Kids and the little bird.
October 19, 2009
by Peter Starr
A story that has been getting a lot of media in Australia is the debate regarding Jessica Watson, a 16 yr old female and her dream to sail around the world.
Are the parents right in allowing this? If you say “yes” to this spirit of adventure then it may be a 14 yr old next year as we humans seem to want to push the limits and break the records etc.
Where to draw the line is a problem. A so called sailing expert has indicated that the risk involved in her proceeding would be 30% that she will lose her boat and another 30% that she will lose her life. Now that’s risky but what would be an acceptable percentage of risk seeing that all life involves some kind of risk. Hey “fortune favors the bold!”
Having raised 4 children who are now adults I realise that there is a time to let go. To over protect our children will do them no favor as the need to develop their own skills.
I’ve heard it said that if you see a young chick pecking away as it tries to break free of the egg shell. Don’t help it! If you do then you may well kill the bird. Just leave it pecking away because the bird is actually developing muscles that it will need in life.
Entry Filed under: community, life issues, parenting. Tags: children, Jessica Watson, parenting, parenting skills, Pete Starr, relationships, sailing, SCCCT, South Coast City Church Thirroul.
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1. Hona Wikeepa | October 19, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Francis Schaeffer begins his book “The God Who Is There” with, “The chasm between the generations has been bought about by a change in the concept of truth.” Those familar with the development of philosophy from Thales (600BCE) to our current time know that philosophy like the Bible deals mostly with the thought processess humans have applied in any time whereby they have arrived at a particular reality. As a person thinks, so are they; and science agrees although they cannot explain thinking like Genesis 1:1 does with the Hebrew term “Elohim” used for God only applied in the plural tension. Hence personality is reasonably explained like nobody esle can do.The chams Schaeffer talks about describes the shift in the integration point humans apply in arriving at a reality about anything. For example Christian’s see human’s as immaterial beings that think and then express that thinking into the external world through the hands or the mouth. Buddhist on the other hand see human’s in a totally different way as do Marxist and all other humanist based systems. So when Pol Pot kills millions of his people we must remeber that people have a different value in the Buddhist system than it does in our Judaeo Christian tradition. For the Christian to have real dialogue with the Buddhist this difference of integration point has to be addressed first in order for the Buddhist to reason upon the same basis as the Christian. If nmot a lengthy discussion or debate will occur because this cahsm has not been noticed. When I was a child, people in my generation mostly functioned upon a romantic association to the Christian idea where “yes” was the antithesis of “no” This biblical methodology gives us absoute opposite values and human reason is possible. This is why God places a tree in the midst of the garden so we can exercise reason. Parents today are conbfronted by the postmodern ethos combined with the pratical expression of modernity in technology education health and so on. “Yes” and “no” do not carry absolute values today because we have fused them into a synthesis that gives us a perspective as Nietzsche put it over 100 years ago. This gap is described as an epistemological gap in terms of what integration point for knowing anything people will apply. Human life to a Muslim isn’t the same as the Christian view because their God concept of one entity cannot show us how personality and reason can exist, whereas the Christian faith has three distinct equal beings, whose mutual reciprocal actions betwen each other denotes, “personality” and its function; to reason and deliberate on what they have done. Buddhism has nobody there so personality is actually an irrational idea to the Buddhist who spends his life tryinbg to empty out his head of thinking. His problem comes when asked how he knows this has occurred without thinking. I think this story highlights the relative view that people express in todays postmodern post-Christian context. For many non-Christian’s it will mostly be greeted with jubilation because the postmodern ethic involves the freedom the express ones reality even if it is an absurd reality. The key in postmodern thought is to express irrespective of that expression. This is because people generally exercise a relative perspective as opposed to an actual truth. This young lady seems years ahead of say my 19 year old son who is not a sailor in her desire to express herself in this particular way. Our son works in retail and doesn’t see himself progressing further than that because he works with his brother and sister inlaw. But he doesn’t carry the same tension inside him to validate his existence in any particular way because he knows who he is and where he came from. This young lady is being consistent to the consequences that flow naturally from a contrary Christian world view. Her problem as I see it, is that she warrants an explanation of the two basic philosophic questions of, who am I and where did I come from? When she wakes up one morning and the sun is shinning bright, I expect she will search all that she is and all that surrounds her in an attempt to give the deeper meaning to what she is doing. In the absence of a Christian message minus intellectual integrity these sorts of acts will become common place. Socrates said that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing. He is riight considering he lived in the two testaments where no word from God came and so Greek philosphy grew rapdily. yet he also says, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Thogu he rightly concludes that he cannot be certain he knows anything without an absolute knower, he understands that he does know. In the absence of a word from God, Socrates was always going to die in absolute uncertainty despite absolutes being an irrational idea to him. Our history is shaped by the thought processess human’s have applied whereby they have arrived at a reality, whether you begin at Adam or myself. Unless we address human thought process like Jesus did, we will deal after that very important fact; that is with the doer. I hope that God will watch ovwer her and that He will reveal Himself to her through that element that is most common to her, the revelation of God in creation like my Maori people did and were able to sail over the horizon centuries before the Chinese and European’s. The when she gets back home she can pick up the revelation of God in scripture and then in Christ.
God Bless your church in Thirroul