Technology, Authority, and Laughter

I think it was a November Beach Day Friday -- I've been putting off this post for so long I don't remember the date. It was a Beach Day like any other except for the sheriff's helicopter that landed and took off again in the parking lot on top of the hill. I don't know why it made that visit, but the effect on the children gathered in the playground just below was electric. What noise! What power! What a massive display of mechanical magic! The beast did not merely demand attention, it hijacked it. But the children gave it freely and joyfully, jumping up and down, shouting, pointing, smiling, laughing. It was infectious, really. I don't know that I've ever laughed at a helicopter before, but now I wonder why one wouldn't. I once heard a definition of humor as that which is incongruous to us. We laugh at combinations of things that are not expected; the "absurd". I noticed recently that I tend to smile and laugh a lot and I wondered about that. But recalling that definition makes sense. We float in incongruous absurdity. A massive flying machine that emits volcanic noise levels settling its bulbous body just above the playground. The juxtaposition of innocence and power was... funny! Watching the children's joyous abandon was equally funny. I thought, there is no intimidation, no apprehension, just childlike celebration of life's wonders. 


And then the police car pulled up.


I would have to guess that on any other day, this kind officer would have carried out his duties without molestation. But the children were already emboldened by their celebration-of-power dance, and they swarmed the vehicle without a moment's hesitation like sand fleas. He wasn't going anywhere even if he wanted to. Then, congruous with the incongruous events of the day, he suddenly opened up all of the car doors and let the children stream though. Touching this, touching that... "Just not *that* button or we'll have the whole squad here in seconds..." He even let them turn on the siren -- for a second or two. He showed them the handcuffs, he answered their little peeping questions... It was like watching a lion roll over to let twenty little cubs crawl all over his belly. I couldn't help but to laugh. 


No intimidation, no apprehension, no stiff respecting-at-a-distance of these figures and symbols of power and authority. While part of me was laughing, another part was in awe. How wonderful, I thought, to embrace our world with this kind of natural curiosity and joy. It is as though they do not recognize the separations, the barriers between what belongs to me and what doesn't. By right of my innocence, their actions say, this wondrous thing belongs to me and I celebrate it. By right of my curiosity, this police car, and this police officer, belong to me, and I can reach out and touch, and ask, and dialog with this new thing I just discovered as part of my world, part of me. And by following this innocent boldness, the children will have a different understanding of what these things are and do and mean for our society -- different from the stories spun from the television and movie industries. Their understanding will come from direct experience and direct inquiry, rooted in the freedom of their receptivity. 


This situation was not incongruous because these are highly technological and outwardly-authoritative things and our children's education rests its foundation in the natural world and  the development of their own inner authority. It was incongruous, to me, because we don't normally see this kind of joyful embracing of the unknown, or of Authority in our culture. Seeing our children respond in this way, and knowing that this is the kind of spirit that we are nurturing in them throughout their Sanderling education, gives me a glimpse of a more beautiful world. Not so different outwardly. But different in how we, as souls, can receive our impressions of this tremendous, incongruous world, and how we can respond to them. A world with the same technology, and with the same authority structures, perhaps. But with much, much more laughter.