I enjoy Robert Fulghum’s books. His All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten is one of my favorites.
In it, he acknowledges that what we learned in kindergarten and the sandpile after Sunday School adds up to most of what is necessary to live a meaningful life, and it isn’t all that complicated. Here are some of the lessons he cites:
Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. … Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day. … When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Wonder. … And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – one of the biggest words of all – LOOK.
We go to school to be introduced to the essentials of being human and to Sunday School (and Catholic schools) to be formed as disciples who live fully the message of Jesus Christ. These lessons are first explained in language a small child understands.
I’m suggesting that we return to a less complicated way of communicating. (I never liked using a methodology; however, I’m more than willing to try a method!)
Here’s what I mean. It’s hard to explain the cost and consequences of environmental pollution and destruction to a 6-year-old. But in kindergarten we learned to clean up your own mess, put things back where you found them and don’t take what’s not yours.
Another lesson we quickly learned is that we need each other. This has been reaffirmed by the arrival of my great-nephew, Torin, on Jan. 5.
Through our baptism, we are forever connected with the Trinity and called to help build God’s kingdom. We are called to community with family, friends, companions, the Church, etc. Remember those “when you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together” lessons?
These past COVID years have challenged our abilities to connect with one another and to look past our needs to see the needs of others. So much around us is in chaos. However, there is hope and a need to keep things in perspective.
My favorite Fulghum book is Uh-oh. When I read this book about 40-plus years ago, I was struck by one of Fulghum’s experiences as a young man working at a resort where families came for “the season.”
He ranted about his problem with the staff dinner menus to a night bookkeeper. When Fulghum had talked himself out, the bookkeeper calmly explained the difference between a problem and an inconvenience.
Bottom line, the bookkeeper survived the Holocaust. He cited the need to understand the difference between not liking the menu and not having food at all. He said Fulghum needed to understand the difference between a lump in his oatmeal, his throat and his breast.
An inconvenience might become a problem; it also might become a blessing. This year will provide many opportunities to identify problems, inconveniences and blessings. We get to decide.
I pray that we save our best energy for problems and that we put our trust in God to give us strength to meet whatever arises and to see the blessings in all the challenges we face.