Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. --- I Corinthians

 

When the rains come

The rains that have come in the last few days have been sky water downpours feeding the thirst of a pitiable earth. It has taken much nurturing to coax the gardens here in the hills into fruition but the taste of handmade summer vegetables is sweet with the memory of its labour and love. Some of us have returned to work in the city and fight the morning traffic. Most are working from home funnelling a certain freedom of small simple choices into their days—when to have a coffee or a tea or sit in the sun on the deck or watch the far river as they work. Many are found with children and the struggle and sometimes joy that entails. Most are worried. Sometimes that is a huge worry and sometimes just a nagging in the background. A certain numbness has set in, as happens when in trauma. For the world when we look at it can traumatize the strongest of us. This too, however, will pass. In time.

Someone said being Canadian is like living in an apartment above a meth lab. The Americans have gone dangerously insane to put it mildly. We Canadians have our scandals and political brouhaha but they pale in comparison. Watching American anything puts a person into a state of constant cognitive dissonance because we are told one thing and see another. And it doesn’t much matter which side of the political divide you may find yourself on, it’s all deliberately confusing. It is the first casualty of war as they say. The truth is hardly discernible as long as we’re living in 1984. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength—as long as we’re living in Animal Farm where all animals are equal but some are more equal than others. To live in this time and place is to be witness to a cultural revolution of epic proportions. We could perhaps have seen it coming but we weren’t much paying attention. And since we weren’t paying much attention it all seems rather overwhelming right now. Intense even. At least in the United States.

It is the brave human being that wades into the propaganda there. This is because cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable place to sit for any length of time and the social pressure to conform hasn’t been this relentless since the McCarthy era. It was once the greatest crime in the United States to be accused of communism. Now, a form of socialism is not just trendy but demanded. It is demanded by our universities, our institutions, our businesses, our governments. The rights of the individual now relegated to much maligned privilege. The freedom of the individual now subjected to group identity. A person’s unique life now only the subject to its place inside the collective struggle for power. 

It reminds me uncomfortably of Nietzsche’s “will to power” which is another one of those cognitive dissonance things. How can a movement that purports to be a remedy for the downtrodden and discriminated against seem to be so harsh to another thereby creating yet a different class of downtrodden and discriminated against? How can a socialist movement that calls for equality for all humans be authoritarian? But it is. Ask any of those subjected to what is called the “cancel culture.” Conform or else. Do the oppressed only learn to oppress? Whatever happened to dialogue? Whatever happened to negotiations? Whatever happened to compassion and forgiveness? Whatever happened to freedom of speech? What happened to objective reality? 

It is that last question that is the thinking person’s nightmare. That’s why most of us, when at all possible, choose not to think. As Canadians, to a certain degree, we have that luxury. As an American however this luxury rarely exists. Americans, long the bastion of the concept of “freedom” have no freedom. Certainly they seem to have no freedom of the press. Their mainstream press, in desperation have turned into tools of propaganda all relentlessly pursuing the outcome of an upcoming election. The divide stronger than ever and growing stronger. It does not matter which side you might choose to support, it will all lead to civil war likely.  History teaches us that tearing down history (by eliminating statues e.g.), burning books (by censoring the internet) and oppressing freedom of speech (you are a racist if you disagree) are cardinal signs of a socialist revolution well underway. All of this preceded by the loss of reason where literally 2 plus 2 no longer equals 4 and reason has given way to socially constructed reality. Science, ironically in the middle of a pandemic, is a symbol of white privilege; Logic condemned as patriarchy. All a certain recipe for chaos and revolution. The revolution does not however seem to be unfolding as it has been hoped by those who want change. That’s the way revolutions happen. Eventually the groundswell becomes its own force.

