Category: Documents

Nature experience is essential in the inner life of any child

Rappler
Maria Isabel Garcia Published 11:00 AM, January 27, 2019
Updated 11:36 AM, January 27, 2019

Many years ago, I was about to park in my garage one time with my 6-year-old nephew Nigel when he said he wanted to get off to show me something before we enter my house. I let him and watched him run into the then vacant lot beside my house. After I parked my car, I walked to where he went, and there he was, bent over something, seething with excitement, trying to catch his breath, saying “Tita, I discovered something…. It moves!!!!”

I looked at what he was pointing to. He said “Watch, Tita.” He touched it and then, indeed, it moved. It was the plant commonly known as makahiya – my nephew had discovered it for the first time and was positively shaken by it. Do you remember your first “aha” moment shaking hands with nature’s mysteries?

I have an old friend and colleague, Shawn, whom I meet every year in our regular annual conferences. A couple of years ago, when we were in New Zealand, we sat next to each other on a train. He was reading a book entitled Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv, an expert on child development. I think that book was among the first, if not the first, to coin “nature-deficit disorder” – a host of developmental problems that arise from children not having the very fundamental playground for their senses – nature.

Shawn gave me the book before our trip ended. He finished it and was so bothered by the trends that have been set into motion by urbanization, as well as the power of digital technologies in play in contributing to the nature-deficit disorder of children in the US (where he is from) and around the world. He said he has decided to be very deliberate in designing his children’s education and experiences to ensure that contact with nature is part of that.

The positive impact of children’s contact with nature is well-studied. It engenders children’s length and quality of sleep, boosts levels of physical engagement, lowers stress, and significantly boosts attention, working memory, problem-solving skills, and creativity. Conversely, low levels of physical activity are greatly associated now with disproportionate time spent by children on screens, and are tied to behavioral problems.

Recently, a study came up with a way to measure urban children’s connectedness with nature. This was a collaborative study done by researchers from the University of Hongkong and the University of Auckland in New Zealand. This is very significant because Hongkong is 100% urban, and over 60% of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2030. This is a measure we should all be interested in if we care about our children and the adults they will become.

The measure is a 16-part questionnaire for parents so that they can assess their own children’s connectedness with nature. It was able to sufficiently measure 4 dimensions: enjoyment of nature, empathy for nature, responsibility toward nature, and awareness of nature. The measure tallied with confirmed studies that showed that the more children enjoyed nature, the less distress they felt. It also showed that the more responsible they felt for nature, the less hyperactive they were and the more improved their prosocial behavior was. The measure also showed it aligned with studies that found that the more aware children were of nature, the less emotional difficulties they had.

Why and how nature does this to the inner life of children unleashes a chrysanthemum fireworks of answers. Many of them have to do with how simple but sublime experiences like a butterfly on your nose or a dragonfly on your hand imbues you with a sense of being alive, inside and in a world with other life forms, in a planet that holds us all.

Many answers, too, have to do with the sense of “loose parts” that Richard Louv mentioned in his book. “Loose parts” refer to the uncountable processes and creatures at work at any scene of a living moment that you are made aware of when you experience nature.

Nature experience is essential in the inner life of any child. It is not an option. I often tell the young people I work with that I am so sorry that their nature experience now is more of the imperative to restore the damage that past generations – including ours – had wrought. We broke it, but we now look to them to fix it. This is the nature experience that children have inherited from us: garbage, foul air, an overheating planet, bald mountains, dead waters. And here we are wondering why psychological issues have become serious early in childhood? – Rappler.com

Maria Isabel Garcia is a science writer. She has written two books, “Science Solitaire” and “Twenty One Grams of Spirit and Seven Ounces of Desire.” You can reach her at sciencesolitaire@gmail.com.

Fr. Shay Cullen

The world in 2019 has to wake up to the prevalence of child sexual abuse and everyone has to act more decisively about it. Parents, politicians and citizens must be aware that this is a horrendous crime and all must do much more to prevent it and rescue and cure the child victims and bring the perpetrators to justice, convict and jail them.

