Honoring Others in the Moment, or, Loving Without Regard to Outcome

In his present existential crisis, as he attempts to understand "what was going on with [him]," Masters offers the following analysis: "Looking back, I realize that it wasn't rage that motivated me, though I hid behind anger to avoid certain truths about my life. I remember once walking down the street, when I came across a tree growing in the pavement of a parking lot between cars. My first reaction was to look at it, study it, wonder. I thought, `How is this possible?' But I wasn't in school, I'd never learn these things. I smashed the little tree because I knew I'd never go to school. There was no room for wonder in my life." Reading Masters' book, especially this section, I couldn't help but think of the relevance of the author's words to the deeply committed and heartfelt work of so many good-faith educators. In particular, I was struck by the author's deep insight into the relationship between the presence or absence of wonder in a child's life and the presence or absence of the child's healthy growth and development. For those adults who work with children, one crucial implication of this insight is that, if adults do not value, honor, and nurture children's innate wondering, or imagining, they might harm or impede children's healthy growth and development. Concerning this particular point, as I thought of Masters' testimony and insight I recalled that, in the last issue of Paths, we profiled The Touchstone Center, which we described as a "unique and wonderfully exciting venture in child-centered, child-honoring learning." In this issue, we offer excerpts from some of the writings of Richard Lewis, the founder and director of The Touchstone Center, who has dedicated his efforts to honoring the connection between children's imagining and their healthy growth. Perhaps not so coincidentally, one set of excerpts that we offer here is from a beautiful, heartfelt book entitled Living By Wonder: The Imaginative Life of Childhood. Another aspect of Masters' book that is both worthy of our attention and relevant to our concerns at Paths has to do with the author's attempts to live a life (for Masters, this is a Buddhist life) of compassion and love in San Quentin. In following this path, Masters engages in actions that honor others without regard to the outcomes of these actions. In other words, he treats others with respect, compassion, and love because that is what he feels he must do, whether or not the others with whom he interacts seem "worthy" of his t