really!

Is it possible to do right by doing wrong?

Is it possible to perform an act of rebellion while participating a quintessentially status quo activity?

Is it possible to purchase truth, honesty, and righteousness?

From the comfort of our 21^st century arm-chair theological quarterbacking, we have pronounced indictment on indulgences as practiced by the pre-reformation church. Smugly!

From the duress of climbing out of these self-same comfortable arm-chairs (look I didn’t say they were Lazyboys), we have raised a fist against our morally degraded society by eating a chicken sandwich. Napkin please!

I lost weight and am trying to re-lose a bunch more – apparently to become a better person. I will not eat a chicken sandwich. I will not be a glutton to self-righteousness again. I am a thinner person than that.

what to tell your son on a rainy day...

Remembering rain drips indeterminate melancholy which is mostly wasted chasing the winter’s dirt off the windows. I turn to Knoffler and his chums. For me, he still knows how to suck the soothing pity that this moment deserves. McLachlan knows a thing or two about this state of mind but Eros is far too near in her voice.

I would line up the tapes one by one – all cued to the spot. The first song always was “We built this city” and the last one usually was left un-played. When mix tapes were actually cassettes compiled far more meticulously from other tapes.

I turn to well-worn pages in The Book of Melancholy. The wrinkled photo of a too-soon gone friend; the mischief still leaping off of his face. The longing for a childhood spent a world away. The trust of a friend broken. The breaking of friend’s trust. And again and again and again. Some pages turn slowly others flop past glommed together. Stop on the page where the man is clutching his throat for the revolution he is about to die for. Stay on that page and see that revolution is elusive. Skip to the picture of yourself on the day when those eyes are just coming to know the foolish dogma that your vigorous ignorance spewed. Shudder just a little.
“Why worry,” he moans, “there should be laughter after pain.”
The Book of Melancholy isn’t light reading for those interested in revving up the depression machine. It’s not about depression. It is about the humbling reflection that comes with the time and space on a damp quiet spring night. It is about recognizing that I am here right now and that is a very fortunate place to be. Melancholy can help you see the light of your circumstance if only because of the shadows that it evokes. Melancholy can remind you that valiant effort, though often unrewarded and even misplaced is still more honorable that feebleness.
“There should be sunshine after rain – these things have always been the same. So why worry now.”

Don’t lose the chance to fastidiously line up these reflections – all cued up ready to line up back to back. They speak a sorrowful narrative that is not easily told. They will haunt.  They will make you wince. But the morning comes to all – but perhaps a little brighter to those who have stared into the night…

time to put an end to the embarrassment

It is time again to hang him up on the cross – and once more we can put an end to how embarrassing it has been to see him walking around with us.

We’ll sing a song about the ‘wonderful cross,’ with nearly child-like glee while the roast simmers away in our kitchens at home. Why wouldn’t we be happy? We’re free! Well sort of…

“Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe,” the song nags and while our crimson stains are being washed white as snow, we are gently reminded of the debt we owe. So we throw a little extra in the plate or we sign up to volunteer at the next Monday’s cheesecake cabaret put on by the Ladies Aid group. Guilt assuaged we can slide gently back into our groove. Our Lenten observance is over so the chocolate, or video games, or whatever other gaudy triviality we have chosen to give up can wiggle its way back out of the closet. We’re done with him – he has fulfilled his purpose once again this year and we are grateful.

Grateful to stop thinking about what God living among us might mean. Let’s be honest. Since those darkest days of winter when we celebrated his birth by tossing trinkets at friends and relatives to appease our own notions of reciprocity, we have been trying to forget what him living with us might mean – how it might beg us to change.

And now we have him up on that tree again. We are relieved. Like recently elected politicians, we erroneously believe that our previous record is forgotten or better yet approved. And like said politician we forget the nature of the game we are playing. It is politics remember?