I had decided to watch the Portland protest one late night. The federal building under attack was surrounded by a tall wire fence barricade about 15 to 20 feet away and seemed virtually impassable. Inside the building the federal troops were ensconced and were seen rarely outside the building if at all. In the no-mans land between the fence and the building the protestors were throwing all sorts of junk for fires, fireworks and generalized mayhem. Outside the fence an angry mob chanted. Into this, Portland’s mayor arrived. That’s when the sad reality hit… The man in the midst of the screaming crowd was bewildered. He had come to support his people in revolution but instead was surrounded by hatred and catcalls and at one point felt seriously threatened. He retreated and later called the protest a riot and brought in the police. That to me was the pivotal moment: reality is not constructed at all. It has guns.

The next day, not one main stream media outlet reported what I witnessed on live feed the night before. The rioters were labelled peaceful demonstrators. The blame was laid at the hands of the feds for having been there protecting the federal building and the mayor was unavailable for comment. Meanwhile, in Seattle, the mayor asked the police to stand down until the “protestors” came to her house. She then called the police.

I write this piece in sadness. A lamentation for what could have been a better world. You do not build a better world when founded on hatred. You just build a different world. One that is not necessarily better than the one that went before. If you want to tear it all down then be certain of what it is you want when you rebuild it. That small piece of the puzzle seems to be missing. Change is sometimes good. It is opportunity. But to whom do we give that opportunity? To those that are filled with hate and anger? To those that seek to control? To those that take any kind of pleasure in the suffering of others, particularly those you disagree with? And what architect do you ask to rebuild a world when 2 plus 2 does not equal 4? There is a place for reason. There will be the ones who seek to profit who know this full well. 

As with the gardens that we grew and nurtured, the harvest is arriving. Do we harvest hate or do we harvest compassion?

If ever there was a time to embrace the concept of being in the world but not of it, this would be it. This too shall pass. Eventually. One day at a time. Kindness one to another. That is all.

"Liberalism is a pluralistic conflict resolution system. Its central feature is the understanding that people have the freedom to hold a wide range of beliefs and values, to express them without fear of punishment and to apply them to their own lives, provided that doing so doesn’t impinge on anybody else trying to do the same. The ideal liberal society, therefore, contains people with many religious, political, philosophical and ethical positions and an expectation that they will tolerate each other, respect each others’ freedoms, bring ideas together, work co-operatively as needed and perhaps even be friends!” H. Pluckrose

Choices

Here in the Gatineau Hills, we temper our days to the weather—the simmering heat, the torrential rains, the rare temperate days. We do this because we live here in greenery that reminds us always of our small part inside a natural world. It is much harder to find this in the city. On weekends now, huge crowds of people venture our way from the city’s cement grey streets in search of rivers and lakes and trees. They feel like an invasion and our little municipalities scramble to find rules and regulations and parking lots while residents, although somewhat used to this in the past, are shocked at the numbers of visitors now. Human beings in times of trouble seek the familiar, the fun, the meaningful. Those of us who get to live it everyday sometimes forget or are lucky never to have known what it is like to hear sirens instead of songbirds in the morning. It is a revelation and a rebellion to touch a tree and not a traffic pole.

How long now have we been in this strange new world? We lose track of time. Has it been four months or five? Does it matter? Mostly we want to know when it will all end. And there are no promises there. And so, for us, so used to predictability and freedom and positive thinking and achievable goals and controlling every little thing, all of this wears on us. We are not used to this. We can be angry, frustrated, anxious, worried, bored, cranky and sometimes deeply peevish. We’ve all been there. It’s just important not to stay there. Which is much easier said than done. It is about finding the stillness inside the noise. And there is and will be a lot of noise. Nobody said it would be easy. Cultural revolutions rarely are. 

And that is where we are.

