the goddess in my garden

Moving out...

2011-04-25T16:09:00.000-07:00

Dear friends, I'm switching platforms (is that the right term?) and moving this blog to Wordpress. This move is primarily driven by technology. I would like to update the blog more often and it has become easier to do that, and other things, if I move to Wordpress as it works with the other social media I am using. Please join me over at:
http://goddessinmygarden.wordpress.com/

What is prayer?

2011-01-27T09:59:00.000-08:00

What does it mean to pray? In a very basic way, because I think I'm a pretty basic person, I think it's just remembering the Creator in the conversation that is my life. I do believe that we are not lone entities existing in a pinball game. I believe all that exists is connected, and connected in that common Creator-energy. I do also 'believe' in science and the capacity of humanity to make bad choices, to be greedy and cruel.

So I'm thinking about prayer this morning because I read Dorothy Day writing about continuing to pray for the end of war (in this case World War II). I have to say that I probably think about prayer more than I consciously pray. Which is why my understanding of prayer as stated above has developed. In my life, prayer is action. If my awareness of and conversation with the Creator is not manifested in action that tries to make the world a place where it's easier to be good (as Peter Maurin would say), then it's empty dreaming and fantasy.

Local poetry - "a gift for everyone"

2010-12-12T15:08:00.000-08:00

This is a poem that is published in the current issue of our street paper Megaphone.

Slowly

Relaxing every muscle,

Relaxing every hair,

She floats

on the ethereal air.

Forgetting every "here",

And not regarding any "there",

She feels she's everywhere.

Ignoring every "now",

And not remembering any "then",

She whirls around again.

She wonders,

But she has few cares

The Love about her everywhere.

By James Witwicki

duh, or should it be doh

2010-09-05T12:04:00.001-07:00

I have happily discovered that Blogger has finally made a way to deal with spam comments. In the course of getting rid of the spam, I discovered some nice and interesting comments from blog posts waaay back that I never saw. I have no excuse, I wasn't checking (or posting) much back then. Thanks LK and Kevin Low from Malaysia for your words and thoughts.

Sojourners voiceoftheday

2010-08-16T14:13:00.002-07:00

Each of us, famous or infamous, is a role model for somebody, and if we aren't, we should behave as though we are -- cheerful, kind, loving, courteous. Because you can be sure someone is watching and taking deliberate and diligent notes.

- Maya Angelou

Expressions of Oppressions

2010-08-15T13:36:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading The Black Holocaust for Beginners and discovered the rotten roots of another commonly used expression, so I thought I would share it with you. I'll also share another one that I've been trying to educate people not to use for a few years now. If anyone knows of others, feel free to share with me and I'll post them.

Corner the market
When the slave trade ships arrived in the Caribbean with their sick, abused and stolen cargo of Africans, merchants who were nicknamed 'Scramblers' would be the first to board. They would scramble aboard to get the first look at and the first pick of the most healthy and good looking of the captive Africans. Then they would separate them out from the rest and move them to a corner of the deck to keep them apart. They 'cornered the market'. Please try to be mindful of this expression, don't use it and let others know where it comes from.

Rule of thumb
This phrase became attributed to a judge in England in the 18th century with regards to a ruling about the permissibility of husbands beating their wives as long as the stick was no wider than (or in some accounts, no longer than) his thumb. This link is apparently not substantiated as the phrase was in use long before it, but there are many references to it over time that absolutely make reference to the practice of wife beating and domestic violence. This is a phrase to be avoided I think, in the interests of changing our attitudes and behaviours.

Sojourners voiceoftheday

2010-08-06T12:35:00.001-07:00

I find that it is better to love badly and faultily than not to try and love at all. God does not have to have perfect instruments, and the Holy One can use our feeble and faltering attempts at love and transform them. My task is to keep on trying to love, to be faithful in my continuing attempt, not necessarily to be successful. The quality of my love may well be the most important element of my spiritual guidance.

- Morton T. Kelsey, from his book Companions on the Inner Way

Today's Sojourners voiceoftheday

2010-08-03T12:34:00.002-07:00

I urge you to still every motion that is not rooted in the kingdom. Become quiet, hushed, motionless until you are finally centered. Strip away all excess baggage and nonessential trappings until you have come into the stark reality of the kingdom of God. Let go of all distractions until you are driven into the Core.

- Richard Foster, from his book Freedom of Simplicity

Ireland - Day 12

2010-07-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

This day was all about the Irish Coffee. The sexist 'angel' on my shoulder says that this was a 'guy' stop. After a brief look at the Dingle Peninsula (Inch Beach really is quite impressive), we visited the Flying Boat Museum at Foynes where the Pan Am Clippers landed in the 1930s & 40s. It was actually quite interesting as they built a replica of these flying boats, among the first to do non-stop commercial trans-Atlantic flights. Way more leg room and every other kind of room than you'll ever see on our current airplanes! It is also the place of the genesis of the Irish Coffee (all that waiting around for planes to land), and so they made some, and we drank some.

It was our final night in Ireland and we enjoyed a medieval-style banquet in Bunratty Castle and guess who was Lord and Lady of the castle for our meal...

The entertainment was great and these ladies had really lovely voices...

You always hate to leave somewhere when you're having a good time but we were definitely tired and it was time to come home, with lots of ideas of how one might spend more time back in this beautiful country.

Ireland - Day 11

2010-07-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

Coming back around to the west coast of Ireland we stayed in what is known as the most popular tourist area - the town of Killarney and County Kerry. There's another national park and we got to pass through some of it on a sunny morning in horse-drawn carts called Jaunting Cars. Martin and Paddy (driver and horse) were lovely.

Then we spent the rest of the day on the bus on the Ring of Kerry, which is a drive around the Iveragh Peninsula. Our fabulous guide Ken informed me that my name has Gaelic roots which I didn't know about. Spellings and tradition seems to vary somewhat but 'Sarah' translates as 'Sadhbh', pronounced Sive (Sayv). We passed through a town called Cahirsiveen (also spelled Cahirciveen) which means "Little Sadhbh's stone ringfort". How cool is that! It also has the only Catholic church in Ireland named after a layperson - Daniel O'Connell - because he was born there. Also cool.

Ireland - Day 10

2010-07-22T13:19:00.000-07:00

Sheep. Did I mention that there are A LOT of sheep in Ireland. Sheep and rocks and Guinness.

Pretty much the whole east side of the island of Ireland has much better land than the west, prime source of all the attempts to conquer and hold the land since the Vikings got started in the 8th or 9th century. The sheep are everywhere but you don't really see grain crops and large amounts of cattle until you get to the east, from north to south. On our way heading southwest out of Dublin we stopped in at a sheep farm. It's also a bed & breakfast. We were served very good fresh scones & jam and then got to watch three lovely sheepdogs at work. They managed to make it possible for me to pet 3 dogs at once by insisting. Twist my rubber arm. Sorry Roni, I'll be home soon!

This was also the day to visit Blarney Castle and "the Stone". I'll leave it up to you to decide whether it was necessary that I perform the traditional ritual, and no, I didn't pay 10 euros for the photo to prove it.

Ireland - Day 9 - Dublin

2010-07-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

Dublin is a great city. The population is about 1.5 million but spread way out because they don't have a lot of high rise housing. Like everywhere else in Ireland the roads are narrow and so are the sidewalks. They also twist and turn and change names, which is only relevant if you can see the names -- not always possible. Street name signs have been rare and elusive in Ireland. Where you have them, they are up, waaay up, attached to the side of the buildings. There's a lot of serious cobblestone, some of it on the sidewalks too. The narrowness and roughness must be very difficult for people of limited mobility as well as parents with children in strollers.

