Ten Reasons to be excited about Sochi (and past and future Olympics)

Satirical Olympic Symbol
The Harsh Light of Day 

Ten Reasons to be excited about Sochi (and past and future Olympics).

1. The Olympics are the one remaining bastion of unselfishness; athletes compete on behalf of  the nation that raised and nurtured them, not for personal glory. That's why any medals they win are melted down and sold, the proceeds given to the fight against illiteracy, poverty, disease and desecration of the environment.
2. They are an opportunity for wealthy corporations to express their humanitarian impulses by donating millions, not in the hope that advertising value will come out of their association with the athletes but for the good of all the peoples of all the nations of the world.
3. They cost virtually nothing because the athletes are amateurs who hold regular jobs and train on the weekends when they're not volunteering in soup kitchens and nursing homes. Sport, they contend, should never be dependent on government or commercial handouts since the participants are the fittest in the land and there are many people who need such assistance far more than they do.
4. The cost of the infrastructure is negligible as the hundreds of billions spent, for instance for the Sochi event, will leave behind wonderful facilities so the locals can learn to excel in slope-style snowboarding, speed skating and exhilarating mogul skiing.
5. They are one event in which nations put aside all political, adversarial impulses and put first the pure delight of being part of one universal brotherhood-of-man: everyone equal, everyone empathetic to the needs of others, all swords melted down to make farming implements.
6. It's a time when all subjective impulses are put aside and the judges—no matter which nation they come from—rule purely on objective criteria so that we always know that the gold medal went to the very best performance.
7. We all put aside our chauvanism for a time, so much so that it doesn't matter who wins the games but only whether or not they all had a good time and played their best. This impulse so energizes us that we don't even keep track of winners' and losers' nationalities. We eulogize the beauty of the achievements, not the zero-sum, winners/losers obsession that takes place in professional sports fandom. We are better people and much more sportsmanlike for having lived the experience in front of our TVs.
8. Olympics are and have always been models of pure sport; only athletes who recognize this and don't try to gain an advantage by consuming various performance-enhancing drugs ever aspire to these games, knowing full well that to cheat there is to lose big time, whether one "medals" or not. The games teach their countrymen what we need to know about honesty and integrity as being more important than acquisition and glory.
9. The games produce an aura of international unity; emotional boundaries among countries magically fade away and for weeks and years following, all peoples of the world lay down their armaments and resolve to live together as one peoples, the children of one creator.
10. Human rights take on new meaning because of the games; discrimination on the basis of age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, nationality or race melts away and those persons formerly despised for their differences suddenly appear as equals to everyone, by everyone. 
    
    Such is the power of the Olympics, a blessing to be savoured by all. Indeed, can you imagine a world without them?

Great Grandpa and I go to the Olympics

Jacob David Epp and wife Justina ca. 1864

Chortitza Mennonite Church ca. 1850

My Great Grandfather could have taken a one-hour flight to Sochi, flying over the Sea of Azov, then down the coast of the Black Sea—about the distance from Saskatoon to Winnipeg. He probably wouldn't even have been served a lunch on such a short flight.

      Alternately, he could have traveled over land, taking the M18 from Chortitza down to Dzhankoi on the Crimean Peninsula, stopping there for lunch and switching to the M17 East to Kerch where he'd have to wait for the ferry to cross the Strait of Kerch between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. From Ilyich, it's a pretty long but simple drive on the M25 down the east shore of the Black Sea to Sochi.

      He had only one functioning eye, but he could at least have watched half of the Olympics.

      Or he might, like me, have had very little interest in gatherings of “elite athletes” to see who can slide down a hill the fastest, and might have stayed in his home/hovel in Novovitebsk and written a sermon for the following Sunday, not bothering even to check in on the endless hours of Olympic hype on TV. 

     But he would still have been aware that just a hop over the Black Sea, the world is gathering to be thrilled by the spectacle of professional athletes hitting a rubber puck with sticks, apprehensive at the same time because just a few hours East is the city of Grozny in Chechnya, where rebels know how to make bombs, and suicide bombers are willing to deploy them.

      I'm a Luddite where both sports and independence movements are concerned. Regarding the former, I just don't understand the motivation behind all the time, effort and money that's required to earn the right to slide down an ice chute on a bobsled to arrive at the bottom—hopefully—one-one hundredth of a second faster than the next-fastest slider. And regarding the latter, why would you insist that a province that doesn't want to be a part of the nation anymore nevertheless be forced to remain? Kick them out already! Let's have some peace and quiet for a change!

      And then there's that “Own the Podium” thing that's an embarrassment to any thinking Canadian, or will be after the Americans, the Russians, even the Scandinavians deservedly kick our asses in pretty much every event as they're likely to do. “Own the Podium” indeed. What arrogance. What a waste of millions. What a set up for being shamed when the snow finally settles.

      Do we still call this sport?