And when you’re in a revolution, reason hardly matters. In fact, it is reason that can be your enemy. Reason and revolution are hardly compatible. Inside revolutions, the truth is never known until all is said and done. In a world where every argument has a counter argument, every fact has an alternate fact, every known an unknown, and everybody has an opinion, reason will drive you mad. Some would say this is deliberate. Perhaps. It does not matter. This is when you hold on to being “in” the world but not “of” it. Our role is not to take sides but to be still inside the noise until the noise is done. Our role is to find kindness one to another even when we want to rage and argue and judge and shame. At the end of the day it is all most of us can do. One day at a time. One kindness given. One forgiveness sought. One gentle word. One small act of love. We do what needs to be done. We take care of our families, ourselves, our community. We put our faith in love and not hate. It is the wise that understand that choice. It is the brave that understand that sometimes you have to fight for love. And the wisest of all understand that love unites and does not divide. 

It is fortunate for us that love and the fight for it is very quiet. It is so quiet you’d hardly notice it was there. It does not tell you what to think, what to own, what to believe, what to argue, what group to join, what political party to vote for, what gun to buy, what everyone should do, what to believe. It does, however, tell us what action to take. In the smallest of things sometimes. The choice for love, for kindness is always there—in every issue. In every small act.

It’s the masks. 

If ever there was galvanized in one issue all the choices we face in an unpredictable world, it would be the masks. We want to rely on reason alone and that is where reason fails. It is also where faith in institutions fails. Do you believe in the WHO, Health Canada, scientists, experts, your neighbour? The virus is a hoax, the virus is real, the masks work, the masks don’t work, the statistics are made up to be worse than they are, the statistics are worse than we are given, it’s a conspiracy by the elite, it’s an experiment for artificial facial recognition, it’s a communist plot, a way for aliens to live freely among us without recognition, a means to make us all scared so we have to get a vaccine so the rich get richer or the evil empire can put in a microchip or because they want us to be controlled and in our homes so that when the asteroid hits, a way to recognize who is selfish and who isn’t…. Reason fails. Reason divides here. We want to rely on common sense and that is where we realize that sense these days is not common at all. Everyone will have a well-researched reason pro or con. It can easily be said however there is one commonality: nobody wants to wear them.

And here in Quebec it is now mandated.  We have to wear them. Well that great divisive thing was settled wasn’t it? And yes, in a democracy when people can’t agree to be tolerant of other’s choices, that’s how it goes. It was a way to err on the side of caution when people are getting sick and dying. And now we have to live with it—all those who wanted masks are vindicated and all those who didn’t want them are not. And that can lead to trouble. There are a lot of angry people wearing masks they don’t want to and a lot of vindicated people who are ruthlessly and righteously on guard for those who don’t. The fervour on both sides is palpable. For some, the wearing or not wearing of masks is the red-line in the sand. It is where they take their stand. Even though it is all very early in this game of what will happen. So be still. Breathe. One day at a time.

When you come across someone who isn’t wearing a mask you have four choices: 1) You stay away from them and do your own thing, 2) You ask them kindly why they aren’t wearing a mask and hope to learn from each other 3) You scream, argue and shame them. 4) You report them. Which choice does love and kindness give you?

Love may not be reason, but love is reasonable. We need to listen to each other and stay on guard that we do not become the monsters we fight. Be kind.

The Legend of 3G Tripod

Life is full of foolish things--for those of us with fanciful souls. Here in our little community of Chelsea nestled in the Gatineau Hills of Quebec, we (as with communities around the world) are coping with this time in history as best we can. And the search for hope and promise and beauty inside the darkness was and is a challenge. We have made it through some dark times with floods, tornadoes, developments and scandals. More than most communities have had to. The response to all of these things has made us unstoppable as a community. We found neighbours. We found unity of purpose around kindness and care. We found strength. Oh, not to say that there isn’t the odd kerfluffle and hurt feelings and bad things but overall, here in such an unlikely place we have gained so much. What happened then with Covid and the like seemed and seems at times to be too much. Much more than we needed, that’s for sure. On top of everything. Yet, for all that our little community has gone through we were gifted. We were given 3G Tripod. 

3G Tripod is a deer that appeared in our community. She has a broken leg.