There's lot's to see in Dublin, as elsewhere, and we only got a little taste of it. We sampled Guinness at the top of the Guinness Storehouse, which has a bar area on the 7th floor surrounded by glass with a fabulous view of the whole city and surrounding area. Perfect for getting your bearings after driving around the city in a bus. Then we, the Viking family, went to Christ Church Cathedral which started in 1030 on the site during the time when the Vikings were building their settlement that became Dublin. In addition to it being an impressive building where Strongbow is buried there is an exhibit in an old church building across a medieval footbridge that shows the Viking roots of Dublin and medieval Dublin along with an excellent educational section on archaeology and how it's done. It was very well done with reproduced living quarters and details about daily life in a Viking settlement.

Ireland - Day 5, 6, 7 & 8

2010-07-17T16:53:00.000-07:00

Catching up the story is tough, leaving it longer would be tougher....

So for those who don't know, we're on a bus tour of Ireland. We're circling (approximately) the island. We have a driver and a guide and they're both lovely, funny men. Dan & Ken know an awful lot about the history of Ireland, from thousands of years ago. Obviously they get a lot of practice but it's quite an amazing skill, keeping so many names and dates straight. I am now able to understand how my grandfather could be in both the Royal Navy AND the IRA back in the 1920s. The ability to drive the bus on these extremely narrow roads is quite a skill. They're good singers too.

We visited beautiful national park with a castle. I skipped the castle tour to spend time in the extensive gardens and hills around it. Glenveagh would be a great place to return to for hiking and meditation.

Driving around some of the northern Donegal coast was wonderful. Some amazing beaches and sheltered bays. Yesterday we arrived in the North, in Derry. The local guide was a truly gifted man, he's a teacher, has young children and a positive view of the future of an area that has seen so much division and violence in recent history. We were there at a very exciting time for the city, that morning it was announced that Derry was chosen as the UK's inaugural City of Culture which will take place in 2013. Now that's the kind of event that can benefit and have the participation of the whole community as compared to, say, the Olympics (!). We were in the Guild Hall plaza when the media were setting up for the politicians' press conference. They knew our guide, Ronan McNamara, and so our group got on the news report! Then we got to meet the deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness (also former leader of the Provisional IRA) who happened to be there as well. Very interesting moment, honoured to share it with them. This means lots of positive media interest in Derry for the future, helping the healing process.

The one thing I was probably looking most forward to on the trip was going the the Giant's Causeway and I wasn't disappointed. I could spend a whole day there, maybe more. Truly phenomenal rocks and the ability to stand out against the North Atlantic.

My dad & I got dropped off going through the town my mother's family all come from, Ballycastle. We tramped up to a couple of churches, looking for graves of my ancestors. We think we found what was likely my great-grandparents' grave at the Catholic church, we'll be checking with my cousin when we return as she has a photo of it. We got a taxi to catch us up with our group and the driver (who was the owner of the company) was a great guy, originally from Belfast, who we chatted with the whole way down the beautiful Antrim coast. Ballycastle is a nice little town of about 3000, it's got a great beach and a famous festival in August. Another place worthy of returning to.

Tonight we arrived in Dublin and had traditional music and dancing with our supper. I enjoyed this show more than the one in Galway as it was more grassroots, more spirited. The other one was great too but quite polished. We were able to sing along tonight and the songs were familiar. Tomorrow we'll be looking at the Viking origins of Dublin and visiting the Guinness factory!

Ireland - Day 3 & Day 4

2010-07-13T16:27:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we visited the iconic Cliffs of Moher. Unfortunately the birds were too far away below to be seen but there was very interesting fossils in the stones used in the steps up to the top. We learned that they were fossils when visiting the Connemara Marble Factory today. The marble is amazing and the black marble has the fossils of shells and even fish bones in it.

I don't think you can really understand how rocky Ireland is before you actually see it, especially the West. Yesterday we went through the area called The Burren. There are mountains of exposed limestone and we stopped at one particular field of limestone with a moonscape of eroded limestone with pockets like flower pots, full of Mediterranean vegetation, little ecosystems of soil, water and heat. There was also a portal dolman/tomb, the Poulnabrone, which is probably 3000 years old. Down the road on private land was a wedge tomb, likely of similar age. Today we passed through some truly brutal country, huge boulders in the land as far as the eye could see. This was in the province of Connaught, where Cromwell tried to push the Catholics to. The choice was "to Hell or Connaught". Trying to survive, they might have had a difficult choice.

There was some serious rain today, as opposed to the little daily showers they have here. Being from Vancouver, my dad and I weren't really that bothered by it and spent a fair bit of time outside on our boat trip through Killary Harbour. They definitely have more shades of green in the landscape than we do! Took in a show of traditional music and dance tonight. Off to the Shrine of Knock in the morning. I am prepared to hunt for the sacred amid what I'm sure I'll see as commercial spiritualism. I would be happy to be wrong about that. Stay tuned. Photo's will be updated tomorrow. Maybe. In the meantime, I did get to visit a cemetery today.... (my favourite!)

Ireland - Day 1 & Day 2

2010-07-11T15:26:00.003-07:00

Technically, Day 1 was Vancouver-Denver-Newark arriving on Day 2 at Shannon Airport. It was supposed to be Vancouver-Chicago-Newark, and there's where the story begins.

My aunt & uncle planned a trip to Ireland and my aunt invited my dad, her brother, to join them. Then my dad invited me to join them. Very cool. Kinda funny, the Finn-Swede side of the family visiting Ireland when my Irish mother never went. We were to meet up in the airport at Newark for the flight to Ireland. My aunt & uncle live in North Carolina. For us that meant a 6:15am flight, getting up at 3:30am, ugh. No problem, I have amazing housemates who will drive you to the airport at any hour!

We arrived on time and we almost made our plane. We slogged through all the airport bureaucracy until my dad set off the, wait for it, radiation detectors. Who knew that US Customs and Immigration personnel wear radiation detectors? Who knew my dad would set them off?

He had a medical stress test 2 days earlier where apparently he was injected with radioactive stuff. Lots of it. Apparently you can get a letter from your doctor confirming you've had this procedure and that you are not in fact carrying radioactive materials around just for fun. Easy enough to do if you a) know they're injecting you with the stuff and b) know they're scanning for it at the airport. This is not an unusual occurrence, said the fairly pleasant US Customs & Immigration guys. Unfortunately by the time they decided my 79 year old dad was not a threat to anyone's safety, our plane had left. With 2 connections to make and people to meet in the middle of it, we were both on the verge of needing a stress test!

Greeting us at our very empty departure gate was a fabulous employee of United Airlines, a very pleasant and competent young man that re-routed us on a 7:15 flight, found our luggage and checked us in all the way to Shannon. Halleluiah. The rest of the trip was long but all the connections worked.

Ennis, County Clare, is a lovely, very old town with a history of uppity Catholics demanding their civil rights. Great place to start our visit!

Photos are being posted at: Ireland 2010

Daniel O'Connell, MP County Clare

2010-07-11T15:26:00.001-07:00

Sojourners inspires me today, again

2010-05-28T12:26:00.001-07:00

-verse of the day-

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

- 2 Corinthians 3:18

-voice of the day-

[Pentecost] is a delicious time. A shaft of light has come to pierce the uncertainties of the seeking. We are living now with a torch in our hands, however dark the darkness.

For the early Christians -- and for us now -- it is a matter only of allowing the Spirit to transform us so that our life and the life of Christ do finally merge, do really melt into one another, do truly become one, are united both here and hereafter.

- Joan Chittister, from her book The Liturgical Year

Sigh

2010-04-16T20:09:00.002-07:00

My heart is heavy,
but it does not break.

It would break, for all that needs doing that I cannot do.
It may not be mine to do,
but I would still do it.

Fix, fix, fix.
I want to fix it. I want to mend it. I want to make it right.