      I'm pretty sure Jacob David Epp in his home/hovel in Novovitebsk would have shaken his head in amazement and expended a chuckle or two. Would that I could share the amusement with him!

     I, too, have only one properly-functioning eye. Thanks for that, Great Grandpa.

Now I See Through a Glass Darkly

Reading it ain't easy!

Gerald Gerbrandt, former president of CMU (Canadian Mennonite University), gave his first talk on “Hearing the God of Scripture” last night at the Rosthern Mennonite Church.  The first session encouraged us to think of the scriptures that have been passed down to us as “story, art and drama.” 

    Three more sessions are planned.

     I had lunch with a friend newly-returned from a week in Israel the other day, and in the course of our chatter he asked me what I considered to be the solution to the impasse in Palestine and might it come through the Christianization of the people there, which would make our role more missional than diplomatic. I said I didn't have anything to offer as a solution; for one, I've never been there, never had the opportunity to “feel” what it's like to be Israeli or Palestinian in that small part of the world in 2014.

     What's becoming clearer to me is that Christians are no more “of one accord” than anyone else on the subject of bringing peace to the Middle East. In part, their ambivalence is tied to the way in which scriptures and the historical records are read. We may be looking through the same windows, but interpreting what we see has a host of antecedents.

     Harper really did us all an injustice when he brought the word antisemitism into the dialogue on his recent visit there. There are probably numerous people for whom a hatred of Jewry figures in criticisms of Israel's behaviour, but to link such criticism—for instance of the establishment of West Bank settlements—to antisemitism tends to stifle dialogue and generosity of spirit in the ongoing efforts to broker a lasting and just peace.

     There are other trigger-words about. For instance, who could blame a casual reader of scripture for linking the Israel of the Old Testament with the name of the present state of Israel, and present-day Jerusalem with the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation? (“I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” -Revelation 21:2) For many a scripture-reader, dividing the modern-day, secular, political democracy that is Israel from the Biblical chronicles doesn't come easily.

     Gerbrandt urged us to think of scripture more as artful story than as rule book. Many of the laws in the book of Leviticus, for instance, have long since been rendered obsolete by the passage of time and new experiences. Meanwhile, there is clearly an over-arching “story” in scripture, an establishment of basic principles that include, at least, justice, empathy and compassion as the birthright of every living creature. Neither Israel's treatment of Palestinians nor the Canadian treatment of Aboriginal citizens historically can pass the smell test when the principles in the scriptural story are applied: both fail on justice, empathy and compassion standards even when the behaviours in question can be rationalized legally.

     That's not being antisemitic; that's being human and, hopefully, in synch with the appeals of the whole scriptural story.

     Gerbrandt's seminars are timely—and much needed.

15 Milligrams of Neil Young - twice a day with meals.

aserotonin-specific reuptake inhibitor

It was an amusing exchange: Neil Young against the CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) on the subject of the Oil Sands. Young, of course, emphasizing his rage with hyperbole and metaphor at the devastation caused by oil sands mining (including a simile conjuring images of Hiroshima) and the CEO of CAPP dismissing Young as ignorant, more or less. “Neil Young doesn't know what he's talking about,” was the gist of DavidCollyer's response in an interview with CBC.

      Someone in the media (can't remember who) characterized the exchanges as arguments of the deaf.

      Somehow all this resonates with an experience through which I'm going at present.

      Some 15 years ago my family doctor diagnosed me as needing the assistance of what is called an aserotonin-specific reuptake inhibitor, or SSRI—Paroxetine or Paxil being its familiar names. I've been sailing along with full, if misplaced, confidence in the inventors—GlaxoSmithKlein—and my family doctor and my pharmacist, who either did not know—or knew and didn't inform me—of the potential side effects; I was initially assured it wasn't habit-forming besides.

      If you are taking an SSRI for depression or anxiety, the benefits might well outweigh the detriments for you, but the following information should at least be made known to everyone for whom such drugs are prescribed:

Paroxetine is an SSRI anti-depressant released by GSK in 1992 and sold as Paxil, Seroxat, Aropax, Brisdelle, Pexeva and Sereupin. The company's promotion of the drug for children was one of the grounds for the 2012 fraud case in the United States. [for]10 years the drug was marketed as "not habit forming," which numerous experts and at least one court found to be incorrect. Approximately 5,000 US citizens have sued GSK after using paroxetine; lawsuits have also been filed in the UK. The lawsuits allege that the drug has serious side effects, which GSK downplayed in patient information. In 2001 the World Health Organization ranked paroxetine as the most difficult antidepressant to withdraw from. In 2002 the FDA published a new product warning about the drug, and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Associations said GSK had misled the public about paroxetine and had breached two of the Federation's codes of practice.

In early 2004 GSK agreed to settle charges of consumer fraud for $2.5 million; the drug had $2.7 billion in yearly sales at that time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlaxoSmithKline).

 At this point, halfway through a withdrawal regimen, I can substantiate from personal experience that the drug's negative side effects are real and serious and that discontinuation is beastly; I'm still not certain of success.