When I wrote this story of the lessons of 3G Tripod it was a very bleak time. But something in me said that this deer we named 3G Tripod was a message. After I wrote the story i was living a bit of fear--that we would hear she had been killed on the road, or shot or worst of all someone tried to rescue her and take her away which would have been the worst thing to do altogether. I guess i was waiting for how it would turn out. Just this week Max Gibson posted a picture on our local forum that brought me to tears. The lesson now was clear. Out of pain and trial comes birth. 3G Tripod has a fawn.

Here is what I wrote then:

Ahem… Weekly rant. Thank you all for taking care of the vulnerable and taking care of the caregivers and watching out for your neighbours. I hope everyone is taking their zinc and Vitamin D. And maybe Vitamin C. It can’t hurt. Do not drink bleach. When you don’t know what to do, love the one you’re with. This week’s rant is about the deer.

For those of us inclined to fanciful thoughts, the wounded deer with a dangling leg wandering about Chelsea tells us pretty much everything we need to know at this time. She arrived as a lesson in hope and faith and endurance. We are more than gifted with her presence. No matter what happens to “3G Tripod” (affectionately named Gimpy, Gerta and Gustavia and Tripod by various members) we can accept her gifts to us now during this Covid crisis.

3G Tripod is oblivious to the ruckus her very presence causes. The solution from authorities is to let her be or shoot her. And so we are faced with deciding whether her life is worth living or not. It is painful to see her so damaged with leg dangling. We are moved to pity, to horror, to outrage but we are not indifferent. There is no longterm care facility or retirement home for this deer.  She cannot be put out of sight and out of mind. She is always there. So should we just shoot her and put her out of her misery? But she isn’t miserable. She is being a deer living her life. Who are we to decide her fate? Her presence upsets us because it is an “in your face” reality reminding us that sometimes life isn’t all pretty and Disney. It hurts us to see her. It might even annoy us. And the pragmatists say just shoot her. And the predators say she’d make good eating. And the empaths want to care for her. And the authorities say leave us the hell alone about the damn deer because we’ve got enough on our plate. And the perfectionists say she is offensive to look at in our pretty little world. And the philosophers wonder about the purpose of existence. And we all look at 3G Tripod. Because what are we to do? 

3G Tripod doesn’t much care about all that. 3G Tripod simply carries on as she has over the last winter munching leaves and grasses in the company of her herd. Except for the leg, she is managing her life—doing what needs to be done as a deer. She isn’t lying in the field moaning and weeping and wondering about her horrific lot in life. She isn’t curled up in a ball in the woods somewhere. She isn't seething with anger at the car that must have hit her nor is she wondering what the motives might have been. She isn’t comparing herself to the other deer nor does she spend much time worrying about how much grass there will be come autumn. She is enduring. She is doing what needs to be done. She lives quietly resourcefully and carefully in the moment. And that is all that we need to do. We don’t need to be upset by the reality that 3G Tripod represents, as cruel as it may seem. We need to be thankful. She lives her life as we all can, doing what needs to be done in the moment even when damaged. It is life. Be Calm. Be Loving. Be Safe.

Heart Level Change

We, wearing our masks when it feels like 40 degrees Celsius can’t catch much of a break from this heatwave here in the Gatineau Hills. It feels like gravity is stronger or something and we are dragged down just for the spite of some mad decree by unseen gods.  Masks in this heat… It’s torture really. It is really amazing we do what we do for the sake of others. Protecting. Caring. Hot. Irritated. Slick with sweat. We prefer not to go out if we can. We drag ourselves heavily through the day looking for ice cream and water and air-conditioning mostly or the purring thrum of fans labouring in the hot air. 

Some of us go to the river where silvery fish swim down to play tag in cooler waters. They have learned to love the places where there are shadows in their river. Up here we can see in odd places, the parched grasses catching the warm yellow sun where there was green not long ago. There seem to be no cool shadows on the greenery now, just feeble greys sometimes, like laundry washed too often. There is not much respite. We are not fish. We live up here with the sultry yellow sun. Our river is the very sky around us.