Deep, deep, deep.
Deep are the connections we have, though we seem to miss it.

I breathe. I breathe.
I sigh.
I squeeze my eyes shut
and I pray.

It's all I can do.
Surprise, surprise.

I pray.

The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

2010-04-16T11:07:00.002-07:00

Sojourners Voice of the Day

My hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A [person] who takes away another [person's] freedom is a prisoner of hatred ... is locked behind bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

- Nelson Mandela, from his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom

Palm Sunday 2010

2010-03-28T20:50:00.007-07:00

Mom would have really enjoyed this. Except maybe for the fact that it was all in French. But still, I could imagine her beside me today.

The 3 times that I have been to Montreal I have enjoyed exploring the city, particularly the churches. Even though my Catholicism came via Ireland, it's a shared experience to some degree, and a link to the development of the colony known as Canada. In fact, last February I found myself wandering around Notre Dame Basilica just as the noon mass was about to begin in the chapel. I hadn't been to mass in over a year at that point, but there I was, lighting a candle for my mom as I always do and I guess she poked me, and I went. It was in French but the sit, stand, kneel thing is all the same. Something to be said for that kind of ritual, I knew exactly what was going on. And I've been a few more times since then. (Still don't know where the church and I are at but...like I say, me & God, we're cool. The church, well that's another story.)

So yesterday I walked and walked and almost, but not quite, made it to go to mass at St. Peter the Apostle in the Village. It has a Chapel of Hope, dedicated to the victims of AIDS. Alas, mass was at 4:15, or there wasn't one but the church is open until 4:15. My French is sketchy. Today thought I would see what church I found downtown after dropping my bag off at the hotel. I realized that the hotel is right beside the other big church that I hadn't seen yet - the Cathedral-Basilica Mary Queen of the World and St. James the Greater. Big name, big church. I couldn't see mass times posted anywhere and came in just as one was ending. I asked the usher if there was another one today, as these big churches don't have big congregations anymore and don't always have more than one Sunday mass. There's a lot of churches and less church goers. But I hadn't quite realized yet that I was in the Cathedral, of course they have several masses on Sunday. The usher told me that it was French only though, that the English mass was at St. Patrick's. I told him that we all pray together, it doesn't matter what language. (Besides, I went to St. Patrick's the last time I was here.)

So I explored the architecture and then joined the congregation with full palm branches to process in for Palm Sunday. Cool that, the full palm branches. I felt kinda guilty having one all to myself. We just get one or two leaves back home! Generally I'm not a fan of Cathedral services, although the Cathedral is a parish too, it always seems too big, too showy, too cold, too distant. I spent some time contemplating the worship space. I went back and forth in my head about having all this ornate, over-the-top decoration and very well rehearsed choir with a Casavant organ. I still think it's too much, too rich and represents a development of the faith community that I have not found called for in the teachings of Jesus. BUT God created much beauty in the world and has given us humans great capacity to create it as well. The choir was respectful and added very much to the tone of worship. Their sounds did not draw attention to themselves but to the moment at hand. The master of ceremonies priest was not officious or fussy. The bishop, who's also a cardinal, was very understated, managed his own hat (Vikki will understand the significance of this!), and gave a nice, multi-lingual Palm Sunday greeting at the closing.

As I said, I could imagine, almost feel, my mom beside me, as we stood side by side so many times in mass. I followed along in French with the missal and would have shown her the parts of the mass she knew so well. She would have loved the architecture, the choir and the cardinal.

Lenten reflection - March 12: Grace is our inheritance

2010-03-12T09:32:00.000-08:00

March 12: Grace is our inheritance

By Ross Peterson-Veatch, associate academic dean and Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning director of curriculum and faculty development (Goshen College)

SCRIPTURE: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (NRSV)
Scroll down for complete Scripture.

DEVOTIONAL:
As the father of two sons, this passage speaks deeply to me of the gift of extravagant love that God has given by blessing me with my boys. It comforts me so to know that God heaps that love on me and also on you. I understand that no matter how far I stray, I am forgiven as soon as I even so much as desire to repent and return. God knows what’s in my heart, and will offer me forgiveness even though I am unworthy.

But it also challenges me to imagine the ways that the things I hold on to affect me. How can it be that the father celebrates the return of the one who wished him dead by asking for his share early, the one who spent that share in the most selfish ways imaginable, the one who disgraced the older brother, himself, and perhaps most unbearably their own father?

In my Lenten prayers, I usually focus on the space I make for God in my life by letting go of something. But this Lenten season, I have been praying about what I hold on to. And in this passage, I read the challenge for us as “letting go of what we hold onto.” As I hold onto my desire to do what is right, say what is right and even think what is right, I can miss that my inheritance is not a reward for being righteous – it is, instead, God’s grace.

That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t strive to live righteously, and to keep the promises I make to others, to myself and to God. But grace doesn’t come to me because I have done those things, it comes to me only because I let go of the human things I hold dear, and hold fast to God.

PRAYER:
May we feel your grace today, Lord, as we seek to love you with all our hearts, all our souls, all our minds and all our strength.

SCRIPTURE: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (NRSV)
Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’

So he told them this parable:

Then Jesus said, ‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’ ” So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.

‘Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.” Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” ’

Sojourners Voice for today

2010-02-15T11:11:00.001-08:00

When we think about laying down a life for another we usually think in terms of a singular event. But it is possible for us to lay down our lives over the course of a lifetime, minute by minute and day by day. And it is the work of the Spirit to empower us as we seek to lose ourselves in acts of lovingkindness and sacrificial living.

- Elaine Puckett, professor at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia

prayer today from Sojourners

2010-01-22T11:22:00.002-08:00

Break our hearts, Lord, break our hearts. For the lives lost in Haiti, each one loved by you, break our hearts. For those who have lost family members -- sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers -- break our hearts. For those who have lost homes and belongings, who sleep on the streets, break our hearts. For the crippling poverty that afflicts millions of Haitians, break our hearts. For our complicity in the sinful structures and systems that lead to oppression and injustice, break our hearts. For the state of your creation -- groaning for redemption and restoration -- break our hearts. And then put us back together so that with peace, humility, and your perspective, we might work toward seeing your kingdom on earth. Amen.

Inspiration

2010-01-21T15:27:00.000-08:00

Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is, has been, and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners -- and I could list a hundred more professions ... A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know."

- Wislawa Szymborska, from her lecture upon winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1996

gratitude for teachers

2010-01-16T21:15:00.002-08:00

I am grateful for those who help me learn, understand and interpret the world, history and my faith tradition. I am currently on retreat with other women and the retreat is being led by Edwina Gately. What an amazing storyteller. Her book of poetry called Soul Sisters, along with her own telling of these women's scriptural stories, creates a powerful living image of them.

I am also currently reading, reflecting on really, You Will Be My Witnesses: Saints, Prophets and Martyrs by John Dear. He, along with Dorothy Day, has made the life of St. Therese of Lisieux more accessible and meaningful for me. So I will share a bit of John Dear's teaching about Therese:

Therese appeared to live an ordinary life, but appearances can be deceptive. Life in a monastery is difficult. She dedicated herself to the daily practice of sacrificial love toward those around her, perfecting the art of responding to coldness, rudeness, gossip, and insults with active loving kindness and inner compassion. She aimed these small acts of unconditional love at Christ in the other person and for the redemption of the human race--a spirituality she called her "little way." She wanted to remain like a child, as Jesus instructed when he said that we must become like children if we want to enter the reign of God. She understood this spirituality not as childishness, but as a profound trust in God through confidence in God's love, not just despite our littleness, poverty, weakness, and brokeness, but precisely because of them.

01 November

2009-11-01T10:20:00.002-08:00

No matter how sad the season and silent the birds,
brave hearts enduring pain willingly--
for Love--have no need of sadness.
They know and understand all things instead--
sweetness and cruelty, joy and sorrow--
they know everything that must be lived through for Love's
sake.