      What has all this to do with oil sands? you ask. Well we should never fall into the trap of assuming that corporations are in the business of seeking ways to make our lives better, slick advertising notwithstanding; their motivation is maximum return on investment. In the case of GlaxoSmithKlein, the profit motive produced real and dangerous effects for consumers of their product. The courts as well as the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Associations determined that GSK deliberately and maliciously misled the public in order to maintain and increase highly profitable sales.

      Similarly, members of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers are not engaged in helping us wean ourselves of our carbon-based energy addiction, their interests lie in expanding the market for their product, and like GSK, if necessary, by misleading the public and confining the debate to what they call “the real world”.

      Question is, which is the “real world?” Is it Neil Young's or David Collyer's? In fact, David Collyer's portraying Young as ignorant of the facts is—at best—the pot calling the kettle black; I would venture to guess that David Collyer's knowledge of environmental and biological sciences is as deficient as Neil Young's knowledge of fracking.

      Hence, the strident, angry arguing of the deaf.

      You will all draw your own conclusions, of course, but the elephant I ride on is holding onto the tail of Neil Young's elephant. I believe the earth should be seen as if from outer space, a small, fragile and vulnerable planet which is nevertheless the source and sustainer of all the life that exists in the universe—as far as we know. If life is important, then its wellspring ought to be tended and nourished.

      It's this to which the the corporate mind is wilfully blind.

      One more thing needs to be said, among many that could be said. An aspect of Collyer's argument was that the very public decrying the expansion of the fossil fuel industry is addicted to their product, uses their product on a daily basis and therefore their criticism of the oil sands projects is hypocritical. On its surface, this seems a logical and fair argument; but let's think for a moment. That would also make me a hypocrite for criticizing GSK because I was, after all, a consumer of their product. That's nonsense unless I used the paroxetine with the full knowledge of possible consequences, which the company and purveyors of pharmaceuticals withheld from me.

      There are numerous ways in which the corporate world and corporate government can manipulate consumers' choices: Saskatchewan winters are cold, I need to heat my house to live, I use natural gas to do that because the means to heat with solar panels and wind generators or hydro-generated power does not exist where I live, and I haven't got the investment means to bring their existence about; it's the corporate world and corporate government that manage where investment dollars go.

      Meanwhile if you catch me slamming doors, screaming curses at the sky and/or withdrawing from this world, you may assume that my tapering-down project is not going well.

Solidarity Forever, for the Union Makes us Strong.

Poor pay, poor conditions (dust, knee strain, etc.), no benefits! Where's my shop steward??

Today I'm disturbed by government efforts to shrink the influence of unions, part of an ongoing phenomenon in North America that you already know about if you watch the news. I'm disturbed because I just read Kathleen Monk's blog post on the subject, and if you don't have a lot of time, click on the link and read her post instead of this one.

My first job was as a lumber yard go-fer. I was told what I would be paid ($100/month, 1960) and my employment conditions were laid out for me. I went from that to working for the Bank of Montreal at a salary of $1200/yr., also laid on without my input. One day the accountant told me to go out and buy some new shirts because my frayed collars didn't look seemly for a business person. I couldn't afford shirts, even in the singular. From there I went on to Teachers' College and a teaching career, all of it as a member of a union. I served as a local president, was involved in negotiations of salaries and working conditions and as a result of past negotiations, enjoyed health benefits, sick leaves etc., that would have been unheard of at the B of M at the time. My wife and I now benefit from pensions that wouldn't have been ours had it not been for collective bargaining.

I don't have to go into the role of collective bargaining rights in freeing society from child labour practices, starvation take-it-or-leave-it pay, abominable working conditions, etc.; this should be common knowledge to anyone who paid attention in high school History. What the past has shown us is that commerce and industry leadership/ownership doesn't like to see employees having a say in their work lives; it compromises control, impinges on profits. If unions are being systematically weakened these days, we ought to check out who's cheering; it certainly isn't the burger flipper at McDonalds or the welder at a non-union shop, except . . .

. . . except that there's been a steady campaign of union demonization going on for years, so much so that even people who have benefited from the social improvements made through collective bargaining are bad-mouthing the hands that fed them. If a service like garbage collection is suspended by a strike, it's the union's fault; if the stoppage results from a lockout, it's also the union's fault for making unreasonable demands. Somehow, gouging corporations and businesses have won the public relations war, a sad phenomenon that unions will have to find better ways to counteract.

For me, the bottom line is this: the employer who invests and the employee who sweats are equals, humans in a world where racism, gender-ism, ageism, etc. are not permitted. That employees should have the right to sit across the table from employers and negotiate the conditions of work and their remuneration seems a human right that ought to be obvious, unless we insist that the world be organized vertically. 

It's noteworthy that as unions are losing their effectiveness—generally through legislation and bad press—inequality is increasing. 

The connection is obvious. 

Do read Kathleen Monk.