When everything is so bright with light we hide where we can because this place, this dry place dazzles us. But we always know the storm will come. The one that rushes water and jagged thunderous streaks of light from our sky and for a few hours, maybe more, we are appeased.

It’s a trying time to be alive right now. The stark sun on the world’s landscape dazzles to painful squints. It hurts to look at it. It’s as surreal as it gets. At least so far. There is very little we can do about the world I’m often reminded. And that is wise advice of course. So little we can do in a world which at this point seems pretty unfathomable. And that is a fishes’ word—unfathomable. The depths of the waters we are swimming in and its extent not able to be measured by any of us. We watch. We wait. We weather the storms. It is one of those times in history we could never have prepared for but which has happened in similar ways before. If you look at history long enough. And us standing here squinting at the sun means we got through it all then and we will get through this now…whatever that is. At the end of the day, we take care of our families, ourselves, our community. This is always the way it is done. Has always been done. The details hardly matter. 

For some though, the details are everything. They’re in trouble. The bills. The jobs lost. The loved ones sick or threatened by this mad virus. The curtailing of our usual forms of fun and comfort and freedom. The price of food. Tempers flare. Worries ebb and flow. Too many worries to count some days. That’s when you say, there will be a better day and you grit your teeth and get through it. Best you can. You are not alone. There are many like you. Most of all you cut down the noise of the world around you. It may seem a sad thing to know that sometimes when epic change demands of all of us, it is not all of us who can afford to charge ahead to make the world a better place. It is an odd and strange privilege of time, person and circumstances. There are too many of us now who can only do what needs to be done for our families, ourselves and if possible our community. And you know what? That’s okay. Because each struggle, all these struggles and fears we go through individually change the world in the way it is meant to be changed. Where it matters. Where the heart of change happens.

It is wisdom to understand that the heart of change happens in the cool shadows. Not in the bright and demanding sunlight where there are many voices clamouring at us. We can’t see it necessarily so clearly in the dark. The man who lost his job is stronger than he was yesterday because that is what he has decided. The woman frantic with worry over her parents has a look now about her that speaks of determination and compassion. The ingenious finagling to find results on small scales in all the small businesses. The parents finding patience where none was before. The neighbour that said, “let me help you with that.” The old man who said on this I will not compromise and know it. The treacherous child who learns forgiveness. A person's anger and judgment now changed to compassion.  The heart of change does not sometimes happen at protest marches and in great and lofty halls of government. It happens when heart meets strength it never had before. It happens when kindness and a quiet courage replace outrage, one to another: the heart level of change.

You will find that here at the heart level, the changes grow stronger every time. And by the taking care of just those small things by so many people, the world changed. That’s sometimes how history goes. That is how you will find yourself on the right side of history. Quiet. Resolute. Strong. Unwavering.

So when people say there is little you can do and you are not able to scream and yell and protest and fight for causes, know you’re already doing it. You got through the day with strength and kindness. One more day. And you will do it again tomorrow. And by gum, you have no idea how strong you are. Even when you’re crying. Even when you’re afraid. Even when you see no future. Even when you’re madder than hell. By gum, it is heart level change that will get you through. And you have no choice about that.

If it all gets too much this week, this month: wake up early. Somewhere between 3 and 5 in the northeast you can see by the naked eye in that vast river of sky where we spin on this little green planet, the brightest comet we have seen in decades. It is not an omen.  It is light, a heart light, alone swimming in the cool waters to an ancient rhythm of time and space and promise. It reminds us we too sometimes swim alone in shadows but how damn glorious we can be. Be Strong. Be Kind.

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. 

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

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.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. --- I Corinthians

Eternity in Ten Seconds

We stand next to eternity every day of our lives. Some are closer it seems to the profound nature of being in the world than others. They have no need to question their actions. They simply respond to a higher natural order than the rest of us. And so it was for a man named Isidor Howson of Kazabazua, a humble 40-year-old carpenter. 

