Wednesday, June 24, 2020


The forest


Even the early mornings this last week in the Gatineau Hills were hot and languid and heavy. For those who had to work outside it must have felt like a slavish oppression by Mother Nature who, adding insult to injury, sent in the mosquitoes to feast. Most of us not dipping into the river or riding in cars top down were huddled in our air conditioned houses if we had air conditioning. Those without simply stayed stupefied in front of fans or lying drowsily in hammocks under a forest of trees. We watched the world on our TVs and computers as it struggles waiting for the heat wave to end. The world itself seems as if it is burning and roiling in the heat of politics and rebellion and chaos.

But we are here and the world is out there. We watch our gardens grow lush with the thunderous rain and feed the miracle of birds that drift from the somnolent sky. Some, now back to work, escaped to the offices and stores in our small town but mostly to the city across the bridge. Above the colourful masks, eyes peer and furrowed brows catch at the heart. The worry is palpable. The struggle for some is painful. We don’t know what the new normal is supposed to be and we are, if nothing else, logical about things. Rational. Ready to do what needs to be done but unsure of what that is now. In this world. In this crazy world. So in our lives we simply do what needs to be done that day. For that day is all we are guaranteed and pretty much all we’re prepared to cope with. And that is okay. For now. We do that day sometimes determined, sometimes on edge, sometimes with flaring tempers or dull dark with anxiety and worry. We are human. We aren’t normally like this. Not normally. But then, nothing really is normal now.

How are we too reckon with all this? This worldwide epic change swirling, churning, billowing around us, insistent on itself even as we fight for perspective. All we can do is live inside our quiet place, our familiar place. We watch over our family, our neighbours, our communities. We wait. Sometimes we make a stand but mostly we wait.

I’ve written before about all this madness in the world. It seems like chaos but it is simply a reckoning. As if the world was striving towards an unseen goodness in a sea of angry opinion. All these “isms.” It makes us creep about in conversation fearful of mishap, worried about taking any stand, going hopefully with the flow, most too tired now to care. Most of us want to be left alone to think what we think. It seems like an individual is lost in this, and well they are—hostage to monumental forces. But that is okay. As I’ve said before, I believe all of these “isms”, environmentalism, feminism, veganism, anti-racism form a prism--a stunning piece of glass reflecting all those colours of the human spirit. It is magnificent. It is hope. But we must guard with our very lives the good here. And what then is the good?

I know only what good isn’t. Good is not hatred of the other. Good is not contempt for the other. Good is not judgment. Good is not ignorance. Good is not these things. And that is where this epic, this Homeric Time demands a reckoning—our only task as individuals in this sea of change. They call it, for wont of a better word, a soul-searching time. It is for many a great “undoing” of everything that they believed in. When jobs are lost, when people we love die, when the sand beneath our feet slips away we can only hold on to what matters. We can only gauge ourselves by our searching. So by what do we gauge ourselves? 

Do we gauge ourselves based on how we were educated? How we were raised? What our peers believe? What our favourite political party tells us? What our job demands? There comes, to us all, a time when we are alone with ourselves to fight our way to what matters. What truly matters. And that is not hatred. It is not okay for a white person to hate a black person because they are black. It is not okay for a woman to hate a man because they are men. It is not okay for a man to hate a woman, a vegan to hate a carnivore, a communist hate a capitalist, a liberal hate a conservative, a child to hate an adult… No. It is not okay. Any institution, philosophy, political party or community built on these things is not okay. 

These “isms” are just trees in a forest and we need to see that forest. A forest is made of mighty trees stretching high to the sky—many limbs arching to the sky. A forest seeks only to live in community, harmless, quiet, in sunlight and shadow. By what do we gauge ourselves with? Certainly not a forest fire of hatred. Certainly not an opinion of others that rolls eyes and points fingers. If you were taught this. If you were educated to this—unlearn it.

Why do you need to unlearn it? Because you are left defenceless against what may be a fight for us all. We want goodness, not hatred. We cannot fight what we have become. And that battle may come. You cannot fight what is bad in this world directly: you must increase the Good.

We gauge ourselves by kindness. One to another despite all differences. That is all. 