World's Oldest Profession and you

Colombian orchid photos courtesy Agnes Epp

Canada's prostitution laws have been struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada. The Canadian government has one year in which to come up with something better. Read all about it here.

The outcries are coming from many directions, of course, as they generally do when “moral matters” and state law rub shoulders. In a sense, all laws are based on somebody's definition of what is moral and what is not, but when it comes to enacting a good law that satisfies the sensitivities of a multi-faith, multicultural citizenry, answers don't come easily. Take gay marriage, prayer in schools, family planning, war on drugs, gun control and now, prostitution, and you have an encyclopedia of passionate controversy.

Prostitution makes an interesting case study in and of itself and as a platform for thinking through religion/state separation and cooperation.

On its face, sexual prostitution responds to a basic biological need, namely the drive to extract pleasure from sexual behaviour with another person. The exchange of sexual favours for cash has been a feature of every age since the invention of money and writing, and likely before that. In a way, one could apply the innocuous,  simplistic, “you have a need, I have the means; let's make a deal,” description. Viewed in this way, sexual prostitution is not radically different from general commerce: for instance, people exhibit a need to witness violence, so fighters beat each other to bloody pulps in the ring, observers experience an “orgasm” of vicarious pleasure and the fighters are paid.

But the professional hockey player, the owner of theme parks, the movie actor and opera singer don't wear the patina of sexual taboo that sex workers do, the ones who are seen as “hard prostitutes.” It's surely for this reason that organized crime and pimps are attracted to the benefits of controlling sexual prostitution exchanges. When have we seen criminals kidnapping budding hockey players, transporting them overseas and selling them to the highest bidder among foreign hockey teams? How prevalent is the incidence of opera singers being forced to pay a portion of their salary for “protection?” That which is forbidden in law often becomes a commodity in the criminal marketplace; drug trade, tobacco smuggling, gun running, rum running are phenomena comparable to sexual prostitution in this light. 

As a Christian (albeit one who has been described as being notoriously liberal on social issues at times) I see prostitution as a very sad symptom of cultural and/or economic dysfunction. There are paths in our growing up that lead to being a john or a prostitute, a pastor or a used car salesman. There are paths in our growing up that lead to violence against—and exploitation of—other persons, as there are paths leading to generosity and empathy. It is at this level that Christian witness and service must be aimed: education, nurturing and an indefatigable fight against those forces that contribute to inequality and poverty.

Making better paths, in other words.

On the state level, the tendency is to solve problems and inconveniences legally. For one, this approach generally deals with the aftermath of transgression and anti-social behaviour and seeks to deter behaviours through punishment. For another, the lack of consensus in the population often means that legislation ends up taking its cues primarily from the interests of those who hold power at the time—and hope to maintain it—and those with commercial interests and the means to sway parliamentarians.

As churches, we are—or ought to be—about prevention. Waiting for the government to enact laws as if our church were the whole world both flies in the face of our preference for church/state separation and diverts us from the tasks we've been given in the world.

How our government tackles the legislative changes on this issue will be interesting to watch. It's touchy when 40% of the vote can provide any party with a majority. Eliminating prostitution through legal means is a pipe dream; curbing the exploitation of—and trafficking in—women by organized crime might be the best we can hope for; how to make that happen is the government's challenge in the coming year. Distasteful as it will be to some, state regulated brothels as in the Netherlands is one possible consideration that will emerge, like safe injection sites for addicts and liquor board stores for drinkers. 

 Prostitution as it exists in our cities today is symptomatic of social dysfunction, and is likely here to stay. Recognizing that, how does the church respond? how does government? If you know, tell me and I'll pass it on. Just click here.

Vertical, Horizontal

I'm finally getting around to reading and contemplating Steve Heinrich's book, Buffalo Shout, Salmon Cry, a great collection of essays on the settler/indigenous interface in North America. A great book to read and study for all of us “settlers” who are impatient for the finding of a solution that will finally bring about equality between us and the people whose land we bartered for in everlasting treaty arrangements.

I was reminded by several of the essays of a concept I used to present when teaching Hamlet to high school students, namely the “Great Chain of Being,” a hierarchical conception of creation that ranks all its components on a vertical line (see above and here). Going back to the philosophical musings of Aristotle and Plato, this construction implies degrees of authority and dominance so that men, for instance, have authority over women and women naturally defer to men. Animals, of course, are inferior to all humankind and rocks and minerals being at the base of the chain are there for exploitation by all the rest of creation. (It strikes me that when Paul wrote in the New Testament that women's relationship to men is as men's relationship to Christ that he might have been looking at a diagram like the one above.)

The horizontal plane in the illustration is roughly representative of an indigenous conception of creation, where the elements are seen in a side-by-side, roughly-equal configuration. This implies a very different concept of authority and deference, where men and women are equal and plants and rocks, minerals and animals are co-creations and not ranked hierarchically.