How easily and willingly we gather up the spectacle that is Easter. Like women assembling before a chic flick with tissues at the ready on every coffee table, we waddle (not that women waddle) into the pew again to have someone describe for us the agony and suffering that our Savior negotiated to accomplish our absolution. We want to feel darkness but only for an hour. Like thousands of Empire State Buildings going dark for an hour on Earth Day, we too go dark for an hour (regardless of how many birds are killed flying into us by mistake). 
It is cathartic. All of our misdeeds completely gone – removed – again. We splash the grace and mercy all over us like children in one of those shallow pools who do not realize that the water they are standing in only reaches their under-developed ankles – oh and it is full of pee. Is this really grace we celebrate? This cheaply fabricated lust for freedom from the dull consciences that barely prick our sensibilities about what is right and wrong – is this really grace?

Or is there a deeper magic than the split stone table upon which the lion once lay – bound and shorn? Can we like Lucy catch glimpses of the good and dangerous beast – now? Today?

The incarnate Christ embarrasses us. He lives simply – within and underneath his means. He lives kindly – healing, feeding the undeserving and even unintentionally. He lives courageously – against corruption, against deception couched in piety, against preconceived notions of what God might do. He lives faithfully – steady inside of darkness, disciplined in communion. These things show us up for the frauds we are. We don’t want him around to expose this any longer. We have suffered his condescension long enough. 
We are not brave enough to stand against injustice – God that would be wearisome. There is too much injustice in the world and we are not convinced that those suffering under its weight may not have deserved it in some way. We are not strong enough to live within our means – we can barely move the knuckles of our hand on the remote to switch off the television at night let alone resist the beckoning of the latest – Schticky? We are not devoted enough to carve out of our preoccupations the space to center ourselves at the feet of the teacher. He shows us up for the inconsistent errant scoundrels that we truly are. So is it any wonder that we relish (if ever so quietly) the reminders of the suffering he faced…

Yet he walks among us with grace afforded a life lived emulating his own. This is not an equation where every one of his actions matches one of ours or vice versa. It is not an accounting system of good deeds balanced off against carelessness or mistake. This is like when my dad taught me how to ride a bike. Demonstrating and then holding the seat and then washing off every scraped knee subsequently.

Instead we’ll haul him off that Roman standard and place him in a tomb. Then when it is over we’ll chuckle silently at Thomas’ doubt – while missing our very own. So glad that we are free…

on the occasion of skiing down a mountain

The balaclava has fused to my face. It’s like my moustache and beard have conspired together with the driving snow, facial sweat and nose drippings to create a new frozen outer shell. I gingerly touch it with the finger of one gloved hand – I don’t want to break it.

I am lying on my back levitating a foot and a half off of the ground thanks in no small part to the layer of snow that blankets this mountain. I am staring up inside the cloud that is unloading white onto the slope. Crowding the corners of my vision are the ever-present mountains. They seem to know that this prairie boy is accustomed to the open horizon where the sky never quits. So these jealous mountains peek in on the edges of my sight. I turn to look. I am a sucker for their tricks. Peaks like the knuckles of a thousand fists poke out across the ridge – a giant from below punching out his frustration. I feel that remote sense that must drive thrill seeking adventurer types to climb these ridges. They call to something inside that I immediately recognize as sheer foolishness. Later, while driving beside a particularly alluring ridge, I off-handedly suggest that reaching the summit might be a fairly easy task. My son snickers, agrees reluctantly and, being the pragmatist that he is, reminds me of the effort and time it would take to scale that mountain. But in this moment on my back between the snow on the slope and the falling snow – I am smitten.

Our skis, speared through the crust of the snow beneath the powdery stuff I have been sliding on, stick up like the fence posts of a lunatic rancher. The three of us have done the same. The boys, anxious to re-establish the burning thigh effect that is a constant companion down this mountain, break the spell I am under. “Let’s go dad!” I am torn. I crave a few more minutes to soak in this slow-motion experience. But adrenaline is calling for another fix. Caught between control and disaster. Skis swing back and forth across the mountain, sitting back on my heels a little (especially in the powdery stuff) but always on the edge of plummeting headlong down an unsuspected icy patch. Its danger and beauty mixed. Who am I kidding? It’s not beautiful when I ski – unless in your mind beauty looks a lot like a short stumpy 40 year old atop an unbroken colt – without any stirrups. It’s ugly and dangerous – but fun.