Isidor is just a man. A man living his life. He had a fairly long drive home from Shawville to Kaz and as he usually does he left his shoes unlaced so he could take them off if he wanted to. That Saturday he hesitated undoing the laces. He didn’t know why he hesitated but he did. But then he untied the laces. Just outside Shawville he saw a house on fire. Two older women were standing by the road. He stopped his truck to help. 

The women were shaken. They told him there was a man inside. He hadn’t come out.

Isidor immediately ran to the house. How many of us would have done that? With the flames on the roof now fierce, the heat rattling the air, the smoke acrid in the wind? Isidor tried the front door, the back door, the windows. Through the front window he could see a man in a chair in the living room. And despite the screaming and banging, the man did not respond, already perhaps overcome by the smoke. Isidor only describes his actions as driven by a higher will than his own perhaps. By right action, by adrenaline, by divine providence. That’s the mystery of men like this. When asked, Isidor confused almost by the question simply says, “it was the right thing to do. I’d do it again."

Isidor went to the front door and began kicking it in. He lost his shoe in the process. His laces were untied. He was cut, bruised and shaken but managed finally to break in. He retrieved his shoe, and just 10 seconds from having broken in the door he reckons, the entire upper floor caved into the living room burying the man in the chair.

Isidor was 10 seconds too late. 

That’s how Isidor told the story. That’s how Isidor remembered the story: he was 10 seconds too late to save the man. If only he had not stopped to get his shoe. If only he had laced them up. If only. And Isidor went home eventually broken and haunted. It was 10 seconds. And that defines a man like Isidor. He did not see it as 10 seconds where he himself could have died (as his friend eventually pointed out to him), but as the time he did not have to save the man. What makes men like this? Who can really know? Just a man. Just a man living his life.

But life has a way of making its profundity manifest. It has a way of teaching us things we don’t understand. For a man like Isidor, who was haunted by those 10 seconds, by the unlaced shoe, there was no comfort really. Only perhaps time would heal. 

Isidor went reluctantly to work the next day at a construction site in Wakefield, exhausted from a sleepless night. Why he happened to be standing right there when his co-worker took a phone call from his wife, Isidor doesn’t know. But that co-worker was from Shawville and his wife told him their neighbour had set the house on fire and then shot himself. Isidor could not have saved the man even if he had had those 10 seconds. These were facts that Isidor may never have known if he hadn’t been standing there to hear it. The details are still under wraps.

Isidor could not have saved the man. Instead he was given 10 seconds of grace. And that 10 seconds saved his own life. That is how providence works. That is the irony, the twist of the archetypal story. Isidor thinks about how he could have died for nothing if he hadn’t lost a shoe.

No longer haunted, but simply sad. It is a story to tell now for Isidor. Not the one he thought it was, but a different one altogether. It is a sad story but a transformative story for him in ways words can’t describe. He is just a man. Living his life, 10 seconds away from eternity.

What then is happiness?

Some of us live on the boundary line, the slow shuffled measured pace between black/white and the known/unknown, the right/wrong, the tragic/comedic, the coward/hero, the stupid and the bright. It is not a striving for equilibrium but a condensation of our divided Being funneled to a finite place on this planet where we roost to watch the affairs of our fellow creatures. It is a precarious vantage point--neither here nor there but in between. It was never a choice we would have made if we had had the choice.

For some of us the leap to a conclusion is a slow emergence from unfathomable depths to make our way in a languid drift to a faraway shore. It is why we are old before our time, for the blustery skies we fly in batter our very souls. It is why we are quiet for our solitude exists in a noisy crowd and has no answer to what it sees. It is bewildered by the pain of others demanding reason and yet others suffocating in emotion. It is partly nature and partly circumstance that held us in what we thought was confusion but was in reality capacity. It was a clarity defined by images and not thought. It was a clarity of emotion and not reason. But the painful translation of that clarity to reason brings depths of understanding for those who live in-between and can suffer the journey on that fragile bridge from here to there.