Buffalo Shout, Salmon Cry is, in a manner of speaking, about the clash of the two concepts. Creation care, for instance, resides quite naturally in a spirituality that reveres all the elements of creation as residing on a horizontal plane. And there's a vast difference in outlook between a god that resides “high above” and one that resides in the creation “beside and in.”

Think for a minute about the Great Northern Pipeline proposal, the indigenous people of BC and the Canadian government in this light.

But all this, too, is simplified. Spiritual concepts on both sides are shifting and fluid. Indigenous people are Christianized, Christian doctrine is rethought, changing conditions demand new thinking, etc.

When I think about the residential school system and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at work right now, an image arises of men and women in black robes heaving at the horizontal plane in the hearts of their dark-haired charges, trying to drag the plane 90 degrees to the vertical. The tragedy being that in many cases they manage only to drag it 45 degrees, leaving their students in a state of limbo and spiritual confusion.

A real and pernicious tragedy.

The Seduction of the Inevitable, or Not a Damn Thing You Can Do About It!!



Ornamental Apple Tree after hoar frost



Stuffed Racoon for sale - What would you offer?

The conversation was about pipelines and tankers and the Alberta Oil Sands and such, and the apparent change of heart of Christie Clark, premier of British Columbia, on the construction of a pipeline through her province to carry heavy oil sands bitumen to be loaded onto tankers on her pristine coastline and shipped to Asia so a great deal of money could be made, etc., etc.

It was actually a refreshing change from the endless talk of Rob Ford.

A British Columbian colleague was not surprised by Clark's apparent about-face on the subject. She opined that there is no better choice than the pipeline to transport the oil; a slam dunk compared with rail or road tankers. I said that there is a real choice: leave the oil in the sands where it is, fix up the mess and go on to some cleaner enterprise.

That's not the way the world works, I was informed. Selling oil sands energy to Asia will happen; we're better off just making sure we choose the least dangerous way to move it.

It's inevitable. Like death and taxes, puberty and menopause, earthquakes and typhoons, there's not a damn thing you can do about it, so get used to it.

It's true of course. Many, many happenings are inevitable. They will happen, like it or not. But wait, shipping oil sands bitumen to Asia IS NOT ONE OF THEM. There are choices possible here, different routes to take, debates and decisions to be had that are different from the status quo.

Much that we have resigned ourselves to is NOT inevitable.

There's a seductiveness about resignation, though; if nothing can be done, then nothing is required of us.

We can rest calmly in the arms of the creator, who promises a better world when the final, inevitable chapter has been written. This world, in that case, is not my home anyway.

Truth is, we waste more energy than we use; we travel far more than is necessary, for instance. Way too much light, way too much wasted heat, way too many five-passenger-vehicles-with-one-occupant driving.

“I have a dream,” Martin Luther King might have said if he was presently a living Canadian. “I have a dream of the tar sands covered up and the area restored to be bird, fish and people-friendly again. I have a dream of many, many men and women employed making solar panels, wind generators, tidal generators. I dream of roofs made entirely of solar panels, of wind generators in every town, of cities where only electric golf carts, bicycles, pedestrians and public transportation are allowed on the streets.”

I have a dream. A dream of clean air, clean water, clean land.

Get a Job, You Bum!

What the crow said

When it comes to governance in a democracy, conservatism makes an excellent opposition; allow conservatism to take charge, however, and the clean up takes years of tedious commitment.” - the crow

Having been an adult educator for a dozen or so years, my ears perk up when I hear announcements relating to that field. Employment and Social Development Minister Jason Kenney met with the provinces and territories this week to sell a new plan for preparing the unemployed for the job market. I didn't get the details, but it apparently involves reducing the grants for this purpose to provinces and spending the difference on a joint training program involving industry. There's a logic to it; if Widgets, Inc. needs people to function on the Widget assembly line, they should probably bear some of the burden of training people to do that. Chalk it up to cost of production and raise your prices to cover the new expense.

The provinces and territories, as would be expected, balked on jurisdictional and budgetary grounds. 'Twas ever thus.

The concept of job training as a solution for the marginalized, the chronically unemployed and the ethnically marginalized needs a bit of sober second thought however. In the first place, there's a huge area of employment that may be short of workers but where skills training is not relevant. How much training does it need to teach Widget assembly? What able-bodied person can't nail down asphalt shingles day after day with just an hour of instruction and demonstration? There may me a myth afloat out there about skills training as a solution for employers who have only mind-numbing, thankless, routine, minimum-wage jobs to offer, but that remains a myth.

Secondly, a job does not a life make. Seen from the skills training perspective, people become widget-like in the public eye. “Get a job, you bum,” and all that. Never mind that training has been attempting to displace education in these times, the idea that a job is the relevant goal of all those years spent in school strikes me as penny wisdom and pound foolishness. Most of the people I counselled as an educator did not lack the ability to do the jobs that were out there, they were short on knowing how to live. Their lives were too chaotic for the consistent performance of even the most basic of life necessaries like managing relationships satisfactorily, postponing rewards for a distant goal, the minutiae that goes into successful child rearing, eating and feeding families with wholesome nourishment, etc. Most of my adult students had had jobs, many jobs in many cases, but chaos had undone them long before the prospect of advancement could be contemplated.