We are the last off the hill. We convince the lifty to send us up the back side of the mountain just before she shuts it down so that we don’t have to hike the kilometer and a half back to the rental shop.

Later, as the body’s pain mechanism begins to register in the brain I am briefly conscious of curious feeling. As the lactic acid builds in every fiber of my legs, I wonder how we have come to consider this activity recreation. This rigorous exertion of energy to the point of…cursing agony – I am only trying to get out of the hot tub! How did this activity evolve into something we would deem to be invigorating and worthy of spending our leisure (dollars and time)? It is perplexing enough that we would willingly subject our bodies to torturous labor in the name of having fun. It is even more peculiar that we would choose to spend our time doing something that could endanger our ‘productivity’ in the rest of our ‘responsible’ lives. Stranger still is that we would take the financial advantages we have accrued to measure out ecstatic suffering upon our own bodies.

What we spend our leisure on is a signal to us and those around us. It is possibly a message about who we are. It is a descriptor of our vigor perhaps. Maybe it is a disclaimer of our relative wealth. It might not be much more than the sort of thing a dog does in marking its territory – a smelly reminder to us and others of what is our personal ‘territory’. As uncomfortable as these signals make me there is a more redemptive notion that seems important as well.

For me this sliver of time on the side of a mountain has given pause to appreciate the uncrowded spaces that we are afforded in our lives from time to time. These unencumbered moments in the splendor of this exquisite place and the pleasure of spending time with my sons remind me of just how alive I am. My body on the other hand…well…it just might prefer not to be so alive – right now!

on the occasion of taking my son to the airport

The embrace changes

Imperceptibly but unmistakably

He comes to you

Your arms outstretched they invite him in

It’s a call with wrapped arms as celebration

Beckoned he toddles toward the first one you give

The embrace changes

Imperceptibly but unmistakably

She runs to you

Lungs never quite full enough to howl

It’s a comfort squeezing darkness and pain away

Your arms the mop for spilled tears

The embrace changes

Imperceptibly but unmistakably

I hugged you through the new backpack

I hugged you till teasing stopped

I hugged you and monsters under beds disappeared

I hugged you so that standing in the corner meant something other than disdain

I hugged you at first out of wonder

Then out of worry

Then out of compassion

Then responsibility

I hugged you

The embrace changes

Imperceptibly but unmistakably

He limps off the field

Bravery is a thin disguise with his full weight on your shoulder

It’s only one arm and he won’t accept the other

The extent that pride will allow him

The embrace changes

Imperceptibly but unmistakably

The one that I’m used to

Is the one that I give

The one that you give

Is now the way we let go

And it is the one

That I’m not getting used to

The embrace changes

Imperceptibly but unmistakably

He stands at the gate

Blinking you whisper something both will soon forget

But not the recognition

That every next together will end with a hug

Apart

The embrace changes

Imperceptibly but unmistakably

NEED HELP AND DONORS - Game, Set and Match

When charitable relief aid organizations are directed by and accountable to the donors, the recipients of the aid lose their ability to influence the efficacy of the aid delivered. Their only recourse is to directly influence the donors. but those who need help do not have the wherewithall to engage that influence. Into that gap step agencies that filter and manipulate the message of need that is intended to motivate donors to whom they are ultimately accountable. Does this not sound like a conflict of interest? The agency that is directing the message of need, solicits towards the need they have identified, and then deliver a report of the need that they have met. Hmmm...

