There are fewer and fewer places for any of us to be free. This is for all of us, even those of us who know our "rights" and have autonomy, jobs, money in our pocket. I don't mean a La La Land hippie kind of freedom, but just the freedom to be. To be somewhere without having to pay to be there, without being hurried, harassed, pushed, hounded, moved on, and if we we don't have jobs and the ability to pay then we face harassment and arrest. For our children the picture is even more grim. They face authority with control issues and power trips in every setting almost every hour of the day, and they have no rights. It is rare for them to be treated with the respect or rights we receive as humans.

Unless, of course, they are privileged with the idyllic childhoods that the wealthy can provide their children. Space, time, privacy, and privilege are too expensive for most in this country.

I work in public schools, and in a variety of settings where I see kids who get the worst end of what we have to offer, the "leftovers" so to speak, of resources, health care, education, any kind of care. I try to work creatively with these kids to heal their broken spirits. I am finding it is hard to heal something that was never allowed to be in the first place, especially when I am trying to healer grow a spirit in systems where it will only be smashed down at every turn.

Why is there no place for teenagers or kids to just hang out and be themselves without judgement, authority with power trips, people trying to mold them into what they think in that particular location is "appropriate and acceptable," people trying to push their standards, values, norms on them, regardless of where the kids are out or what they are about, or what they have been through? Not seeing the kids at all. Why is it not acceptable for kids to move around, run, climb, play, use their hands to explore and learn, in most school environments without being "bad" kids, or being punished? Why are the police being used more and more in the schools, and why am I seeing more and more kids carted off from school in handcuffs? Kids as young as 11?

Wasn't this the great land of "freedom" and opportunity for all? to pursue life, liberty, and happiness? I know that this has not been true for hundreds in this country for along time, if ever, I am just trying to give a voice to the kids in the systems that I work with.

I know most of the people that work in these places went into these fields because they love kids (hopefully) or they wanted to make a difference, or from a desire to teach or compassion, or some good reason. What is it abut the systems that break people down to the point where all that is lost? What is it in these systems, in our country in general right now, in ourselves, that is making things the way they are?

I have seen that when the environment is right the good in people shines through. We have all seen how in the midst of tragedy, people can rise to the occasion and come through, and that we are all connected. I came to bring change, to work as a transformational agent in a world that sorely needs it. How do I do my work, when it is hard enough to do without funds, without money myself, with all these obstacles facing us, but made almost impossible by the very systems we must work in to do this work. When the very people in these systems don't want them changed, and only want us to change the children to fit. How can I chisel away at these children who are already so broken down and weak, to make them fit into schools, cultures they don't come from, society's they don't fit and that are outdated, critical, judgemental and punitive, that will only reject or imprison them later, systems I don't believe in myself?

Where can these kids have a voice, or give their perspective, if not through art, creativity, song, "therapy" the creative outlets that have been cut to non existence from every institutional setting I have worked in. I try to bring this with my work, and even this is edited, policed, supervised, made "appropriate" and punished. Why do they have to be policed even there? To make things "nice?" When they are coming off the streets, out of environments unimaginable to most, when they are exposed to so much violence and drugs and constant survival issues, so little stability or love, how can we tell them not to talk about these things, not to show us these things?

Every day I want to start my own schools, my own shelters or drop-in centers, my own world. It is hard trying to do work in the world that you see needs to be done, when you feel you are working alone and your work goes against the school system, the prison system, the juvenile justice system, even the social service systems in place, and you really feel alone when even the people in those systems crush what you are trying to do before you begin. Where can children have a voice? Where can they just be? Where can they tell their stories and tell it like it is without people turning away or trying to cover them up, hush them up, or make it nice? Tell them not to cuss or talk about drugs?

I am reminded of Biblical stories I heard growing up, of the Temple leaders, the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the times, being so outraged by Jesus and finding his ways radical and socially threatening and unacceptable, because he gave voice to the thieves, "tax gatherers," prostitutes, lepers, all those society did not want to look at or listen to. He allowed them indoors and to places of worship, he allowed them into "heaven" considered them children of God just as he was. He said to the crowds who would judge and condemn, "Let you who have never sinned throw the first stone."

I am wondering, my question is, when did our children, our hope for tomorrow, become the outcast from our society today?