Two good ways to spend the billions we're currently throwing away on shadows:

First, employers have to be trained to make their workplaces amenable to family and social life of the people they employ. I could work at McDonald’s if the fact of being with the people there were something to look forward to, if the work were balanced with reasonable monetary and personal rewards and if the atmosphere was one of people performing a worthwhile service for deserving customers.

Second, training must never displace education. It starts in Kindergarten and never stops. It is the nurturing of the essences of being successful human beings, creatures who love, eat, travel, play, vote, hear and express opinions, read and understand, pursue artistic endeavours, and generally feel comfortable and self-confident in the communities in which fate has placed them. This is liberal education; it has no substitute.

To expropriate a Biblical adage—possibly ill-advisidly—seek ye first [a liberal education] and all these things—including meaningful work—shall be added unto you.

The idea that jobs build lives is very much a conservative way of thinking. Our current government is interested in labour supply and reducing public spending, the unemployed shall assemble Widgets as they themselves are widgets of the economy.

How long will it take a future government to undo this folly?

A rose by any other Name

If this is not a rose, email me and tell me what it is, please.
g,epp@accesscomm.ca

This story was told to me and others on Saturday:

A self-declared atheist was so enamoured with the peace and justice emphasis of some Mennonites that he began hanging around with them, participating in their activities and discussions, etc. At some time—while discussing this, that and the other—a partner in the conversation said, “You're a Christian, aren't you.” The atheist was indignant: “By no means; I'm an atheist, I believe in no God.” Troubled by this confusion, he began to read in a Bible that had been gathering dust on his bookshelf. What he read there filled him with consternation.

“Oh s**t!” the story has him saying. “I AM a Christian.”

Like most stories, the interpretation of this one belongs to the one hearing it. I heard it in a church, told to my fellow Mennonites so I pretty much know what interpretation was intended: the word of God is not bound by the strictures we place upon it. At least I think I know this. As I get older I'm finding that what I once considered ordinary concepts are muddier—rather than clearer—than they used to be. Go figure.

If I were to retell the story, it would be with the intention of illustrating that categorical thinking is rote thinking. When we declare someone to be “a Christian,” for instance, it's pretty much impossible to know what the declarer is saying unless you know where he's coming from. For a certain member of my family, it means the person in question is a “born again” person, a category that includes members of churches for whom “born again” is the essential, fundamental marker, and excluding all members of churches for whom it's not and, of course, all agnostics, atheists, materialists, secularists and any of the vast number of “ists” we talk about. (For a more refined definition of the “born again” Christian, a browse through the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada Statement of Fundamental andEssential Truths will help.)

There are signs that we are all becoming less “categorical” in our thinking as time goes by. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, for instance, includes 30 or so member groups and although it enunciates a common creed which most could probably assent to (in part, if not entirely), it's almost certain that if they were to begin a debate on the details of this common creed, their cooperation on mutually-held concerns would end. Such is the nature of linking faith to Creeds that seek to set in stone (or, at least, on paper) “what we believe.” As is, they are able to speak with one voice on many issues. Rote thinking has been set aside for that purpose.

So could even an atheist be a Mennonite or a Baptist, a Pentecostal or a Catholic? What if he attended worship, learned the songs, participated in the activities but continued to insist that he didn't believe Jesus was God, but rather a very good prophet worthy of our loyalty and the best pattern for living? Given that, would it come to him one day that, “Oh s**t, I actually AM a Christian?”

(Conversely, I imagine there's a “Christian” out there somewhere who picked up Christopher Hitchens God is not Great and said after reading Chapter 15, Religion as an Original Sin . . .

“. . . Oh s**t, I AM an atheist!”)

A rose isn't described by its name; call it pigweed if you like, its brilliant colour and pleasing aroma won't change. I think there's a famous quote that makes that point. By a guy named Shakespeare, if I'm not mistaken. Through the mouth of Juliet, I seem to remember.

You, me and Islam

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief (Robert Frost).

Sometimes things come in bunches, even if you haven't given them a thought for a considerable time, if ever. Like the time you read the word syzygy for the first time, looked it up and then heard the word used on the news that same evening. Some would say, “Coincidence?? I don't think so!”

It happened to me the other day. Jacques Parizeau—former PQ leader and premier of Quebec—published an op ed slamming the proposed Charter of Values and I read a paper given to me by an acquaintance and member of the same church denomination I belong to. Sound unrelated? Not at all.

First, the paper given to me by the acquaintance purportedly summarizes a book by Dr. Peter Hammond called Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and the Contemporary Threat, a book I'd never heard of. The summary details why we should be very afraid of Islam:

“Therefore, after much study and deliberation . . . perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country (emphasis not mine). They obviously cannot be both 'good' Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you wish, it's still the truth. You had better believe it. The more we understand this, the better it will be for our country and the future.”

