To help us in these assessments, K ha- lib said our choice of words,
body language, and especially our deeds, were irrefutable evidence of
what we are really like, therefore what we regularly do. His examples of
our misguided reasoning, such as punishing misdeeds as opposed to
imposing their equal and opposite conditions on perpetrators, was
counterproductive because it programmed the energy we expended in
negative ways. For example, a child who does not take the responsibility
of putting their toys away, because they forgot, can expect the parent to
forget where she / he put them. In this case, the parent is taking
responsibility for teaching responsibility at the level the child designed.
Predictably, the immediate complaint from parents was that they had
to deal with the tantrums that followed. To this, K ha-lib said this
circumstance provided them with another opportunity to teach their
children about social responsibility. A quiet room, in this case, was an
appropriate place for the child to consider how taking care of their toys
yesterday would have avoided them disturbing the peace today. When a
mother said her child‘s tantrums often led to them refusing to eat, Kha- lib
rhetorically wondered how many six year olds could hold out longer than
one meal.
Overall, as he offered examples of our misguided reasoning, without
us understanding the underlying nature of our deeds we could not
determine an appropriate course of action. This was more than worrisome
for the mothers among us, one of whom returned no more.
When another attendee later implied that this development was due to
Kha-lib‘s uncompromising approach, Kha- lib said that teaching anyone
how to live properly had to be consistently in proportion, and as relentless
as the transgression, just to get students to reconsider the camouflage
rationales they used to justify their ways.: Learning lessons in
responsibility required discipline and continuity in proportion to how one
had unconsciously learned to behave poorly. This included not wallowing
amid their personal rubble, as this would spread the rubble to others. In
time, proper practices were no longer an effort, but a way of life that had
replaced their former way of life. It could be no other way, for the
responsibilities of freedom knew no compromise.
"That‘s contradictory," Elani argued.
"We speak to responsibility boding no negotiation, not of negating
the freedom to compromise for the right reasons."
This statement was a head-scratcher that we explored into the topic of
impeccable acts, where I was again left behind.
As the weeks went by and Bonnie continued to explain the
responsibilities of freedom in terms we had never entertained, it became