snow job

the snow sprinkled on the crispy grass

a facade really

thin

like the space that keeps us

from revealing secret

sin

whiter than this icy trickster

covering over brownish

dinge

bone chilling wind keeps

us from looking

in

under the blanket of this winter

wonderland we laud and

sing

the ugliness of our ‘summer’

romp with that knowing

grin

that one day soon the snow

would fly and cover it

again

our indiscretions and our

reckless, futile

spin

frost has settled in once more

and painted a new face

fin

Build a rocket

Where did you grow up?
When did you grow up?
Will you ever grow up?
The 80s. ’69 was my birth year so the 80s is the decade of the presumably emancipatory adolescence of my now 40 plus years of existence. Ah the 80s. Not close to as bad ass as the 60s. Or as high! Not nearly as funky as the 70s. Nor as disco-ball cool. Not as grunge as the 90s. Whatever the #$%^& ‘grunge’ is/was?
The 80s. Fabulous fashion. Rugby pants, legwarmers, primary color knit sweaters tied around your neck. ¾ length white sleeved black shirts with Black Sabbath emblazoned on the chest. Perms for men (I confess), Big glasses.
The 80s. Great music. Boy George, Corey Hart, George Michael, the theme to TV’s FAME, Gloria Estefan, the Bangles, David Lee Roth (post Van Halen), Men Without Hats and Men at Work…Mmmmmmm!
The 80s. Some blip on the radar of good taste and better judgment or the best decade since the Renaissance; I’ll let you decide. There is no halcyonic nostalgia about those days in my mind at least. Riding my bike to the corner store in a town of barely 100 residents should not be considered evidence of some idyllic teenage coming of age. (Some readers will be quick to point out that I also rode my Dad’s Nissan INTO the corner store – causing a minor re-shelving problem for the owner and much larger problem for between me and my father.) To be sure there are many things about those formative years of my life that could only be described as pristine conditions within which a boy may become a man. I married the girl next door and began my life long infatuation with her in the one acre corn field between our houses. I drove my first vehicle (my buddy’s) on the gravel roads that snaked through the hippie soaked Pembina Hills. But not before I mapped every nook and cranny of that place on snowmobile. I emulated Jim Craig to my very best ability on giant rubber snow boots on the freshly flooded ‘rink’ next to the school. I was good. Those days were golden.
“You can be anything you want to be” – they told us at my graduation. Liars.
I can’t. I still want to be a Grey Cup winning quarterback – but I won’t. I never built a rocket – and I won’t. Being anything I want to be is a myth and a peculiarly harmful one at that. Perhaps that sort of rhetoric emerged from the desperation of the time. Because as Commodore 64 and the internet were mere glints in the eyes of their conceivers; we were still fighting a Cold War that promised to bring us to an end. We were just starting to battle our brains out over abortion, and immigration, and French language. We could see our Canadian distinctives sliding away from us perhaps with more urgency than they ever had. We got excited about all the same silly stuff that the US did – who can forget the enormous cola war of the 80s. We decided that free trade with the US was going to be a good thing. So what if it meant foreign ownership of many of our national institutions. We unashamedly gobbled up the latest greatest media offering being pushed out of the burgeoning colonialist Hollywood machine. (Shoot, how else was it that Daisy Duke became the model for one of the ‘best’ fashion trends in the 80s J)
Behind the neurotic push toward the future in almost every aspect of life, those of us ‘growing up’ then might have known something untoward was lurking in the reeds of our surface optimism. But we paid little heed to that lie about our potential when we saw the Berlin wall come down. We forgot our background dread when we saw hostages rescued from Iran. And we began to believe that our ability to forge a brave new world could itself be the savior of our once dysfunctional world. I suspect that belief has an almost religious hold upon us.
In my classroom – we talk about current event and we try to engage with the big themes of our world as events unfold. If there is one reaction that surprises me most in my students it has to be the relative indifference that most pay to the way our world works. Occupy this or that, kill off a dictator once in a while, start a revolution on facebook if you want to, or bailout the country where democracy was born. Meh – whatevs… On one level it irks me – this passive nonchalance toward our life and times. On another level it saddens me to see a generation face down in their phones – enslaved to the immediacy of their ever-shrinking world (where life and love begin and end at the end of text).
Sometimes exposing lies leads to life change. At other times exposing lies leads to a retrenchment of the lie itself – perhaps because the truth is just too uncomfortable to face. You can frame your life as targeting potential. Aspire to this or that. Achieve this or that. Or you can frame your life as targeting significance. Accept the ugliness of the world and do your part. Acknowledge your own culpability in the problems to begin with.
You can be anything you want to be seems out of place in the latter mindset but conveniently distracting in the former.
There are some of us who still remember that in the 80s a young man decided to do his part, accept his own ugliness, and died fighting off the monster that eventually took his life. Terry Fox lived and died in the 80s and school children to this day honor his memory.
Long live the 80s…

pop goes the...

