To consume or to be consumed

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To consume or to be consumed that is the
question! Each individual is a consumer of their
environment and is both consciously and
subconsciously influenced by the culture in which
they live. Mass media, materialism, pop-culture
and images, to name a few, surround us in a whirl
that makes the question of what we choose to
consume a challenge. We are confronted by choices
to consume but not be consumed, to decide what
we take in, adopt, adapt or reject and how our
choices will affect our future behaviours and
character. In this workshop we will explore the
concept of the power of transformation when
consumed by the love of God, using multi-media, a
guided meditation and of course through
consuming and making some choices!
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• The Hidden Messages in Water
• Japanese scientist and healer Dr Masaru Emoto
  has published an amazing hew theory that water
  can absorb and transmit human emotions.
• Dr Emotos book The Hidden Messages in Water
  argues that since water makes up about 70 of the
  human body and covers about the same percentage
  of the Earths surface, we can actually heal the
  planet and ourselves by consciously expressing
  love, goodwill and gratitude.

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Messages for Education
. . . from Water
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The Commission on Children at Risk, a panel of
leading children's doctors, research scientists
and youth service professionals, has issued a
report to the nation about new strategies to
reduce the currently high numbers of U.S.
children who are suffering from emotional and
behavioral problems such as depression, anxiety,
attention deficit, conduct disorders, and
thoughts of suicide. The Commission is basing its
recommendations on recent scientific findings
suggesting that children are biologically
hardwired" for enduring attachments to other
people and for moral and spiritual meaning. 
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Despite a decade of unprecedented economic growth
that resulted in fewer children living in
poverty, large and growing numbers of American
children and adolescents are suffering from
mental health problems.  Scholars at the National
Research Council in 2002 estimated that at least
one of every four adolescents in the U.S. is
currently at serious risk of not achieving
productive adulthood.  Twenty-one percent of U.S.
children ages 9 to 17 have a diagnosable mental
disorder or addiction 8 percent of high school
students suffer from clinical depression, and 20
percent of students report seriously having
considered suicide in the past year.  By the
1980s, U.S. children as a group were reporting
more anxiety than did children who were
psychiatric patients in the 1950s, according to
one study.
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Meeting children's needs for enduring attachments
and for moral and spiritual meaning is the best
way to ensure their healthy development,
according to the Commission's report.
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The Commission is calling upon all U.S. citizens
to help strengthen what it calls authoritative
communities" as likely to be the best strategy
for improving children's lives, in its report,
Hardwired to Connect The Case for Authoritative
Communities.  Authoritative communities are
groups of people who are committed to one another
over time and who exhibit and are able to pass on
what it means to be a good person.  These groups
provide the types of connectedness our children
increasingly lack. 
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Dr. Kenneth L. Gladish, the National Executive
Director, YMCA of the USA The basic conclusion
of this report is that children are hardwired for
close connections to others and for moral and
spiritual meaning. The report challenges all of
us to strengthen those groups in our society that
promote this type of connectedness.  . ." 
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. . . significant body of research . . . shows
that people are hardwired" for meaning, born
with a built-in capacity and drive to ask the
ultimate questions about life's purpose  Why am
I here?  What is the purpose of my life?  How
should I live?  What will happen when I die? 
Across time and cultures, this distinctively
human pursuit has been closely connected to
spiritual seeking and experience and to religious
belief and practice.  Using brain imaging,
neuroscientists . . . have found that the same
part of the brain that underlies the human need
to seek answers to what is true about life's
deepest questions also underlies many spiritual
and religious experiences.  In other words, the
pursuit of meaning appears to be physiologically
linked to spiritual and religious seeking. . .
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One religious quality that appears to be
especially beneficial, in terms of mental health
and lifestyle consequences, is what some scholars
call personal devotion, or the young person's
sense of participating in a direct personal
relationship with the Divine."  Personal devotion
among adolescents in associated with reduced
risk-taking, more effectively resolving feelings
of loneliness, greater regard for self and for
others, and a stronger sense that life has
meaning and purpose.  These protective effects of
personal devotion are twice as great for
adolescents as they are for adults. 
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This last finding clearly reinforces the idea,
found in many cross-national studies, that
adolescence is a time of particularly intense
searching for, and openness to, the
transcendent.  Here is how Lisa Miller of
Columbia University puts it A search for
spiritual relationship with the Creator may be an
inherent developmental process in adolescence."
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REFLECTIONS
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Where there is LOVE . . . There is CONCERN
Where there is CONCERN . . . There is KINDNESS
Where there is KINDNESS . . . There is HARMONY
Where there is HARMONY . . . There is HELPFULNESS
Where there is HELPFULNESS . . . There is
COOPERATION
Where there is COOPERATION . . . There is
CIVILIZATION
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A builder builded a temple,He wrought it with
grace and skillPillars and groins and
archesAll fashioned to work his will.Men said,
as they saw its beauty,"It shall never know
decayGreat is thy skill, 0 Builder!Thy fame
shall endure for aye." A teacher builded a
templeWith loving and infinite care,Planning
each arch with patience,Laying each stone with
prayer.None praised her unceasing efforts, None
knew of her wondrous plan,For the temple the
Mother buildedWas unseen by the eyes of man.
Gone is the Builder's temple,Crumpled into the
dustLow lies each stately pillar,Food for
consuming rust.But the temple the Mother
buildedWill last while the ages roll,For that
beautiful unseen templeWas a child's immortal
soul. - Hattie Vose Hall
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I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am
the decisive element in the classroom.It's my
personal approach that creates the climate.It's
my daily mood that makes the weather.As a
teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a
child's life miserable or joyous.I can be a tool
of torture or an instrument of inspiration.I can
humiliate or humour, hurt or heal.In all
situations, it is my response that decides
whether a crisis will  be escalated or
de-escalated, and a child humanized or
dehumanized. - Haim Ginott
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Among the greatest of all great services is the
education of children,   and promotion of the
various sciences, crafts and arts. Praised be
God, ye are now exerting strenuous efforts toward
this end. The more ye persevere in this most
important task, the more will ye witness the
confirmations of God, to such a degree that ye
yourselves will be astonished.
- Bahai Writings