Humanity has cut itself off from nature, especially in our cities. We isolate ourselves in our communities and close up our houses to keep the world outside and away from us. Now many people are seeking to “reconnect” with themselves and seeking out natural foods and meditation. My father taught me to pay attention to the world around me and told me that if anything should happen to him the world would teach me what I needed to know to survive. [See also: https://sabersedge.online/life-is-tough-are-you-up-to-the-challenge ]
Welcome Freedom Troopers and other readers to another installment of What Your Father Should Have Taught You. I hope that this blog finds you well and ready to face a new week in your life. This lesson, that we can learn what we need to know from nature was taught to me by my father, but like so much of his wisdom he learned it from reading the philosophy and teachings of the ancients. This wisdom was known by both the Greeks and Confucius but he quoted the Bible as he taught this lesson [See also: for a discussion of what, if any, value the past has for us: https://sabersedge.online/the-more-things-change ]
“…ask the animals, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the see will declare to you.
Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
In his hands is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.”
Job 12:7-10
Our whole field of scientific inquiry is built on the assumption that the world makes sense. This assumption was made because God had created the earth and therefore seeking the way the world works – studying the creation – would give us hints about the very Force that created the Universe. You would think it would be self-evident that if the world was random then there is no reason to assume that the world would make sense. Perhaps this is why so many of the earliest scientific and medical discoveries were made by priests and monks who were studying the universe that God had created. The foundations of Western Civilization allowed us to build the greatest society the world has yet seen and build technical advances that will take us to Mars and beyond. the whole world imitates Western Civilization from our business suits to our assemblies. From the school masters of Greece and Rome to those of the one room school houses we built an educations system that created excellence. Then in the late 1800s we began structuring education for mediocrity and producing factory workers. [See also: https://sabersedge.online/our-system-is-broken and https://sabersedge.online/awaken-the-lions-fixing-a-toxic-system ]
There was an author in the early 19th Century who referred to the steady stream of people leaving the rural areas to move to the cities as a “convoy of death” because those who left life amid nature became so cut off from the world that their very life and surroundings would deceive them about the nature of life and existence. Indeed, medical science has now told us what the philosophers had told us thousands of years ago, had we listened, and that is that we were created to live in the world, and returning to the world comforts and strengthens us. Recently I found out that studies revealed that walking in the woods or sitting on the grass for ten to twenty minutes a day provided all of the health benefits of spending the same time in the discipline of meditation.
I wondered why, whatever was happening in my life, I looked forward to walking in the woods or along the paths and trees of a park with my father. Why, when we sat by the lake and watched the light play upon the water as we talked I always felt stronger and better able to face the things that bothered me. It was not only spending time with my father but reconnecting with the earth that renewed my strength and re-centered my life amid all of the conflicting and demanding desires of life. I continued this habit with my own children as we and our dogs would go walking in the evening or how when I got home from work I spent half to hour or so taking my children to the park and playing with them; when the weather allowed.
There is a natural balance to life that we reconnect with when we reconnect with nature. Whether it is sitting on our porch and watching the birds or listening to the rustle of wind in the leaves, or the crickets and frogs in the evening, or if it is sitting and watching rabbits or squirrels playing in the yard.
Ask the animals and they will teach you…
But we don’t.