A little popculture for your wednesday...

Old man look at my life…

This is a coming of age story.
I bit back tears as I hugged and said good-bye to my oldest son. He’s headed off to college in Manitoba to carve out something new. It’s time for him to shape himself and get shaped in ways that are distinctly different than the ones he has become accustomed to under our parenting. It is a good thing. He is ready. But I know it won’t be easy.
Like it has been for so many of us the challenges and euphoria of the independence of early adulthood is significant. I remember deep loneliness in some dark times when I thought the responsibility that I was taking on was too great. I remember ecstatic freedom at how spontaneous my life could be. It really was a pretty wide spectrum of emotions. I am far too clever to allow my protective emotions to get the better of me – but underneath I want to keep my children from the dark. The reality is that life is dark. Freedom, peace, joy with permanence, and fulfillment come only after one has truly stared into the darkness and seen it for what it is. Walking in the dark is another matter altogether but a good hard look in is essential to know the value of the good things that life affords.
At a time like this, I wonder if I’ve done an adequate job of allowing my children to stare at the darkness honestly and without fear. I wonder if I have prepared them well enough to recognize the value of freedom, peace and perhaps even love. I wonder about the gaps in my parenting that my children will need to compensate for. I am under no illusion that there are many. I think honest parents know that they’ve made mistakes with their kids. Honest parents are conscious of fact that they leave an indelible mark on their offspring. I think there is a lot of guilt attached to that sentiment for many people. Guilt, denial and compensating for both leads to plenty of regret. It’s hopeless; my kids are stamped with a healthy dose of me and thankfully an even healthier dose of Char.
One thing I know to be real is the persistent grace that my children have afforded me. So today I am grateful to have the opportunity to say the kind of goodbye that only a dad can say to his son – the kind of goodbye that will always be followed by hello. Usually when we say goodbye we say it to anticipate a loss of closeness but a father can say goodbye with a sense of anticipation. A dad says goodbye and is picking up the phone to say hello to – I need some cash – or – I think I found a girl that likes me – or – I wonder if you think this car is a good one to buy.
Today this song connected with me. Maybe you’ll like it too.

Bless you Jared…

A pair of hard working hands
Everything that I needed
I got it from the old man
With a nine second dream
He drove the Redlight Bandit
And the grease on his hands
Was the way he commanded
And the life he demanded
It kept us all in a struggle
When he ruled with his fist
It kept us all out of trouble
Even though he would leave
He wore his heart on his sleeve
And by the way that he walked
He taught me how to believe
Old man look at my life
Take a look, take a look
Old man look at my life
cause I'm a lot like you
Old man, old man take a look at my life
Take a look, take a look
Old man, old man take a look at my life
cause I'm a lot like you
Growin' up at the track
He had a reason for being fast
His heart felt like breaking
He'd look right up at the ceiling and
Start again, never breathe a word of his loss
Cause it's not about winning
It's the rivers you cross
And the pain that you feel
Could be the fuel that you use
And if you're in need of direction
Be it the path that you choose
My old man is a legend
He cast a shadow so great
I think of how he is watchin'
With every move that I make
Chorus:
Now there's no slowin' down
There's only settin' the pace
No more dreams to be stolen
Just the right ones to chase
You've been through the worst
Now you know who to trust
Leave them something behind
Before the ashes and dust

Yes and for those of you wondering - yes that was some hard core riffing on old man Young which you can find here

dying of obesity or dying of starvation

As we get ready to leave the summer behind

- as it fights to regain the adolescent vigor it displayed in June
- as students prep their finest stories to impress or aggravate their teachers
- as the Christmas Wish Book gets plunked on your front step
- as we nervously glance at the large tote where we stashed the parkas to ward off the bad omens of late spring snow falls
- as the trees pretend to be artists for the week of color after that frost
- as mowers get shoved tot he back of the shed
- once more as summer becomes forgetful of our shooting star wishes 'round a backyard camp fire...
there's this...
This summer I went swimming,
This summer I might have drowned
But I held my breath and I kicked my feet
And I moved my arms around, I moved my arms around.

