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From the Director
Dear Madrone Family,
"Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching." -C.S. Lewis.
As a child, I loved baseball! I either watched every Dodgers game, or listened to them on the radio. I would turn anything into a baseball. An orange in the orange groves, a dirt clod, a rock, you name it. I loved to throw! When I was about five years old, we were visiting my grandparents in Denver for the Christmas holiday. The kid across the street was being a stinker and calling me names, so I did my best Nolan Ryan impression and hurled a rock in his direction. It sailed across the street, down one house, and directly through the corner kitchen window… actually both windows! I had been given several silver dollars (The real ones, 100% silver!) for Christmas, all of which were forfeited to pay for those windows. So you think I would have learned my lesson about throwing rocks and the fragility of glass. Nope. Two years later, they cut down the orange groves where we used to play in order to build condominiums. Just before construction was finished, a few older kids and I threw rocks at the newly installed windows, breaking several in the process. I was by far the youngest in the group but I knew better! When questioned, I was overlooked because of my age. I knew I could keep silent and get away with it, but my integrity wouldn’t allow it. I fessed up immediately, and ended up taking all of the blame. The builder was so impressed that I came forward that he dismissed the whole thing and made an insurance claim. My mother was not so forgiving, but I’ll leave the ending of that story to your imagination!
What about being a human helps us determine if we are going to do what is right, or if we don’t? Why was I so compelled to be honest? Was it my human nature, or something else?
In Rudolf Steiner’s vision of human nature, we are energetic as well as physical beings, and our most profound identity rests in our spiritual elements. Each person is “the expression of a divine spiritual being that descends from purely spirit-soul existence and evolves here in physical-bodily existence between birth and death.” Each is a unique and inherently worthy being. We are neither good nor evil but have the capacity for both. We are partially divine beings who are struggling toward purer divinity.
Steiner worked on the question of the human makeup and nature throughout his life. As a foundation he researched the being of thinking and the unification of sense perceptions with concepts to form “reality.” The human being is mineral, in the corpse we leave behind. We are living, like plants, sentient like animals, and—uniquely—the bearer of an ego, the self, the “I Am.” We have evolutionary potential beyond that, out of our own nature. We are evolving humanly on the plane of consciousness, not physical survival. In the 1960s, from the practical perspective of a “hierarchy of needs” that are required for “self-actualization,” or healthy humanness, the American psychologist Abraham Maslow reached similar insights, including an ultimate potential for going further: for “self-transcendence.” Steiner’s term for that is “spirit self.”
Steiner’s holistic understanding of human nature and being has immense usefulness for both individual and community life. As we approach a dramatic encounter with artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics as a collaborator or competitor or replacement, Steiner’s view of our nature and potential is enormously timely.
Our daily lives are the easiest place to find greater meaning arising out of Steiner’s research. For their largest context, he reaffirms the ancient idea of repeated lives. As people have said in recent years, “we are spiritual beings having a human experience”—not the reverse. In Shakespeare's words, “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
We aim to develop our students into beings of integrity as well as individuals of higher intelligence. They are not a conglomeration of minerals, they are sentient beings, ever striving for a foothold in this ever changing world. I always find it interesting when I talk to our students about a small infraction. Some will spin the most elaborate tale, while others will tell me exactly what happened. I do not see this entirely as a barometer for their integrity, but it sheds light on where we are in the process.
I feel we have an amazing bunch of students at our school! It is so energizing to watch them grow, interact with each other, and share their individual talents. Just take a moment this weekend to celebrate your children, they are working hard, and growing into amazing young people!
CROSSING GUARD
I want to give a special thank you to Lincoln Stegall. Lincoln spent a few weeks as our morning crossing guard and did an amazing job! The crossing guard idea was all Lincoln. He was looking for a way to contribute to the school, as well as fulfill a class requirement. He put in way more than his required hours and went above and beyond all expectations, even in the cold and rain! He had an excellent grasp of what was needed and worked very hard, even when I was distracted by conversations with parents and staff. So a big thank you to Lincoln! You are always welcome to put on the vest and join me in the parking lot… for old times’ sake!
Have a wonderful weekend,
~Kendall Roberts
Director
kendall.roberts@madronetrail.org
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