Sexual abuse of young girls and boys is being revealed as commonplace. This is the dark dirty secret of depraved men and some women. They prey on children to get sexual satisfaction for their twisted often-brutal sexual desires. But the complacency of society and strong liberal trends in human relationships among adults should not give any opening for the tolerance or trivializations of sexual molestation, acts of abuse or rape of anyone.

Child sexual abuse is not the act of a few depraved men, called monsters, hiding in alleyways. This profile of a child abuser is wrong. The abuser or rapist (mostly men) is an outwardly, friendly, apparently kind, smiling, generous but manipulative person and is a secretly dangerous predator. No one profession seems to be beyond the acts of sexual abuse of children and young girls.

Even biological fathers, brothers, cousins, grandfathers, live-in partners, family friends, boyfriends, a cardinal, bishops, priests, doctors, professors, teachers, laborers, sports coaches, swimming instructors and even presidents themselves abuse children. The Philippine president admitted recently that he too fell into temptation when he was a teenager and sexually abused a maid when she was sleeping, causing outrage, and the revelation is denied as true by the government press office.

People in general treat these acts of abuse with too light an attitude of tolerance and resignation perhaps but the value of human dignity is greatly diminished everywhere by every single act of abuse. This leads to the degradation of society and the descent of the human race into a child-abusing species. Humanity itself is tarnished and degraded.

No other species is known to abuse their own offspring other than our cousins- the chimpanzees- and this is rare of them. They know no better and do not have reason. They cannot exercise thinking and do not have a moral sense of right and wrong, good and bad, true and false. Nor do they have free will to choose good or bad. They follow their instincts.

But we humans do have reason and free will to choose to do good or bad and that’s what makes us human. Indifference, apathy, inaction, leaving it to others and doing nothing ourselves is an intolerable silence. That can be looking the other way when we know of a child having been abused because we are afraid to speak out and afraid to challenge both the abuser and the system that allows it. Child abuse happens with great frequency from bullying, physical and verbal abuse to sexual abuse and child rape. In many cases the authorities and society ignore it. Even parents ignore the abuse of their own children at times when it is in their interests to do so.

An 11-year old child, Shane, is a victim of abuse and her traumatic experience began when her stepfather began to hurt her physically and threaten her with a knife. He began to sexually molest her while her mother looked on. Her mother said, “Daddy is just being affectionate to you.” Shane resisted at first but was overpowered and forced to suffer the pain and fear.

Rappler Opinion | Tony La Viña
November 30, 2018

President Duterte unleashed his most recent tirade against the Catholic Church by accusing Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio “Ambo” David of stealing Church donations and using them for his own personal use. He has even accused Bishop David of being into drugs and threatened to cut off his head.

To Duterte’s attacks, Bishop David gave a most Christian response when he simply shrugged the allegations off dismissively and attributed Duterte’s attacks as coming from a very sick man who does not know what he is talking about, alluding to persistent rumors that the President is suffering from various ailments. My parents never taught me to steal,” David said in a Facebook post. He earlier asked the public to pray for Duterte for he is a “very sick man “after the President called saints “gago” (fools) and “lasenggo” (drunk) after telling Filipinos to emulate them on All Saints’ Day.

Those who know Bishop David will just laugh off the absurdity of the President’s verbal attacks. Bishop David, affectionately called Bishop Ambo, who hails from Guagua Pampanga, is a simple man of God.

His ascent in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church – from an ordinary priest of Pampanga to Bishop of Caloocan, which spans several decades, has never been tainted with any scandal, much less by any accusations of stealing. That is why his appointment as Bishop of Caloocan, which has some of the poorest communities in Metro Manila, was welcomed enthusiastically by its residents.