Second, the report of Jacques Parizeau's criticism of the Charter of Quebec Values says: “He accuses the Quebec government of reacting to a growing fear of Islam and its spread.”

There's the connection. There are people who are convinced that we Westerners should be very afraid of Islam, that we should buy into the theory that there is a plan afoot to Islamasize the whole world, place us all under Sharia law, dispose of all infidels, etc., etc.

Interestingly, nearly every point made in the paper (anonymous, by the way) to prove that Muslims are unfit to be Americans, can also be made of Christians. For instance, it's declared that a Muslim cannot theologically be a good American because “his allegiance is to Allah.” Substitute “Jesus Christ” for Allah and you have the reason why no Christian can be a good American.

My concern today is not that this hate literature is out there; my immediate concern is that it's being circulated in my church and in my circle of acquaintances. People are reading the apocalyptic literature of Islamic conspiracy and shuddering to know what to do. The paper offers no suggestion of how the reader should react to the “facts” it presents, except that he/she should be aware that our communal home is on fire.

The paper I was handed by a fellow Mennonite is reminiscent of the material through which bigots of the early 20^th Century “educated” Christians on the danger represented by the Jews in their neighbourhoods. The paper speaks of the percentage of Muslims in a country and what's to be expected as their numbers increase:

“After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, as in Ethiopia [where Muslims represent 32.8% of the population.]”

Talk like this is frighting good people, softening them up to accept, even condone, more direct attacks on the Muslim minority in North America. And that's probably why a feeble old separatist politician saw fit to leave his home and spread the caution despite his one-time rant that the referendum was lost because of “the ethnic vote and big money.”

My grandmothers wore the hijab, only it was called a scarf, or in low-German, a Doek. She would no more be seen in public without her head covered than in her nightgown. It was a symbol of her fidelity to the faith in which she'd been steeped for 70 years.

I asked a woman of the Muslim faith recently what went through her mind when she saw nearly-naked women prancing about on TV—or in the street. She said that her first thought was that they would be wise “to protect themselves better.” Her second thought was that if she was free to dress as she does, that freedom needs to exist for everyone . . . or else it doesn't for anyone.

The Arab world is in a state of revolution these days. I asked a Muslim prof teaching at the Veterinary College at the U of S what thoughts he had about the civil war in Syria as he listened to the news. (His mother was Syrian by birth.) He sighed and shook his head. “We went from European colonialism to dictatorship and are just now realizing that freedom is possible,” he said. “I fear there will be much fighting and bloodshed before we find our feet in a new and and different world.” (This isn't a verbatim quote.)

Spreading fear about minorities in a country that considers itself a model of freedom and democracy—like Canada, for instance—is not going to help in the struggle to ensure that “we all get to invite our neighbour to sit under our own fig tree and drink from our own cistern.”

Quebec—and all of us, Christians and Muslims for that matter—should take warning from the holocaust; there is great danger in going down the “persecuting minorities” road. The measuring stick we use to judge others is the same stick with which we will be judged.

This, incidentally, is Biblical.

For now, let's at least get to know our neighbours on a personal level before categorizing them by someone else's standards and doing them some unnecessary injustice.

Goin' for coffee

Complementary

And God created trees

 

“Goin' for coffee,” has become a mid-morning cliche at our house as it has for about eight or nine other guys in town who have one major trait in common: they no longer have to milk cows, write lesson plans, punch a time clock or warm up a road grader.

We get to choose what to do between nine and ten in the morning. Some would say what we choose is ridiculous; there's better coffee at home. But as Jake says, we're not paying for coffee; we're paying for a warm seat and conversation—better coffee would be considered a bonus.

The rumour around town is that men's coffee gatherings are all about doing what men traditionally accused women of: gossip. Talking about the lives of people not present.

Well there is that to it, but like most generalizations, the sweep is broad, its accuracy questionable. Some sage is purported to have said, there are three levels of conversation topic: ideas, things and people, in descending order of quality. I paid attention one day and we spent some time on ideas, a lot of time on things and, yes, we did talk some about people not present and the rumours swirling around them. We covered the gamut, in other words.

Someone recently characterized men's coffee gatherings as fault-finding expeditions. Definitely, there is fault-finding: the town doesn't clear snow properly, Stephen Harper has done something really stupid . . . again, old Beazley shouldn't be allowed to drive anymore (be careful with this one; we're all pushing the shouldn't-be-driving time of life!) Yes, there is fault-finding, but then, fault is easy to find and we've all been around the block a few times: we recognize crap when we see it. At least, we think we do.

So here's the truth about coffee time. It's not about the topic, it's about the conversation. It's a stage-of-life equivalent to “let's play catch,” a young-life thing where we would happily throw a ball back and forth for an hour or so—pointlessly, apparently. Figure out what it meant to us then and you've figured out what coffee time means to us now.