This summer I swam in the ocean,
And I swam in a swimming pool,
Salt my wounds, chlorine my eyes,
I'm a self-destructive fool, a self-destructive fool.

This summer I swam in a public place
And a reservoir, to boot,
At the latter I was informal,
At the former I wore my suit, I wore my swimming suit.

This summer I did the backstroke
And you know that's not all
I did the breast stroke and the butterfly
And the old Australian crawl, the old Australian crawl.

This summer I did swan dives
And jackknifes for you all
And once when you weren't looking
I did a cannonball, I did a cannonball.

Boy & Bear - Feeding Line

Enemy Language…

I don’t exactly ‘get’ all the references to enemies found in the Psalms. Now I know that David was writing out of a fairly real and present danger of personal and national enemies throughout his lifetime. It seems understandable that he would write about the stuff he was struggling with at the time.
I don’t have enemies. I don’t believe I have any personal vendettas against my person (unless you count the thugs over at the dance mafia wanting me to quit my ‘special moves’). I am not so deluded to think that there aren’t people who are disappointed with me, frustrated with me, annoyed, hurt or even ticked at me. But I am not in any significant battle against anyone. So on that level ‘enemies’ does not connect. So few of us are in positions of the sort of power where we could identify the characteristic features of enemies plotting to destroy us.
Even the more euphemistic versions of enemies leave me stumped. At times I hear of people talking about enemies in a sort of symbolic way (Like how emotional or physical pain and suffering are enemies that need to be vanquished). I am not belittling these struggles in the least – I just wonder about whether labelling them as enemies is the most helpful way of framing these types of struggles. The motif of a battle/war against these difficulties has certain appeal to be sure. It worries me a little when we frame these things in the win/lose paradigm that this imagery entails. Plus I am not sure that this sort of euphemistic interpretation is the most honest way to get at the meaning of David’s texts in Psalms.
It’s actually a wonder to me that more revolutionary leaders have not cottoned to these passages as ways of spiritualizing their military actions. I could see any number of despots contorting these scriptures to rally the underlying spirituality especially in some of the countries with strong ties to the ancient Roman Catholic traditions…
My enemies are evil.
      They will trip and fall
   when they attack me
      and try to eat me alive.
When I'm in trouble,
      he will keep me safe in his house.
   He will hide me in the safety of his holy tent.
      He will put me on a rock that is very high.
Then I will win the battle
      over my enemies who are all around me.

In the end I am not really sure what to do with these passages and specifically this type of terminology. It is even more perplexing when I consider the tradition of pacifism that forms my background and is evident in the life of Jesus. Does God takes sides in war? Or is all killing a horror to God? If He takes sides in war might he takes sides in less dire situations in life? Notice that David says that his reliance on God will provide him victory over his enemies. David does not say that God will help him negotiate a peaceful settlement that ends the violence. Anyone else perplexed?

Astonish Me - a short film for WWF

Where Children Sleep...

Click here for more of James Mollison's work...

Using time...

The Wall Street Journal has commented on a survey of the way people in America use their time. Their angle has been to relate it to joblessness - which remains a persistent problem in USA.
For me it seems that there is much more to be learned from this analysis.

holding back the morning…

His knees squeeze tighter to the sweat-soaked vinyl. His fingers dig a little deeper into the ribs of his older cousin as the 150 bounces over the cobblestone and wiggles past the honking microbus. His other hand cradles the box propped against his waist and the humid afternoon sun. It shines deep polished purple – the ironic royal colour for the peasant child that will sleep in it…

His knees scrape the sharp skirt of the table. His wrinkled brow is the slightest of emotional indicators of the sharp sting. His wince passes easily for the gravitas he assumes over the matter at hand. His fingers stumble over keys on his phone to let his wife know the meeting is will last longer than expected. His warning has ironically turned into a lie he will have to explain in the morning. “..be jome soon…” flies into the ether.