Tuesday, June 16, 2020


What is Kindness? 


In this tumultuous world we have only kindness to rely on: one individual to another. We are the other person and they are us. Some people know this instinctively. They are the kind that go into burning buildings, treat Covid-19 patients, serve the public during a pandemic, race to help downed protestors. These are rare and cherished people. 

I'm thinking that the great challenge in charity, kindness and love for many is the doing of it without expectation of return. Someone I know said that they didn't think that possible—that the act of being kind makes people feel good so it is selfish in that way. And I say, every good parent in the world knows all about giving without expectation. I'm not learned enough to know all the philosophical thought that goes into this argument on altruism. I can only write here what I ponder. I don’t write this because I am perfect in any way shape or form. We are all creatures on a learning curve. We will all in our lifetime need the act of loving kindness. We are only human. I give this not in judgment but in observation.

IMHO, If you find you are being kind and expecting all sorts of behaviour and recognition and gratitude and indebtedness or (pathologically) control in return, look to yourself first. Did you really give so that "you" could feel good? Or did you give so that the “other” could feel good? Some would argue it is done for both and boom--there is the expectation. What if they are not able to be happy or grateful? What if they have nothing to give you back, emotionally, financially, or otherwise? Would you still give? Kindness has no expectations. What if they reject you, mock you, misjudge you, deceive you, take advantage of you? Kindness is not judgment but it requires discernment. Protect yourself.

Do you give to increase or create your self-worth? True giving comes from a place of self-worth.  True giving is the by-product of self-worth. You will find yourself tangled up in many situations if all your worth comes from giving—ever dependant on the outside to create your inside. Do you give at your own personal expense in hope of worth? This is not wholeness but desperation for validation. True unfettered kindness comes from wholeness and is inevitable if not instinctive.

Do you give so that you can control the outcome? I know some people who will not give money to beggars on the street because they will spend it on drugs or alcohol, they conclude. So your judgment of their behaviour dictates your kindness. What is it to you what they do with what you give them? Some may buy a sandwich for a friend. You cannot know nor should you care. It is that very act that separates the people who give with judgment and those who give out of instinctive kindness. So some put their money in a slot machine for charities that care for street people. They will, it is concluded, ensure proper behaviour and needs met. Kindness with judgment is not charity. It is an act of charity but not necessarily a kindness. 

Do you give because you judge them lesser than you? As a way in effect to prop up your own sense of self as separate and above? Do you give so that you would look good to others? Or because it is trendy? Do you make all sorts of promises in front of others but never follow through? This happens frequently on social media platforms where "looking" good to others rather than actually "acting" good in real life becomes very obvious to those whom promises are made. It is best not to promise what you cannot give. 

Do you "always" give through a proxy, a charitable group, a Go-Fund me campaign so that in fact you do not face the humanity or cause you are helping? Do you do this for photo shoots to prove you are a good human? Such hands-off giving can be argued is better than nothing but it fails the giver in failing to fill the heart with any form of fellowship with humanity. Do you insist it is because you have no time? There is always time for person to person kindness. It is the lifeblood of being human. Yet there are people who, themselves broken, seem incapable of empathy and perhaps it is best they outsource their charity to those who understand others pain. Those are the people who give for charitable tax write-offs usually. They did their duty. They can be seen as kind. It is the best that they can do. 

Do you give because it is proscribed by your religion, your duty to family or by profession? Then you may be working from the outside in. You are a human being and not the role you play. Search your heart for truth and you will find it.

Do you give and find yourself complaining and growing bitter with the challenge? The onerous burden? The ingratitude? You have lost the reason why. Giving is not easy and it never was and it is often tedious. Kindness demands beyond the self. If you cannot reconnect to why you are being kind, best withdraw if tired rather than push on into a dark place where you feel only tiredness and judgment.

The greatest kindness is given without much fanfare and a humbleness of spirit. A recognition of the inequity of life that puts you in the position to do such acts for a fellow human being or a cause. The greatest kindness thanks the recipient for the gift they have given you. The very best kindness goes unseen; requires no gratitude. Kindness—one to another—despite class, race, age, nationality, ideology, religion or gender, is the only solution to a very troubled and divided world.