There are not many who have the time to think. And for those of us who do, it is our curse to do so.
Hence the painters, the poets, the writers, the philosophers, the mystics and the misfits. And even the mad, for they dance and sing and cry and rage in memory and prophesy where most have never been and would never choose to go.

What then is happiness to those who skip-trip to the heavens? And does it even matter. Predestined perhaps to lives of living in between, they play translators to a universe few seek to understand. They bleed their love at daybreak and gather it again at nightfall from the stars to strew across the vast clamoring daylight. They never had a choice.

In honour of all the bears we seem to be sighting, this is my story from 2010 from my book "The Get-Over-Yourself Self-Help Book" written before I understood bears...


The Unbearable Lightness of Beans

The bear was sitting at the entrance to the deck looking at me. Well, at first it was just looking at me but then, it decided to gaze off into the trees in a very zen-like fashion as if it was contemplating the meaning of life and I was just some static in the way of the transmission of a universal collective unconsciousness. It seemed to be having a revelation.

This I could perfectly understand given that it had just salvaged the trashcan leftovers of a frozen cabbage-roll entree that I'd found on special just last month at Walmart. I myself felt that very same way after having tasted the stuff. I'm certain those leaves were not cabbage at all but then, the Walmart spokesperson insists they were, even though I insisted right back that if I'd dried those damn things out and smoked them I would have gotten far more bang for the buck I'd say. They never listen to me, these spokespeople; that's because they earn their degrees in Communications and then spend their entire working careers trying to find ways NOT to communicate the truth as it really is, such as the use of psychotropic "cabbage-leaves-my-arse" in their entrees. But anyway...

The bear had resumed looking at me. It wasn't a major bear, really. It was a little bit bigger than the dog, but considerably more hefty... a "big-boned" bear. I figure it could easily have wrestled me to the ground and killed me dead, so I was grateful to see I apparently had a Buddhist bear on a spiritual quest at the end of the deck instead.

The only reason I knew, of course, that we had a bear was because the neighbours were good enough to call out and let me know. The dog, who goes into an apoplectic barking frenzy over june bugs and chipmunks, was sitting at the other end of the deck looking at me... quietly. Now, the thing was, I had to walk towards the bear in order to get to the door in order to open it in order to tell George to call
 the fire department, an ambulance, the SPCA, my sister in New Zealand, Chelsea Pizza and CSIS.

Anyway, I decided to walk towards the bear because sometimes you must throw caution to the winds and leap headlong into your destiny or lack thereof. The bear lifted its paw and continued to look at me. It was obviously a bear with some fashion sense that gravely disapproved of my orange striped outfit, because he shook his head back and forth in deep condemnation. I just knew I should have bought the other outfit instead, but the salesladies were completely disinterested in helping me choose because all they do is spend their days watching to see if you're shoplifting instead of helping you make a decision between plain plaid and orange stripes. I figure I'd have had better luck if I'd brought the bloody bear to the store for an opinion. Not that he seemed like he'd be the kind of bear that would like to go shopping, really, I was thinking.

So I opened the door... I did this apparently for the dog. The dog, deeply relieved, practically knocked me over as she ran like the wind itself into the living room to cower behind the recliner where George was watching a documentary on the building of the White Canal by slave laborers in Stalinist Russia.
"George," I said, "there's a bear on the deck." Given that the bear was about six feet away, I thought I did rather well keeping my voice and all.

"Don't be silly," said George.

George, as it turns out, was no help whatsoever because we ended up in the kitchen arguing over whether to use the fire extinguisher or the rocking chair to defend ourselves. Eventually we decided to scare the bear by banging pots and pans, which didn't work out so well because George wanted to use the cast iron skillet along with the brand new Teflon-coated crepe pan. Well I couldn't have that! So we eventually found ourselves standing out on the deck peering into the now darkening landscape with an eggbeater, a broom, and a can of Heinz old-fashioned maple-syrup beans.