The wooden box fits. He takes out the white shirt and the tennis shoes he bought at the market and places dresses the boy. No new pants. He lays the sleeping child inside and slips the box into the shade. He leaves the boy there under the watchful eye of his own mother, herself busy about the supper plans. His stomach growls as he gropes for his tools – and he’s off…

The oak table is too big. Too big to acknowledge that man on the other side whose niggling nasally voice has concluded something poignant. His pocket vibrates and he counts on answering the text soon enough. Sleep would be a welcome relief but now the man has called his name. Now the tone has changed from convincing to accusatory. His stomach growls as it wrestles the fast food through his digestive tract. He shuffles the papers in front of him, collecting himself for rebuttal…

The night gathers over his shoulder as he begins his work. The freshly mowed aroma fills the air where the knife has cleared the ground. Ample. The spade is next – and this much slower work than before and not nearly as well paid as he is accustomed. He hangs his own dark shirt over the brick nearby. He will need it clean later. His mind focuses now on the task at hand. His arms strain against the shovel but the roots are cut eventually…

Twilight lingers. The sun lasers into his eyes through the blinds swaying against the manufactured breeze. He has laid scripture verse and context at the feet of the gathered wisdom. His words are ringing with very redundancy he swore to avoid when this all began months ago. He is convinced. He has a rack of sweater vests in his closets for every tedious meeting and conference he has ever attended on this subject. He too invested in this to tell anyone that he’d rather just see this debate die…

The pre-dawn light makes the business worse. Almost able to see but not enough for efficiency, he pulls the spade out of the hole once more. The gathering dew makes the tears and sweat less the salty sting of pain – more the gift of a natural goodbye. Goodbye too close to hello. Three years is not enough time awake to warrant sleeping forever. Four large coins in his pocket are his only escape…

His car stops as if on instinct at the crimson light. His side won but he can’t help feeling thin. His belly against the wheel reminds him otherwise. He slides the car into place and it is still. He escapes into the flickering screen of his laptop and the late night sports highlights…

It was as if the fat night, lazy in its moonless hammock, is been startled by the timid advances of the sun across the sky. Scrambling to attention in a futile bid to impress his superiors against the inevitable victory of the morning, the night snuffs out the stars. Soon the darkness will give way to the blinding light…

What does it mean to be a Canadian?

This fall I will guide some 70 grade 11 students through the social studies curriculum. The guiding question that centers the scope of the course is: To what extent should nationalism be embraced? There is almost an ironic quality to that question being asked of a Canadian audience. To many it would seem that Canada best embodies a fairly a-nationalistic persona. The most patriotic sentiment that Canada might muster is “I am Canadian, Meh…”

This perspective is a little dishonest since it really doesn’t account for the fact even this tacit denial of nationalistic pride or identity might itself be evidence of a strong nationalism. This is especially true since Canada has unavoidably advanced its strongest elements of it national character against that of USA. Since American patriotism is so bold – a lackadaisical perspective on Canada’s collective pride might seem like a vindication against the perceived American arrogance. Of course a non-committal approach to themes of national identity are not well supported in the main. One only needs to ask a few poignant questions to bring out some of the most ardent opinions with relative ease. So here is my challenge:

What does it mean to you to be Canadian?