It's not about the ball.

There are women's coffee times as well. No men there; no women in ours. In fact, if I sauntered into the back room of the bakery and joined the dozen or so women who meet there every morning, I expect there'd be considerable consternation, very little approbation, great relief to see me go.

Now there's a sociological, psychological, anthropological conundrum with some teeth! A topic for coffee time, perhaps? About ideas, to boot! Or would it descend rapidly into gossip?

“Goin' for coffee, hon.”

Are we Moral Beings?

That time of the year

Pathway

A friend and I were sharing opinions on the condition of the world recently when we hit upon a surprising polar-difference on our perceptions of the general state of morality. His view is that we are sliding ever further in the wrong direction, i.e. we are becoming less and less governed by solid and time-proven moral stances. My view is that the trajectory is upward, that since the renaissance and the rise of more humanistic ways of thinking we are becoming ever more conscious of the need to teach and practice fundamentally moral behaviours in our day-to-day lives. I gave as examples the emancipation of women and sanctions against beating children. (I should add here that the “we” is given tentatively; I myself am not sure where the borders of this generalization begin and end.)

I guess no such discussion can get off on the right track unless morality is defined first. And there are plenty of books and websites that would be happy to define it for us. Christ in YouMinistries, for instance, insists that the very concept of morality is anti-Christian, and they pose an alternative view: Jesus did not come to give us a standardized moral code to which all should conform, but to give us His life whereby the divine character might be expressed through our behaviour. The implication is that the person who is regenerated by Christ has no need of a code—he/she acts out of the impulses of that regeneration and no longer acts in any other way than Christ would act. The person becomes, then, an “expression of the divine character.”

That's good on paper, as we say, but the questions about morality—particularly behaviour in the sexual sphere—have almost universally brought Christian denominations to the brinks of “holy wars.” There are only two possibilities, given the above: either the combatants have never been truly regenerated, or else the view of Christ in You Ministries is oversimplified to the point of uselessness.

Take the question of gay marriage: moral or immoral, should-be-banned or should-be-seen-as-legitimate. Former Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, described his metamorphoses on the question of same-sex marriage more-or-less as follows: when after considerable study and prayerful contemplation he arrived at the conclusion that sexual orientation was not a chosen but a natural state, he could not in good conscience discriminate any longer against intimacy and marriage for gays and lesbians. This is seen as the liberal stance by many and when challenged scripturally on his position, he responded that the Biblical references to the homosexual act must be interpreted in the light of new knowledge, much as we have recognized women's equality in the church and home and have decided that slavery is immoral despite Paul's rejection of the first and his tolerance for the second.

Christ in You Ministries is decidedly right on one point: codified morality seldom resolves ethical questions satisfactorily. Take the following passage from Deuteronomic code 5:12ff:

“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day."

Was this directed at the Children of Israel for a certain time and for a certain reason, or is it a commandment for all people for all time? What is work and what isn't? Is lighting the lamp work? Is milking a cow work? Can one morally cook a meal for a travelling stranger on the sabbath? Despite the commandments apparent clarity, applying it in each generation over thousands of years still taxes our interpretive muscles. The problem with our Sunday-shopping, worker-abusing economic culture is not that we defy the Sabbath outright, but that we have not reinterpreted it for the time: the need for rest and reflection has not gone away.

A code can't be written in enough detail to prevent debate over interpretation; the world just isn't orderly enough for that. There is, however, good reason—both Biblically and historically—to refresh our look at morality, particularly in the light of our ongoing confusion about sexual-sphere issues. Christ in You Ministries is probably onto something, even though we may not agree with their bottom line: moral people behave morally, end of sentence.

There's an interesting display in the public area of St. Paul's Hospital in Saskatoon. Posted on the wall are different versions of the same proverb as expressed by a variety of cultures and religions. It's the very simple: Do unto others as you would be done by. It's an almost-universal guide to behaviour that pretty much covers the content of any code one would care to promulgate. But are our imaginations up to the task? If you are a woman in love with another woman, for instance, can you expect to be treated as you would be if you were a woman in love with a man?

We have traditionally expected a number of moral behaviours of committed couples. They include fidelity, honesty, loyalty and faithfulness. I see no good reason to expect less of same-sex couples who wish to be partners in the adventure we call life. These broad attributes of moral behaviour as regards commitment between human partners—eroded and disregarded though they may be from time to time—can act as bulwark against the erosion of family while expressing the most universal of moral standards—don't disappoint your partner; treat him/her according to his/her human needs, which you recognize by examining your own.

That's why many support same-sex marriage.

I believe that position is consistent with the moral foundation so admirably depicted on the wall of St. Paul's: Be to others what you hope they would be to you.

Are we doing better at living in faith, hope and charity, or are we on the slippery slope down the hill? Either way, whether we are Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, atheist, agnostic or Christian, we will always fail to reach what we aspire to by attempting to codify our way to the peaceable Kingdom.