Am I rich?

"Am I rich?" That was the question posed to me by the young child standing in the creek with a pie tin full of gold rocks. A question with no easy answer.

I work with foster children. For the past several years I’ve had the opportunity to work at camps. This particular camp is tailored to provide abused and neglected foster children a summer camp experience. It is structured just for them. The camps are a part of a national organization called Royal Family Kids Camp (RFKC) and Teen Reach Adventure Camp (TRAC). The purpose of the Royal Family camp is to make these kids feel like, well, royalty. This is something most of these kids, if not all, have never experienced. We only have two rules for the kids; “have fun” and “be safe.” It takes them a day or two to realize that we really mean that.

One afternoon I was down by the creek helping 8-11 year old campers “pan for gold.” Before camp we had painted enough gravel to fill a 5 gallon bucket with “gold nuggets.” While the kids were finishing lunch I had disbursed the “gold” up and down the creek. Many of the campers had a great time wading and finding the gold. But soon another activity would grab their attention and they would be off to something else. But not Joel. Joel was really into it. Joel showed enthusiasm for gold panning like none of the other kids. He was relentless in his pursuit of the gold nuggets. Because of his enthusiasm I helped him as much as I could between helping the other campers that were coming and going. I grinned, each time Joel was overcome with excitement at the discovery of yet another cache of gold nuggets. With each discovery he would ask me again where all the gold came from. Not wanting to ruin his fun I made up a story about how there must have been a big mud slide during the night that released all the gold. Each time Joel would burst out with childhood excitement "that must have been the Mother-of-All-Mud-Slides to leave so much gold!!!"

The afternoon was speeding by as Joel and I chatted for well over an hour. Suddenly, holding a Marie Calendar's pie tin full of gold rocks, he stood up and looked up at me. In a calm and thoughtful tone he asked, “am I rich?” I started to respond and paused. I tried again; no words came out. My mind raced and I did know what to say. I knew I couldn't lead Joel to think he was suddenly wealthy, only to find out later he had been betrayed with a bagful of painted rocks. By the same token I didn’t want to ruin the moment by telling him that they were, well, painted rocks. With my mind racing and Joel's eyes looking up at me for what seemed an eternity, I fell back on pre-camp training. I chose to follow the process called “redirect.” Redirect, another way to say “distract and change the subject.” I said “Joel, this sure is fun hanging out and enjoying such a nice day with you.” He nodded. "It is really fun down here at the creek isn't it." He nodded again. I added, “Do you think you are rich?” He thought for a few seconds and then confidently replied with a grin “yeah, I think so.” With that we smiled at each other and went back to looking for more gold nuggets.

Sometimes we don’t give kids enough credit. Joel knew, that I knew, that he knew, he wasn't wealthy. But we also knew at that moment we were both rich. We were enjoying the moment together and nothing else really mattered.

A nice day, a cool stream, a couple Marie Calendar's pie tins and time with a new friend; rich indeed.

How a speech led me down a new path

In November of 2008 I had the privilege of serving as the Keynote Speaker at the Confederated Tribes of Siletz’ 31^st Restoration Celebration. I won’t go into a lot of detail here, but in summary the U.S. government decided our people were no longer Indians in 1955 and voted to cease recognition of our government-to-government relationship. In 1977 congress reconsidered and reestablished that formal relationship, hence the reason we celebrate each November. In any case on a beautiful Saturday in November on the Oregon Coast I shared for 30 minutes what restoration has meant to me, a person who was born after the 1955 termination. I expect I’ll write later about the things that I thought important enough to include in that speech that I titled “History, Healing and Hope”

I’ve done a lot of public speaking over the years. It is not something I pursue but on the other hand it’s not something that I shy away from either. From a content and delivery perspective I was quite pleased with that speech. After all, I put a lot of time and effort into it. I’m sure that most people by now have forgotten much of what I talked about, such is the nature of speeches despite our best efforts. So while I was pleased with the speech I was caught off guard by what happened next. Something changed in me that day; something I never would have expected. Leading up to this speech, for maybe the first time, I thought about my life as a whole. I mean really thought. Not just about a previous event, a time in the past or regrets and accomplishments. No, I took a rather complete inventory of where my life has taken me and what I have learned and the results were surprising. In fact life changing.

Now sure, I’ve thought about these things from time to time, but never in a focused way over several weeks. I suspect that very few of us really do this. If we did, as I’ve found out, we would live life differently. I’m not looking to write a book here in my first post so suffice it to say that one thing I have concluded is that I am at a point in life where I realize that I have an obligation to share what I’ve learned. You see, in Native American culture elders hold a place of respect. Now, I’m only 49 and by no means consider myself an elder. But on the other hand I don’t believe you just wake up the morning of your birthday and decide “I’m an elder.” And in truth, what do you think when you hear the word “elder?” Do you visualize an old person that needs to get off the road so your life can zoom on at 75 mph?

In a time where the elderly are overlooked for jobs, treated rudely by to many young people and in general considered marginally productive by society, this idea of respect for elders is an non-traditional concept in our modern society. But not so in Native culture. In native culture the term elder equates most closely to wisdom. Unfortunately our current culture could learn a lot from that elderly wisdom. For example I’m pretty positive that if we had bothered to listen to the advice of the elders in our life our country would not be fiscally bankrupt, buried with debt, focused on greed and believing that we deserve to (fill in the blank) just because someone will give us a credit card, write us a loan or tax someone else to provide it. So I decided it is time for me to write about not only what life has taught me, but to also share some of the things that led me to the conclusion that “Life’s been good to me so far.” And I’m expecting it to be even better in the future!