Is being Canadian substantially different than being American? If so in what ways? If not which factors constribute tot he assimilation?

the gift of a mudslide…

I stand on the rain soaked slope. A shelter is far too gracious a nomenclature for the random collection of poles, corrugated tin, canvas and palm thatching glued to the collapsing mud bank of the mountain side. A family lives there. A few wisps of the smoke of a cooking fire trail into the sky – evidence of a family carrying on its daily routine. More of a prayer to stay on the mountain.
He’s three or four but still not quite out of the clumsy teetering of a toddler. Shirt and some battered leather shoes yawning to reveal the stubby toes that search for anything stable. No pants. His sister, seven, yanks him onto her hip and over the two foot deep ravine carved into what is understood to be a road. Torrential rains run unimpeded down the clear cut mountainside sculpting trenches that snake like veins on a body-builder across the landscape. Today his dad has stopped in to bring another piece of tin to cover the three foot gap above the boy's bed. Tonight dad will catch the bus back to San Juan del Sur to join the boy’s mom and work. The boy might not see either of them again for a number of weeks. He hangs a little tighter to his sister.
A man in torn jeans hunches over the handle of his welder as lays a bead across a newly laid piece of tin roofing. An extension cord is loosely thrown over the nearby power line. The neighbour’s TV flickers and then blinks out. No shirt. No mask. No worries…
A pair of exceptionally thin oxen plod across the highway: a cart full of sugarcane piled eight feet high in the air. If the beasts were slower perhaps their load would not as quickly be converted into the all sorts of candy that form the staple diet of childhood here. But their load reaches and is then with no small effort converted into the dulcet bricks of dark raw molassesy sugar.
Starting at the top of the hillside, I scramble to the bottom and turn to face the small community pasted up the slope. My stance below the huddled barrio belies my true position. I am the giver. I am the agent of charity. I give and in giving I stretch out my hand against gallons of adversity that threaten to wash away…   …even life itself. There is no humility in giving. No grace in charity. It is arrogant pride in its finest and most bewitching trance. I stretch out my finger and the spot it points to screams out for help. Haunting need. Immediate need! Now!
And I can meet that need. My money – not even that of a carefully coordinated fundraising campaign. My money! My money meets the now needs of every place my finger points. And as I lift my finger having met that need a new one springs to life in its place. I can dream of bigger money than mine. Money that could meet a dozen fingers pointed at once onto that mountainside. I have already coordinated in my mind the soup and pie lunches and the raffle tickets and…
…a church goes up here, a clinic – a retaining wall keeps the mountain back over there. My dentist friend is pulling teeth, my construction buddy is putting up rafters, my coaching friend has got those kids ready to win their local tournament. Needs met. Joy imparted. I can do this… I can DO this!
It falls to MY evaluation that these people are worse off than I am. And in a place where destitution can be warded off with lunch money – there is an intoxicating elixir to be consumed. I drink. The moment I place myself as the giver of charity – the gift that sneaks along for the ride is the way my gift puts them in the position of getter. Willingly enough it would seem – the smiles dance when the gifts are brought out and passed around. I have told them that they are not as good as I am – whether they acknowledge it or not. It is not so far from colonialist agenda that I aspire to.
I stare in the face of my charity with contempt now – seeing it for what it really is – my own vindication of my superior position. My easy gift. It occurs to me that we can give to meet the needs of now which are not fictitious needs. There is real pain now – real struggle now – real hardship now – real need now! But we can also meet the needs of then. These are just as real but not as obvious. These needs don’t stare you in the face before you close your eyes every night. These needs are not the haunting echoes of a mudslide or child being consumed nightly with worms. These are the kinds of needs that require a different kind of giver.
The needs of tomorrow are understood by living inside a community of pain and entering the rhythm of it agony. The needs of tomorrow are observed when the impulse to extend our arrogant giving to the NOW is curbed in favour of some long term investment. How do you affect the accepted logic of leaving your children alone in a ramshackle hut to find work in another country? How do you step into the relational dynamics that exact furious pain between genders inside and outside of marriage? How do you break cycles that perpetuate poverty that only deepens (in spite of all the money we have thrown at the NOW needs)? The giver who might try to make this their charity ought to consider that the cost is not one’s personal fortune or fame. It is a life. A life. A life that stays. A life that chooses not to escape the reality of pain. A life that chooses not to appease guilty consciences and incessant nightmares with dollars. A life – no less. A life – no more!
Somehow this song seems to tag nicely with these sentiments...