Parents should teach their children to survive in world and prepare them for the conflict and struggles that everyone faces on their way to building a life that matters. Pups and kittens, hunt and stalk, pounce and wrestle, and human children, if allowed to develop naturally do the same. Yet our society is so warped that even the simple game of tag is banned as something “dangerous” on the playground. Where it is probably one of the most natural games that we could play. In fact, it is so natural a game that my cat Tuck plays it every day with his brother Simon; racing from one end of my house to another. Yesterday, I watched them play another game I used to play with my friends as a kid. We called it King of the Hill. We had a couple of boxes in the front room from deliveries and they were stacked (the smaller one on the larger,) Tuck was on the top box as Simon was trying to push him off and take the top spot. The “King of the Hill” position had (as it always did with me and my friends,) changed quite often as no one can stay on top forever. Especially if you get double or triple-teamed. But your chance always comes again as your former foes became your friends to bring down the “new” king. Anyway, at this point, with Tuck on top, the rapid give and take of wrestling and play-fighting paused with Tuck on top, sitting proudly with one paw raised to bat at his brother if we tried to come up to the top place. Simon, for his spot, paused and was steadying the problem as to how to find the best way to unseat his brother from the “throne” and claim the top spot for himself. [See also: https://sabersedge.online/whats-it-mean-to-be-a-man ]
I have watched squirrels, birds, dogs, cats, bears, wolves, badgers, and others all play in this manner as they learn the skills and perseverance that are needed in life. Yet today, in our warped and un-natural society such games (which I regularly played on the playground with my friends at school,) are banned as “toxic masculinity” when what they were learning was how to survive and compete in a world where sometimes you’re on top and sometimes you not; sometimes you need to pursue your goals at full speed and other times you need to avoid the “it” that pursues you. [See also: https://sabersedge.online/awaken-the-lions-have-we-been-domesticated ]
I remember loving it in grade school when it snowed because we had a pile of snow at the corner of the school on the playground and we could play king of the hill. I remember when we broke into two teams and the other team had the hill. We got ready to “storm the ramparts” when my friend Jeff York shouted as we charged “Here comes the Bugger Bunch!” and I got laughing so hard I was easily toppled off the hill. A teacher was nearby and stopped such malfeasance! “Don’t say “bugger” Jeff.” The fact that I had slipped and fallen and three others had been tossed off the hill was not an issue. No one was crying, we were all laughing and getting back up covered in snow from head to toe…our coats needed to dry out in the cloakroom but we were fine. We went to school in those days dressed for the weather outside because we played outside.
Back then it was not uncommon to get banged up a bit on the playground. Many teachers kept bandaids and a washcloth so they could fix the minor stuff. If someone fell the teacher would only come if they didn’t bounce right back up. If they sat there the teacher would come over, and assess the situation. If it was just a bump or a scape with a little blood they would brush us off, help us up and send us back to play – or we could sit on the bench…it’s just a scrape. If someone were actually bleeding they would tell another teacher that they were taking the child to the nurse who would clean the wound; apply direct pressure to stop the bleeding; put on a bandage and send us back to class. But we were always taught that no one was going to “give” us anything. We would have to work for it. None of our heroes were ever handed anything. They all struggled to achieve something greater than themselves. [See also: https://sabersedge.online/blood-and-courage-the-heroes-we-grew-up-with ]
When we got home with some bumps and bruises we didn’t have neurotic parents who called the school and screamed. They asked what happened and would say something like. “Oh, did you have fun?” – “Yeah, except my knee hurts.” – “We get a lot of bumps and bruises in life but most aren’t serious and can’t keep us from reaching our goals.” – “Yeah, can I have an apple?” “As long as you eat your dinner.” – That’s how life used to go…when we remembered what life was about and understood our place in nature. [See also: https://sabersedge.online/life-is-about-change-and-is-key-to-growth ]
In our world we have become so alienated from the natural world that we have evolved to live in that we deny fundamental and natural facts as well as the natural tendencies that we can see in all of God’s creatures in our own children.
Listening to the lies of the ignorant in our un-natural society has precipitated unintentional parental abuse (and “educators” who lack wisdom,) as they un-naturally suppress the natural curiousity, imitation, building, chase, and wrestling games that children engage in. [See also: https://sabersedge.online/live-not-by-lies-vote-for-truth ]And now we wonder why our children today are the most emotionally, physically, and mentally weak and unhealthy of any generation in recent history. Perhaps we should ask the animals and let them teach us. As my father and the scriptures suggested.