feeling of a higher energy or force in the world I understand, and when I reflect and meditate on this feeling, I reach a point of enlightenment that words cannot explain. Possibly this is what 'God' is to me, but I have no desire to squeeze something so wonderful and powerful in to a 3 letter word.
I feel fortunate to have many friends from all walks and backgrounds in life. I grew up in a very racist area of the southern USA, but my parents and family were not racist...at all. We were white people with black friends, which was rare back then. Thankfully, my children are growing up where it's not so rare. We have dear friends who are deeply Jewish, in that they don't just skim the surface they are deeply rooted in their faith and culture. At the same time we have friends who are deeply Muslim, and deeply Christian, and deeply Atheist. Maybe one day they will ask my husband and I what we 'deeply' are, possibly they will become curious, they will want to dig deeper to learn about it all. For now, they simply believe in unicorns and fairies and that's just fine in our home.
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