These trying times seem like we’re in it for the long haul and many people are going through some very traumatic things. When in doubt, be mindfully kind. It can’t hurt. A community committed to kindness is a force to be reckoned with. Nobody is perfect but we can try. Everybody is doing the best they can. Take care of the caregivers. Be at peace. It will all eventually work itself out. You are not alone and never have been. Nurture each other. IMHO

Monday, June 8, 2020

On how it sometimes is


Here. Here in our communities where we sit nestled or some would say slammed, jumbled, forced here in the green of the Gatineau Hills you can sometimes early in the morning maybe, or maybe at twilight or maybe when forced to stillness by universal dictate catch the green-ness breathing. It is sometimes a smoky mist upon the river or in the catch of breeze rustling sun speckled leaves or in the ponderous silence between breaths heavy with humidity. This “Being”, this greenness born of an infinite Will answers to a time where there is no time. It knows that the noise that scratches at its skin is not anything but passing. It knows no importance of itself. It just exists where clocks do not.

North of where I live here, in Masham a woman tends her garden. As long as I have known her, she has tended her garden. And in the summer she sometimes arrives with ripe tomatoes and cucumbers and green beans in a basket to share. A humble offering. A pride. A simple thing. Her garden has always been. And when people are crazed by the world and the noise and the pain and mostly the fear and they might ask me what to do I always tell them to put in a garden if they can. Tend a garden. Put your hands in the naked dirt and catch the promise of the green-ness breathing.

Last week my friend called to say she had lost her cucumber plants. For it is going to be one of “those” spring summers we know well: We swelter in the heat and yet at night in the green-ness there is a killing frost. The seedlings she had nurtured would not see their promise. Where some would be angry, and some would despair, and some would be frustrated, my friend gathered up more seeds and planted yet again. Because that is how it is. You do what needs to be done.  For those who live with hands that have long caressed and coaxed and loved the sacred green-ness, a killing frost is just a killing frost.

Around me here, the world is testing many. And there is much fear. And hermit as I am, I watch the scramble and sometimes cry.  We are all each other’s children. So I beg them to be kind not knowing if they know what kindness is anymore. Kindness sometimes is a basket of fresh-grown tomatoes. So I tell them when I can, when I myself can find a stillness of spirit that does not cater to myself and my own fears but to we the children: Plant a garden if you can. And if you can’t plant a garden, plant a pot of red peppers. 
Some would say I can’t plant a garden because I don’t know if I’ll be living here long and I say plant a garden anyway—for those that would come after.

Many around me I see have planted gardens. I pass them sometimes when I have ventured out. I know so many who have planted gardens because it is a practical thing to do. It is also born of fear. “My God,” they think, “there is a famine and inflation and the supply chain might not be there I have to put up stores and I have to prepare!” Some have planted gardens because well, that’s the trendy thing to do and they don’t want to be unlike the other. Some have planted the gardens with a competitive spirit for what type of seed or how carefully plotted it all is.  I smile then. I do not care why they have planted a garden. Because I know that what they have planted may have been born in fear or pride or competition but will grow in wisdom. And if they can listen, and what choice can they possibly have?, they will hear the green-ness breathing; not the scratching scrabble of the world. And if a killing frost comes yet again, or whatever it may be, whatever reason that they might have for planting, they will still know hope where hope never was. It is always there. They will know a tending and a watching and an insistent toil to the harvest. For that is all it is.

To every life there will come a killing frost. Sometimes you plant again and sometimes it comes again. Or it is something else—a hungry grub, a bitter sun, a grazing deer, a scratching and a scrabble. Now we can rage, or we can cry, or we can go out and plant again. Sometimes it is too late to plant and all that we expected is not going to come. So we plan next year’s garden. And we see how that will grow.

If you don’t know what to do right now. If everything you believed and knew and worked for, seems in shambles, love the one you are with and tend your garden. And get a chicken if you can. They have things to teach us too I imagine. Do what needs to be done. Take care of your family, yourself, your neighbour and your community. There is nothing else right now.