Patience.

--Hadewijch, Poems in Stanzas--

Huddled Beneath the Sky - Rumi

2009-10-26T11:13:00.002-07:00

The sadness I have caused any face
by letting a stray word
strike it,

any pain
I have caused you,
what can I do to make us even?
Demand a hundred fold of me--I'll pay it.

During the day I hold my feet accountable
to watch out for wondrous insects and their friends.

Why would I want to bring horror
into their extraordinary
world?

Magnetic fields draw us to Light; they move our limbs and thoughts.
But it is still dark; if our hearts do not hold a lantern,
we will stumble over each other,

huddled beneath the sky
as we are.

translated by Daniel Ladinsky
printed in Love Poems from God

AWE-some poetry

2009-09-26T14:05:00.002-07:00

from the Lutheran Urban Mission Society newsletter:

Power and Great Glory by James Henson

"In power and great glory."
We misunderstood the first time.
The lawyers and the priests had his
role ready for him.
They sought to contain him like a
map contains the world.
How upset we were when the world
wasn't flat.
How angry we were when he
overturned outdated rules like tables
in the temple.
How furious we were when the god
we expected to grant our ego's whim
Fulfilled our every soul's desire.

The second time the consciousness
arrives
Great glory. Christ manifests.
His body is found among the gays or
Asians or whoever irritates the most
So we can name the hate we don't
equate with wishing they were
different.
God is before you in every story, joy
and pain.
I mistake him again. In my ego's
ecstasy, afraid,
I stake him on the cross again so I
can keep an eye on him.
I want him in the chapel, nailed, so I
can keep an eye on him.
How dare he dance in the street, lack
feet prancing?
I can't recognize him.

Wake. Christ is before you now:
Christ within and Christ without.
Shout Hosanna, know Your name.
You're one with him and I the same.
Yes!
Every knee shall bend, but not in
pain; there's no compulsion and no
stain:
For when a heart is filled with love
and fear departs and comfort comes
Bodies follow in response and bow in
bliss and gratefulness.
Yes every mouth will open in acclaim
the Son of God is come again-
Just as flowers open to the sun
We add enlightened voices in refrain.
The Son of God, the Son of Man is
here with us,
He comes Again.

When Heaven and Earth Marry - Leonardo Boff, Theologian, Earthcharter Commission

2009-07-04T18:44:00.001-07:00

Observing the process of globalization, understood as a new period of humanity and of the Earth in which cultures, traditions and the most diverse peoples encounter each other for the first time, we realize that there are many different ways of being human; and that there are many paths to the most intimate and profound Ultimate Reality. To think that there is only one window through which the divine landscape can be seen is the illusion of Western Christians. It is also their mistake. The current pope now lives by repeating the medieval dictum, left behind by Vatican II, that, «there is no salvation outside of the Church.» For him it is the only true religion, and all others are only arms extended towards heaven, but with no certainty that God will accept their prayers. To think like that is to have little faith, and to believe that God is only as big as our heads. Who has not encountered profoundly religious persons of other religions, in whom the presence of God can be clearly perceived? Not to recognize that reality is, in fact, to sin against the Holy Spirit, who has always nourished the spiritual dimension throughout history.

In my many journeys, in my encounters with different cultures and all types of religious persons, I have come to understand the need we have to learn from each other, and the profound capacity for veneration, of which the most different peoples offer convincing witness.

Some years ago I gave conferences on ecology and spirituality in various cities in Sweden. On one occasion, I was taken to the North Pole where the Samis (Eskimos) live. They don't like to encounter strangers, but knowing that I was a liberation theologian, they wanted to meet this rarity. Three indigenous leaders came. The oldest immediately asked me: «Do Brazilian Indians marry Heaven and Earth?» I understood his meaning, and answered: «But of course they marry Heaven and Earth, because of that marriage all things are born.». To which he replied happily: «so they are still Indians, and not like our brothers who no longer believe in Heaven.» A profound dialogue followed on the meaning of the unity between God, man, woman, animals, the Earth, the Sun and life.

I had a similar experience in Guatemala, in 2008, participating in a very beautiful celebration with Mayan priests by Atitlan lake. There were also priestesses. It all took place around a sacred fire. They began by calling on the energies of the mountains, the waters, the jungles, the sun and Mother Earth. During the ceremony, a priestess approached me and said: «You are very tired and you still have much work to do.» In fact, for twenty days I had traveled through several countries by car, taking part in encounters and giving many conferences. Then she pressed my chest with her thumb, close to my heart, with so much strength that she almost broke a rib. After a while, she came close again and said: «You have an injured knee.» I asked her: «How did you know?» She replied: «I felt it from the strength of Mother Earth.»

Sure enough, landing on the beach I had hurt the knee and it was swollen. She took me closer to the sacred fire and passed her hand from the fire to my knee some thirty to forty times, until the swelling was totally gone.

Before closing the ceremony that lasted almost three hours, she approached me once again and said: «You are still tired.» She again pressed very hard on my chest with her thumb. I felt a strange heat and suddenly I was relaxed and at ease as never before.

They are priest and priestesses-shamans who are in contact with the energies of the universe and help the people to live well.

I once asked the Dalai Lama: «Which is the best religion?» With a smile that was somewhere between wise and mischievous, he replied: «It is the one that makes you better.» Perplexed, I continued: «And which is the one that makes me better?» And he: «the one that makes you more compassionate, more human and more open to the Whole, that is the better one.» It was a wise reply, one that I reverently keep until today.

Leonardo Boff

05-22-2009

Free translation from the Spanish by
contacto@servicioskoinonia.org,
sent by Melina Alfaro, done at
REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas

Dorothy wisdom

2009-07-02T11:14:00.003-07:00

I sporadically get SojoMail on my work email. (http://www.sojo.net/)

Here's today's Voiceoftheday:

An act of love, a voluntary taking on oneself of some of the pain of the world, increases the courage and love and hope of all.
- Dorothy Day

I believe this deeply. Imagine if we all did it.

Sunrises and Sunsets - Creation is good

2009-06-08T23:20:00.002-07:00

I got to share the sunset over Okanagan Lake with a pair of loons tonight. They're cool like that, as Brandi might say.

At the beginning of my drive out here to Naramata on Sunday afternoon I experienced the euphoria of the summer road trip - sunshine, windows open, 80's music... Maybe you can relate.
It was the continuation of a good day where I watered the garden, brushed the dog and was thankful for all the birthday wishes of the previous day. I absolutely don't feel old but it feels very strange to say that I am 40. hmmm

So big birthday passed and I got to be reflective while driving the beautiful stretch of Highway 1 between Chilliwack and Hope. Primary thought - no regrets. I'm quite happy with the choices I've made so far in life, including the ones that have brought me grief because apparently I learn much better if it's painful!

Am I here on vacation? Nope, but I'm doing something quite enjoyable. I'm hanging out with young union members who might one day (soon?) be young union activists. They're here learning about their union, collective agreements, health and safety, and globalization. And they're having fun.

To echo an earlier post by MahoneyMusings, I am grateful. Grateful for the freedom to make the choices that I have. Grateful for the desire and the guidance to help build a community within a community that is centred around human spiritual and material need. Grateful for the vast diversity in creation and in humanity. We are rich in creativity and compassion, just dig a little deeper.

Homelessness Hunger Strike Relay - Day 7

2009-05-31T18:48:00.002-07:00

http://www.2010homelessness.ca/

Day 7 was tougher. It definitely caught up with me; I was light headed and very sleepy by the late afternoon. Quite glad it was Saturday, after a meeting during the day I did have a nap.

Interesting information gathered at the meeting though. No matter what your attitude about the Olympics is (and you might guess about mine) there are some sobering and inescapable facts to consider. The $1 billion (and climbing) budget for security is going to provide quite a few new 'toys' to the Vancouver Police Department, RCMP and Canadian Forces that they might never otherwise have been able to acquire. High tech spy gadgets and large scale riot gear. $1 billion. That's our money folks, spent on an event that lasts 2 weeks. It also would pay for a quarter of what is proposed in the One Percent Solution .

This hyper security atmosphere is already making life difficult in my neighbourhood. It is documented that the Olympic games causes involuntary displacement of people wherever it is held. Somehow we understand and accept that this is going to happen. Why? Why do those who are going to profit monetarily from this event, either immediately or possibly in the future from the increased tourism, count more than those struggling to survive in their own neighbourhoods? It is a neighbourhood, despite some of the sensational news coverage of the Downtown Eastside. People here look out for one another, keep tabs on their health and safety. And already they are being criminalized and pushed out because of their poverty status. Groups like the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre have already documented and drawn attention to the sharp increase in ticketing for things like jaywalking, vending on the street and sleeping on the street.

Yesterday we found out it happened to a friend of ours. She doesn't live on the street. She's had a rough road in life and been a junkie in recovery for over 12 years, with the accompanying health issues. She's a writer, a good writer. Due to her health she looks kind of rough and rides her bicycle around town, without a helmet. There are a lot of people who ride without a helmet. She was ticketed once, didn't pay the fine. She was stopped again this week and since she hadn't paid the fine, they took her to jail. What else can I say? Your tax dollars hard at work. And she's not homeless. But she fits the stereotype. We are creating a police state atmosphere and it sounds like that's going to be needed so that we don't notice how oppressive the security measures will be in February 2010. Truly the money currently being spent on this kind of behaviour along with the other expenses of the Olympics has higher collective value being spent on real needs in Canada. An expensive lost opportunity.

Homelessness Hunger Strike Relay - Day 6

2009-05-29T23:42:00.002-07:00

http://www.2010homelessness.ca/

Yup, I'm still hungry. But in a kind of zone, cruising along. Human beings are amazingly resilient, if you didn't already know that. That thought comes to me often as we encounter new people and get to know them and they reveal their stories. They come to live with us at our house or just cross our path for a while and are able to share their hope and accomplishments along with their sorrowful past. Homelessness can be linked to so many other struggles in people's lives - physical health, mental health, education, race, and class, to name a few big ones. I think that these aren't really the struggles of the 'homeless' but of those of us who aren't homeless. Our perception of what's normal, reasonable and acceptable in society is really quite narrow. People often end up homeless because they don't 'fit' in society as we've defined it. And their sorrow and pain is related to that sense of displacement and rejection.

I spent time at Children's Hospital tonight visiting with my nephew and his 4 month old son. The wee one is doing better now. His 2 year old room mate was having a bit of a rough night. Now that's a place of hope and anguish. It made me remember again that we are all someone's sons and daughters and that despite our best attempts to love and protect our families, life happens. Is there any greater sense of powerlessness than that of a parent of a sick child? We just want to be able to fix them! Throughout our lives as somebody's child things go awry and we're blessed if we've got family around us who want to support us and fix it for us.

But lots of things can't be fixed just like that and when we are no longer children we need something more than a parent. What we need is a community that cares and looks out for each other as if everyone was their family. What we need is the desire and ability to share our experiences, knowledge and skills so that we can learn from each other and come up with solutions together. We could use less 'doing for' and more 'doing with'. And it would be great if we could honour the survival and resilience in each of our lives with no strings attached and without the expectation to fit into society's mold; to simply be healthy and enjoy one another's company.

Homelessness Hunger Strike Relay - Day 5

2009-05-28T19:31:00.003-07:00

http://www.2010homelessness.ca/

Today wasn't too bad. I'm definitely low on energy, but then again my daily activity level sometimes is pretty ambitious. I spoke with another 'relay team member' as she was finishing her week a while back. She reflected on the experience and we shared how multifaceted this hunger strike action is.

The issue of homelessness is certainly big enough to warrant our attention to take action. I believe that any action we take collectively changes all who are involved, and changes us in ways we cannot anticipate. Linking two things that should be our right as human beings - housing and food - with political pressure has brought together a wide variety of people and shown them and others our capacity for caring and solidarity. For this indeed is an action of solidarity. While we may say it's a small token action, it is still important. Those of us who are housed and fed everyday cannot really experience what it means to live so precariously but I believe the effort of making such a sacrifice, even for a week, resonates deeply. It is tangible.

My fellow team member, who I don't know for sure but suspect is not a Christian, was able to make the link also with the tradition of religious fasting. (I know that fasting is not just a Christian practice but that's the example she used.) As I understand it as a religious practice, fasting (usually accompanied by prayer and reflection/meditation) is an attempt to bring us closer to God, to be more receptive to the wisdom of the Creator. Well I think that fits very well with this action. As a Christian my basic belief is that we were all created in the image of God (not the body image, not the gender, but the spiritual image) and that our primary purpose is to honour God as we find God in all our fellow humans. Forcing our physical bodies to feel something other than satisfaction by not eating does provide opportunies to contemplate what this is all about. I don't know that other participants would consider that a religious experience but it fits into my reality exactly like that.

Homelessness Hunger Strike Relay - Day 4

2009-05-27T21:22:00.003-07:00

http://www.2010homelessness.ca/

Well today I had to be up and out and at a workshop at 7 am. ugh. And didn't go to sleep any earlier than usual, perhaps even later than usual. So combine that with not eating, my body rebelled a little today. Nothing I can't handle, she says smugly. That's because I was able to have a nap after work.
I have somewhere to nap.
I also have hoodies to keep me warm during the day, because despite the quite reasonable weather we're having, I find that my body temperature isn't matching everyone else's. I'm cold. I wasn't as hungry today and not as bothered by the smell of food. But I was cold and not keen on doing or starting any work that requires sustained concentration. I really would have preferred to start that nap much earlier in the day!

One of the (many) tragedies of homelessness is that (actually it's like a lot of other issues in our society) it's something no one wants to take responsibility for and really it will take everyone's efforts to work on. In particular, the 3 main levels of government in our country - municipal, provincial and federal - verbally pass it around like a hot potato. One group may make a (very public) effort to show it cares, like buying buildings to renovate and use, but did it consult with the other 2 about how best to allocate and maintain resources in the long term? Did they ever plan to work together?

I think this is how politics works now for everything. We do things to be popular, to get re-elected and probably make some money, and have no interest in a social legacy for the collective. Even when hard work goes into careful planning, someone always manages to pull the plug on some aspect of the plan, which causes it to crumble and leaves us struggling with piecemeal solutions to big issues. I'm thinking here specifically of the 4 Pillars Drug Strategy for the City of Vancouver. One of the reasons that InSite has had to struggle so hard to stay operating is because it was part of a collective plan that required the support of all levels of government. They came up with the plan but didn't follow through on it. This creates a culture of 'disaster response' to issues rather than a livable society. This is why the call for a National Housing Plan based on the One Percent Solution.

Homelessness Hunger Strike Relay - Day 3

2009-05-26T23:14:00.003-07:00

http://www.2010homelessness.ca/

Hmmm. Got pretty hungry today. Also did a lot of work. And somebody on the bus had some fine smelling food! humph.

Here's some thoughts on food and homelessness.
When Vikki and I were trying to vision what the Vancouver Catholic Worker would look like, we were clear that we didn't need to be a 'soup kitchen' because there's a large amount of services that provide food in our neighbourhood. We felt that shelter, in the form of a real home and not a bed between 10 pm and 6 am, was what was needed most. So we have a house of hospitality where people come to live with us.

But let's think again about the food situation down here. There is a schedule of free meals posted on sandwich boards around the Downtown Eastside so people who aren't in the know will know where to go. Because whether you are the working poor, on welfare or completely outside the system, if you've paid for your shelter for the day, week, month - there ain't much left for anything else, even food. And if you haven't paid for your shelter because you don't have one, even if you've got some cash, you've got no where to store food. Or where you might store it you can't cook it or you have to compete with the rodent's and the insects to keep it.

So there's coffee and muffins, some breakfasts, some soup lines, some sit down meals, and piles and piles of bread. Usually you have to line up, sometimes you have to participate in some sort of religious program or at least listen to someone offer their wisdom. And you have to eat on their schedule. Consider that you might be dealing with some bureaucracy in your life, like welfare, or health care, or the police, or the courts, or some other government agency, or you might be sick or have a disability, or trying to find a job. If you can't organize your life around when food might be available, or no one can go and get some for you, you're going to be hungry. Now you might have been able to stock up on some of that bread that's available, but really people, bread? Don't get me wrong, a lot of great people are trying to provide some solutions to people's needs and often doing it without a lot of monetary or organizational support. But let's be clear. This is not a healthy lifestyle, there are serious nutritional deficiencies and that contributes in an unending cyclical fashion to the 'homelessness problem'.

People are whole - they are multi-faceted, multi-talented and their needs are equally complex. That is true for you and me and it's true for the people who sleep in the alcove of the restaurant behind our house.

Homelessness Hunger Strike Relay - Day 2

2009-05-25T23:23:00.004-07:00

http://www.2010homelessness.ca/

It's an odd feeling not thinking about meals, not taking a lunch to work. Even for someone like me who doesn't put a lot of thought into it generally. Definitely have a lower energy level but not too bad yet.

So today I offer you this thought. Homelessness results from AND leads to a whole host of other issues and challenges for individuals and society. People aren't homeless because they think that's a cool way to live. They don't 'fit' into our lives; they've left or been pushed out for a variety of reasons such as health (including mental health and addictions), relationship breakdown, violence and our inability to allow them to function differently than the rest of us. Here is a group that can tell us a lot about that:

While there has been much focus on housing issues in the past few years, many of the systemic issues are intensifying and this is a march organized and led by many women in the DTES to have their realities expressed directly. Thank you for supporting! With respect and solidarity, Harsha

Harsha Walia
DTES Women Centre Project Coordinator
Email: project@dewc.ca
604-681-8480 x 234
302 Columbia Street, Vancouver BC V6C 1B4

- please forward widely -

* Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyNC7fjLhT8

===> 3RD ANNUAL WOMEN'S HOUSING MARCH <===

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sat June 13 @ 1:30 pm
Starts outside Downtown Eastside Women Centre
(302 Columbia- corner Cordova, just west of Main)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On Saturday June 13 at 1:30 pm, join women in the Downtown Eastside Women Centre Power of Women Group in the 3rd Annual March for Women's Housing and March Against Poverty! Everyone welcome!

We are marching for:
- Social Housing, Childcare, and Healthcare for all!
- No more Evictions and No more Condos in the DTES!
- People Before Olympic Profits!
- Stop Criminalizing the Poor!

Although we are still suffering in shelters and on the streets, we are not yet defeated! We are making our voices heard, we are bringing empowerment into our lives, we are fighting for positive change, and we are expressing the humanity of our neighbourhood. We hope all of you will join us.

For more information contact project at dewc.ca or call 604-681-8480 x 234. We are also seeking endorsements, please contact us if you would are interested in being added to a list of supporters.

On facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=80841139629

-------------------------

* Power & Perspectives: An Interview with Power to Women group
http://knollpaper.wordpress.com/current-issue/gender/power-perspectives/

* Election won’t change lives of Downtown Eastside women:
http://straight.com/article-216138/harsha-walia-and-andrea-pinochet-election-promises-won%3F%3Ft-change-lives-downtown-eastside-women

* Downtown Eastside Women Ask Politicians for Housing Swap
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1286

The Power of Women Group is a group at the Downtown Eastside (DTES) Women's Centre, located in the DTES of Vancouver (the poorest off-reserve postal code in Canada). We are a group of women from all walks of life who are either on social assistance, working poor, or homeless; but we are all living in extreme poverty. Our aim is to empower ourselves through our experiences and to raise awareness from our own perspectives about the social issues affecting the neighbourhood.

Many of us are single mothers or have had our children apprehended due to poverty; most of us have chronic physical or mental health issues for example HIV and Hepatitis C; many have drug or alcohol addictions; and a majority have experienced and survived sexual violence and mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional abuse. For indigenous women, we are affected by a legacy of the effects of residential schools and a history of colonization and racism.

Homelessness Hunger Strike Relay - Day 1

2009-05-24T14:46:00.004-07:00

http://www.2010homelessness.ca/

The Issue

The 2010 Homelessness Hunger Strike Relay began in Vancouver at the beginning of the new year. It was created as an active symbol to have the federal government really respond to the homeless crises in Canada by having re-established the National Housing Program based on the One Percent Solution.

Every week we have new volunteers take on the Wooden Spoon and fast for 7 days (They can drink juice). We will carry on the relay past the 2010 Winter Olympics straight into June 2010. This will commemorate the On To Ottawa Trek.

At this point people will board the train to Ottawa with petition in hand and show the government that we are seriously demanding the national housing program and the One Percent Solution to be put in place. We intend to let the international community know what's happening and what the solution is.

Why me? Why a hunger strike?

Why a hunger strike? Well if you follow the link above you'll read that a hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. And it needs to be publicized to be effective.

Why me? Many reasons. I live in a neighbourhood deeply affected by homelessness. And by homelessness I don't just mean people living rough outside. Homelessness is simply the fact of not having a stable place to start and end your day from. People 'living' in shelters, single room occupancy hotels, and sharing temporarily with others are homeless in my book. I live in a community house that shares a little bit of space with some of these people when it's available. And I feel strongly about using a variety of techniques and approaches in our activism to educate and politicize people, to make things happen. I'm a fan of non-violent direct action and so a hunger strike is right up my alley. If I didn't have to carry on going to work everyday this next week, I'd consider spending some time in a public place telling people about the Relay and the issue.

Hmmm...

2009-04-24T11:35:00.001-07:00

Of Pirates & Piracy
[col. writ. 4/13/09] (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal

In the news of late is the piracy drama off Africa's horn -- the eastern coast of Somalia.

All of a sudden, piracy is a problem, one needing military, if not global solutions.

Every petty politician is bum-rushing the mike, to spout off on how pirates are "thugs", "criminals", or the latest Western curse, " terrorists".

Such pronouncements almost always leave me cold, or, at best, ambivalent, for behind these events lie a history that cries out for clarity and perspective.

If piracy is a crime when individuals do it, what is it when states do it?

Who can deny that America was stolen and swindled from the Indians? Or that millions of people were stolen from Africa to work for them for centuries?

Is that piracy-- or just plain policy?

Piracy did occur in the 17th and 18th centuries, and this was either cases of conflict between colonial powers (where British 'privateers', for example, would target and steal from Spanish ships), or simply in pursuit of profits.

The Somali state has been absent for a generation, and as such, what is today's piracy but making a living, albeit a dangerous one?

When Ethiopia was armed and egged on to invade Somalia several years ago by the Bush administration, was that state piracy?

When the U.S. invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003, removed it's government, imposed its puppets, bombed its people, and ran a third of its population into exile, based on lies--was this piracy of one nation against another--or 'national security?'

Pirates are retail; nations are wholesale.

Who are the 'thugs', the 'criminals', the real pirates?

To my knowledge, no band of pirates has ever stolen a nation.

Guess who has?

--(c) '09 maj

Good Friday - outside the courthouse

2009-04-16T20:15:00.004-07:00

Law, Justice and Politics are a tangled web in our world. What starts out with an intent for justice often creates injustice. Who's got access to the law, to the government? Who's got the money or the education to deal with the social issues that often need both legal and political solutions? A couple of examples are addiction where the medical and the legal collide, and political refugees where the political and the legal collide. Does our society desire to care for those among us who need more care and concern, to include rather than exclude based on certain criteria? And do we have the political will to change the laws so that we don't have to come into conflict with the laws?

We can have success when we work collectively with broad support, and we all benefit from this. Recent cases show the courts calling on the government to recognize the status of aboriginal women and children who are the wives and descendants of non-status men, and of the courts telling the government that their laws violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically the right to freedom of association which allows collective bargaining. These are successes for us all.

And what would Jesus have to say about the courts? Jesus' example and teaching was all about relationships. The law deals primarily with broken relationships and sometimes it causes the breaking of relationships. I believe that Jesus calls us to build our society on more and stronger relationships. Where possible we should engage directly with one another, rather than trying to force some third party to deal with our differences. We should strive always for inclusion, not exclusion. If we embrace our humanity and acknowledge our mistakes and broken relationships, we can build and rebuild our relationships, making them healthy, strong and full of love.

Wonder

2009-04-11T20:57:00.004-07:00

From time to time (probably not frequently enough) I am over-awed at the complexity, intricacy and beauty of our world and all that's in it. It saves me from factionalism, which is tempting but ultimately soul destroying I believe. God doesn't create junk and the intelligence, skills and talents that humanity possesses is quite astonishing. Though we go off the rails sometimes I believe it can all work together in our disconnected ways.

Starry night

2009-02-18T21:33:00.003-08:00

Roni and I enjoyed the stars tonight. Well, really Roni enjoyed the basketball that she found and destroyed on Sunday. It was still in the school yard. It's now up in the arms of the tree where I put it so she would go and find the ball that we brought to play with. Now the 2 black creatures are snoring in harmony, back to back, on my small bed. Upside, when I kick them out, the bed will be pre-warmed.

Every day is an anniversary

2008-12-06T21:19:00.002-08:00

The world is full of events, good and bad, and anniversaries, good and bad. Today we remember that women are still so frequently victims of violence. Today I heard that it is the anniversary of the demolition of a mosque in Babri, India. A reminder to broaden my prayer horizons.

Weeeeee

2008-11-21T10:42:00.003-08:00

I wanted to change my profile pic on FB today. Thought I'd search the web for what was out there under "weeeeeee". Thinking about running down a grassy hill with arms flapping, swinging really high on a windy day, that kind of thing. But they were all someone else's images of their own exciting carefree moment. I couldn't use them. I'll just have to make sure to create my own.

Hard to feel bad about it.

2008-10-10T11:17:00.002-07:00

I've tried. But I just can't feel bad about the whole economic meltdown. I know that the folks at the bottom of the heap will feel it hardest, because they always do, no matter what the circumstances. So we'll just carry on as usual trying to look out for each other and sharing what we have. But I have no remorse or nostalgia for the stock market, the speculators, the outrageous housing market and all this 'ether' money that has suddenly gone up in smoke. The system could never last, is built on air and is out of control.

Scary fascist control

2008-10-02T16:56:00.002-07:00

So I really want to write about the implications of the way Stephen Harper completely controls his party, his MPs and his candidates. I hope Canadians understand how that does not fit with the kind of country we have evolved into. I don't have the words yet. But I'm working on it.

Instead of intelligence reports, read the poets

2008-08-17T10:19:00.003-07:00

Poetry - at the/in the hearts of the peoples...

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1218922126/

2008-05-15T00:07:00.002-07:00

the goddess is tired, very tired. but she's heading into the garden tomorrow. she will be accompanied by her shadow. wish her luck.

The Contract

2008-03-22T18:42:00.002-07:00

The Contract says

It's a good deal for you

and it really helps us out.

The Contract says

You're so important to your country

and your country is so important.

The Contract says

We make all the rules

and we choose your rights.

if you read between the lines

The Contract says

We are your conscience

and we get to play God.

if you read between the lines

The Contract says

We don't care about your health

and we don't care about your Soul.

The contract

Your life is not worth the paper it's written on.

Friday's 'Voice'

2008-03-17T12:49:00.001-07:00

Society dictates how power is distributed. Institutions and ideologies determine who has privilege to be dominant and who must defer. Some persons are given great power to make choices for themselves and other people and are protected from the consequences of their choices.... Religion serves to define the nature of power and its legitimate uses. Religious leaders must choose whether to collude with the dominant culture as sanctioning agents of abusive power or to be prophetic critics of the way power is distributed and defined.
- James Newton PolingThe Abuse of Power

Canada - Afghanistan: I weep

2008-03-13T18:57:00.004-07:00

How sick did it make me to see the picture of S. Harper standing, smiling, with his cronies cheering in the background in the House of Commons. So they challenged the Liberal party of Canada to a game of Chicken, and they won. They won on the backs, on the lives of Canadian military personnel and Afghan citizens. The citizens of the world have become pawns on the slippery, oil soaked game board of power and greed. This form of 'democracy' has got to go. What does it mean anymore to measure public opinion, except perhaps to count exactly how many people you've just thumbed your nose at and done what you want anyway?

Morsels from John Dear SJ

2008-03-07T23:34:00.004-08:00

The God of peace is never glorified by human violence.

The false spirituality of war - “war is not the will of God”

The last words of Jesus to the church - “put down your sword”

The message of Jesus from the Cross - the violence stops here in my body.

John Dear is here in Vancouver for the Thomas Merton Society's annual conference on peace. These are some of the powerful bits I came away with tonight.

I hope this is true...

2008-03-04T17:32:00.000-08:00

today's 'Voice'

2008-02-27T11:55:00.000-08:00

In the absence of Jesus’ physical leadership, a new power to lead emerges among the disciples. Like the disciples, we honor Jesus’ absence when, as Christian communities, we do not look for a single leader to ride into town on a white horse and save us. We honor Jesus’ absence when we do not "look up" to a single human leader on whom we can depend for everything. We honor Jesus’ absence when we discover the Spirit of Jesus the Servant animating us as a Christian community of faith.

- Thomas R. Hawkins
Faithful Leadership

today's 'Voice'

2008-02-22T11:45:00.000-08:00

Power understood as the ability to accomplish desired ends is present in human relationships no matter how particular communities or societies are organized. Nevertheless, Christian communities recognize that the source of power in their life is the love of Christ which inspires and directs them. This is a style of power not of coercion but of empowerment of others.... It also connects to those at the margins of society who search for word of God’s love and justice.

- Letty M. Russell
Church in the Round

The Pragmatist

2008-02-20T00:07:00.002-08:00

I truly believe in a Christian Anarchist vision (version?) of society where we rely on the smallest possible units/collectives to meet the needs of and build community. However, the pragmatist in me always lurks. Waiting for people of wisdom to hand me a gem for the dragon's treasure hoard. While I may desire and try to model an anarchist community, around me is the semblance of other society (or as Peter Maurin might refer to it, the shell of an old society!) This shell contains the whispers of democracy and the memory of belief in participatory governance. Do I work with it, or don't I?

Here I sit, up too late, over stimulated by the excellent presentation I attended tonight. Where several gems were handed over to the dragon. Discussion of the Security (HA!) and Prosperity (HA!) Partnership (HA HA HA!) agreement was well attended and presented. The particular gem I'm polishing at the moment is this: a philosophy of the "right" in politics is to throw mud at the "left", not to get voters to change sides, but rather to muddy everything so that voters believe all politicians are unclean and convincing them to opt out of the electoral system. So instead of needing 50% plus 1 to win things, they really only need 20% plus 1 and the elite 20% of the population who support them will always vote. This is supported by several examples in Canada where clearly the majority of citizens felt one way on a particular issue and yet managed to elect a government who went the opposite direction from them on the issue.

This rings very true for me. Not enough that I'm going to rush right out and volunteer on anybody's campaign, but you may hear me telling you to get your ass out and vote. Don't be shocked or dismayed. Just think about it, 'k?

Driven...

2008-02-19T23:08:00.000-08:00

“ Every war, when viewed from the undistorted perspective of life's sanctity, is a "civil war" waged by humanity against itself."

- Daisaku Ikeda

Prayer

2008-02-18T22:33:00.000-08:00

What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer?

Thomas Merton
Thoughts in Solitude

today's "Voice"

2008-02-13T15:31:00.001-08:00

Language has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone, and the word solitude to express the glory of being alone.

- Paul Tillich

Oh Canada!

2008-01-23T23:12:00.000-08:00

Stephen Harper's panel on the Canadian Afghanistan military mission has reported. Here's my reaction to this particular bit, quoted from today's Vancouver Sun newspaper (Arm-twist NATO: Manley - Mike Blanchfield, Canwest):

Manley said Canada's efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan cannot be completed by February 2009 and there is no "operational logic" to pulling troops out on that date. An immediate withdrawal would "squander our investment and dishonour our sacrifice to date."

The report also talks about 'defining' or 'refining' the goal of the mission. Hello? At the cost of close to 80 lives of Canadian military members and countless Afghan citizens we can talk about defining and refining our goals? That aside, back to the above quote. Squandering our investment? Dishonouring our sacrifice? I believe in my bones that the greatest dishonour to the sacrifice of lives on both sides (but from my perspective as a Canadian-particularly the lives of Canadian military) is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. In case you've never heard it before, that's the definition of insanity! So we'll sacrifice more of the same, in the same manner, with the same results. Do we consider the abbreviated lives of all these men and women to be an 'investment'. If we're going to use that language of finance, what's the return on that particular investment? How does that manage to 'appreciate'? I don't have an answer for that. I'm pretty sure all those 'experts' don't either.

today's 'Voice'

2008-01-18T20:31:00.000-08:00

We still need prophets to summon us back to the spiritual roots of wholeness and peace. We still need broadcasters of God’s word and magnifiers of God’s truth, so that we will understand and turn and be healed.

- Kenneth L. Waters, Sr.
I Saw the Lord

'Voice' from Sojourners today

2008-01-17T16:17:00.000-08:00

Jesus reassures us that every effort to love ourselves and others more faithfully, however imperfectly we are able to do this, is a response to God’s call to love as he loved. It is a response to the two greatest commandments as they stand in relationship to one another.

- Paula Ripple
Called to Be Friends

2008-01-16T23:34:00.000-08:00

Found this image at http://www.manitobawildlands.org/images/water_drop_shiny.jpg

It wasn't exactly what I was looking for but it comes close.
When I'm having a moment of appreciation, often my thoughts turn to water, in it's various forms.

Appreciating a moment....

Hope & Love

2008-01-12T22:55:00.000-08:00

There is so much to do and pray for, so many to pray for and with. Our friend and inspiration Aldona is suffering a setback in her cancer treatment/recovery.

Ronnie & I had a scary moment about 9:40pm.
Too excited after greeting the pugs walking across the street, she was not impressed by the man on his bike on our sidewalk. Towing her around him as she barked, she slipped out of her collar and circled him, barking. He got angry (I'm sure he was feeling threatened) but she really didn't get that close to him. She was in the street, barking at him, and then he got aggressive towards her and started pursuing her. My throat is sore from how I screamed at her to come to me. Which she didn't do. Instead she bolted down the street to the other end. I wasn't sure that she wasn't scared of ME by this time so I followed her, fearful of how far I might have to go. But she came back, clearly understanding how angry I was, she was subdued and scared (I've never screamed like that before - I was fearful for both our safety). Fortunately, we were on our own street. It's nice to be reassured that she'd probably defend me if need be. She probably would have won that fight, but in the end we'd have lost because dogs that bite aren't popular. It's too bad the guy got so aggressive. I didn't even bother trying to say that she got away accidentally and that she would leave him alone if he ignored her and stopped yelling at us. I didn't want to interact with him in the dark.

On to love.
I've been reading "The Four Loves" by C.S. Lewis. I wanted to read it because an excerpt from it was quoted in a daily Sojourners email recently. Of course finding the particular section was a challenge. I wasn't sure I wanted to read the whole thing (so many books, so little time) but I started at the beginning, as my anal self will often do. I forgot how enjoyable and quirky C.S. Lewis is. I got about halfway through and then skipped ahead. Sure enough, the section I was looking for is very near the end. So much of it is good, I'm going to quote a bunch from the last chapter.

The four loves under discussion are affection, friendship, eros and charity. He also talks about need-love and gift-love. He writes about the loves in a sort of hierarchical sense, but in the end when writing about charity which is the love associated with God, he strongly asserts that it cannot stand alone at the expense of the "natural" loves.

There is one method of dissuading us from inordinate love of the fellow-creature which I find myself forced to reject at the very outset. I do so with trembling, for it met me in the pages of a great saint and a great thinker to whom my own glad debts are incalculable.

In words which can still bring tears to the eyes, St Augustine describes the desolation in which the death of his friend Nebridius plunged him (Confessions IV, 10). Then he draws a moral. This is what comes, he says, of giving one's heart to anything but God. All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away.

Of course this is excellent sense. Don't put your goods in a leaky vessel. Don't spend too much on a house you may be turned out of. And there is no man alive who responds more naturally than I to such canny maxims. I am a safety-first creature. Of all arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as 'Careful! This might lead you to suffering.'

To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to that appeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ. If I am sure of anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities. I doubt whether there is anything in me that pleases Him less.

And here is the part that I had previously read and led me to reading the book in the first place:

There is no escape along the lines St Augustine suggests. Nor along any other lines. There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell

So much of love is human, scary, messy, hard, tiresome, unappreciated, flawed and painful. It is also necessary, beautiful, creative, uplifting, inspiring, dramatic, nurturing, comforting and hopeful.

Community changes and grows

2008-01-04T13:27:00.000-08:00

After a casual inquiry into his state of wellbeing by Vikki, Chris 'fessed up to us that he and Yvonne are engaged! It seems that if I'd been reading HIS blog more closely, I'd have learned that a few weeks ago. Ah well, it was looking like true love and lo, it is! Congratulations to them both. That will be the third marriage that sprouted from this house in some fashion. Maybe we have a new vocation option. :-)

Pieces of the puzzle, don't know what the picture is...

2008-01-02T21:18:00.000-08:00

faith = 10
religion = 7
"church" = 4
community = 8
worship environment = 5
fruitful thought/ideas = 6

Nonviolence

2008-01-01T19:07:00.000-08:00

Very often people object that nonviolence seems to imply passive acceptance of injustice and evil and therefore that it is a kind of cooperation with evil. Not at all. The genuine concept of nonviolence implies not only active and effective resistance to evil but in fact a more effective resistance... But the resistance which is taught in the Gospel is aimed not at the evil-doer but at evil in its source.

Thomas Merton
from Passion For Peace

Sojourners Verse & Voice from 19 Dec. 2007

2008-01-01T17:56:00.000-08:00

Your princes are rebels
and companions of thieves.
Everyone loves a bribe
and runs after gifts.
They do not defend the orphan,
and the widow's cause does not come before them.

Isaiah 1:23

Too many people come into community to find something, to belong to a dynamic group, to find a life which approaches the ideal. If we come into community without knowing that the reason we come is to discover the mystery of forgiveness, we will soon be disappointed.

Jean Vanier
Community and Growth