On a personal note, I have known Bishop David for forty years, since 1978 when I saw the light and shifted to Philosophy in college. He was two years ahead of me in Ateneo de Manila and I did not meet him personally then but he was always looked up to for his brilliance as a predivinity student and then as a philosophy teacher. In more recent years and months, we have bumped into each other to share the same platforms for common advocacies.

I must confess how awed I am by this bishop – his simplicity, integrity, devotion and love for the poor, and holiness. The priests, religious and people in Pampanga whom he served for decades and his flock now in Caloocan, and these would include government officials, military officers, and police brass would say this too and would find the Duterte attacks strange and utterly without basis.

The CBCP Episcopal Commission on the Youth releases the 2019Year of the Youth theme translated into the 5 major languages in the country:

Kabataang Pilipinong Nagmimisyon:
Minamahal, Binibiyayaan, Binibigyan ng Kakayanan
(Tagalog)

Pilipinong Batan-on nga Nanagmisyon:
Gihigugma, Gigasahan, Gitugahan
(Cebuano)

Agtutubo a Filipino Naibaon nga Agmission:
Napateg, Naparaburan, Napabileg
(Ilocano)

Pamatan-ong Pilipino sa Misyon:
Pinalangga, Ginbugayan, Gintugyanan
(Hiligaynon)

Pilipinong Jovenes na nasa Misyon:
Námòtan, Biniyayaan, Pinatibay
(Bikol)

The 2019 Year of the Youth logo will also be released soon in these translations.

The 2019 Year of the Youth theme song music sheet (which includes the lyrics and the guitar chords) can be downloaded from this link.

Letter of Bishop Roberto Mallari, CBCP-ECCCE Chairman

9 November 2018

Your Excellencies, Reverend Monsignori, Reverend Fathers, Catechetical Ministers:

Grace and peace!

We continue our nine-year journey that began in 2013 which eventually will bring us to the commemoration of Christianity’s advent in our country in 2021.

To make this truly a celebration of gratitude for the gift of faith, the Episcopal Commission for Catechesis and Catholic Education (ECCCE) came up with catechetical modules for our people for the next three years as our immediate preparation. The modules’ general theme sums up that of our 2021 Jubilee Celebration: Gifted to Give – Kaloob, Isinasaloob, Ipinagkakaloob.

It is with hope that this humble contribution will help our faithful understand more what this gift of Christian faith (kaloob) requires us – that in understanding with the heart (isinasaloob), they will all the more believe and can pray more through it, manifest it in their daily lives, thus sharing their faith with others (ipinagkakaloob). We go back to teaching the truth of lex credendi, lex orandi, lex vivendi to our people.

In 2021, as our country celebrates its 5th Centenary of Christianity, we likewise be commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Opening of the Second Vatican Council when the now St. John XX111 widely opened the Church’s doors and windows to facilitate the Holy Spirit’s access in renewing the Church. It was an experience of a New Pentecost indeed. The 30th year Anniversary of our own Second Plenary Council of the Philippines will also coincide on that same year. PCP-11 ushered so much promises of renewal, of another Pentecost for the Church in our country envisioned to be the Community of Disciples, Church of the Poor, embarking on a Renewed Integral Evangelization, Witnessing to Jesus Christ’s Gospel of salvation and liberation through words, deeds and lives. “Behold, I make all things new”, was the clear message then of the National Pastoral Consultation on Church Renewal.

May these simple, easy-to-understand and easy-to-use catechetical modules help us all in the work of renewed integral evangelization and help us pin our hopes on the Holy Spirit in renewing us all in the Church– bishops, priests, religious and lay people– that strengthened by prayers, we share our faith by living it in the midst of all in this vale of tears. May we be encouraged to unceasingly beg for the Holy Spirit’s guidance especially for the Filipino Catholics of today so that our Christian faith’s fifth centenary year in 2021 may become moment of God’s grace even now.

We fix our eyes on Jesus Christ, our Redeemer as we make our collective journey with the guidance of His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Star of Evangelization.

+  ROBERTO C. MALLARI, D.D.