The bear, having listened in on the debate, had left, no doubt deciding to forsake all forms of civilization thereafter--which is a good thing... for a bear with any sense whatsoever.

Next, we may be discussing why Hitler was a better dancer than Stalin.

How do we make it different this time?

What if Canada's first nations people looked at the people who arrived here on ships and said "Look at them! They have no respect for nature or our gods, they are destroying what we believe in, they are having lots of children and more and more are coming, they have their own laws, they are taking our land, they don't respect women as we do, they are going to force us into becoming like them or we will pay the consequences because they have powerful weapons, they are not like us and they have no respect for us, they stick with their own and won't mingle with us." What if they did? They would have been right. We see the results. We are all immigrants. How do we make it different this time?
 
It is important to understand that the Syrian refugees are just that--refugees. They are not immigrants in that sense. These are refugees fleeing from a country in ruins. They had no choice. They are uprooted, displaced and dispersed far from family and what they knew, running from a horrible situation. Why are they refugees in the first place is a question best left to others to determine. Canadians saw an influx of refugees during and after the Second world war. One of its sad realities is that the children of these refugees often were subjected to being raised by traumatized and alienated parents. It became for many a source of great suffering through the generations. How do we make it different this time?

One thing is clear: Politics will not solve this problem. If anything, in this political climate, it is creating greater divides than need be. Polarized as it is. This is a people problem. This is a neighbour to neighbour problem. If a person is hated, they learn only to hate. Hate is a function of fear. That is all. For this, the onus is on all of us and on the refugees themselves, struggling as they are to learn a foreign language and foreign ways and deal with trauma and isolation, to dispel the fear and make common ground. And that common ground is one that requires dialogue and good neighbours.

Out there in the world, law enforcement is facing the results of what happens when fear rules. This is an undeniable fact although it is denied. The level of frustration, anger and concern is palpable because these are men and women who have put their lives on the line to protect the public. And the general public does not know what they know. And they are burning out, leaving, if not committing suicide. Their reaction is understandable because it is not discussed in the public arena in a meaningful way. Their hands are tied and they have no place for honesty. And by not being discussed or faced then how can there be solutions? It is not up to the media nor the politicians to silence reality. Reality is what it is. No amount of social engineering or positive thinking can replace honest dialogue. The onus belongs to those who can see a better way and that includes overcoming fear to bridge the gap. I believe it is possible. It requires good will from both sides. How do we make it different this time? That is a question I put to the politicians, the law enforcement agencies, the refugees themselves and we ourselves.

No amount of arrogance; of race, religion, class need be tolerated from any of us on any side. When it comes to human to human relations, one is no greater than the other. We are all in this together. How do we make it different this time?

You never quite heal. Not quite ever...

I will never leave Himself to rest. Why should he have all the fun cavorting through time without me? I know right this instant he is at the pyramids and all the questions he had about time and meaning and existence are answered. He has found the why and all I can do is know he holds that for me and for the ones he loved, one day found when we follow. But now, I will not leave the man to rest. I guess that's just the way it is for some of us. 

And for all that I've gone through I have no advice beyond a dedication to not becoming bitter. That there is no point to blame. That the rest of your life is a remnant of your love carried to your last day with courage and a prayer and a faith forward. 

And love the one you're with, with the aching understanding of how precious the time we are given is. For it is precious.

It was both a curse and a gift that we were given knowledge of our own death one day. Life's struggle is to find the gift whether you are the one that is to go or the one that is to be left behind. And when you find that gift, much becomes irrelevant; the affairs of the world a sad if not mad distraction. Love is all we have. The fear of loss is the curse, the understanding that comes with it, the gift. And if you can find the laughter, well, you've found it all. Just love the one you're with. But do not cast your pearls before swine. Forgive when you can. Kindness always. Compassion within reason.

That's all I've learned. 

Have a loving week everyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmactMIhrRM