A lot of the kid friends I had when I was growing up were Catholic, and, though I can't remember now why it was, my friends were all very afraid of Catholic Nuns. Maybe it was the severe, black and white habits the nuns wore, or the scary stories Catholic kids told about strict, disciplinarian nuns who taught in Catholic school. Kid Legend had it that nuns would supposedly whack one of our kind on the knuckles with a ruler for bad behavior, or order a seven-year-old to stand in a corner and leave the kid there till he was 15.
Whatever the reason, even I, a non-Catholic child, was afraid of nuns…and it makes me smile now to remember back on my kid days, and to realize that the Catholic nuns were probably quite good teachers. I wonder whether my friends, now adults with white hair, are still afraid of nuns.
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One of the things I enjoy seeing and photographing as I document the culture of the Tibetan Community in Seattle is how comfortable the kids are with monks and lamas, and how kind the spiritual teachers are with the young.
The photograph above was made a couple of weeks ago at a funeral service for a Tibetan elder, and, even though the event was serious and somber, you can see the sweetness of the moment.
The image below is from a birthday gathering the community held for one of the Lamas -- kids crowding around the lama as he cut the birthday cake.
