Achievement

From Reinhold Niebuhr’s, The Irony of American History:

“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.”

How might this relate to the climate emergency? Just because we can’t achieve success in our lifetime, it means we have to play a part. We need to have faith in both small actions and join others in taking larger ones. It does seem that in some respects we don’t act because we can’t forgive ourselves for what we as a species have done. It is a paradox that we are also the species who can do so.

Never Again

Pope Francis has come and gone with an apology that was healing for some and unsatisfactory for others in both church and First Nations communities. The government’s lack of action has not escaped notice either.

What some, but not all, missed was his indictment of Christianity itself. Our arrogance in assuming that one religion is superior to all others is something we learn well when we are young and much time has to elapse before we even know that there are other possibilities with histories and an integrity of their own.

One of the pundits got it right in noting something that Pope Francis said to his bishops and followers. Nigaan Sinclair probably knew a different story from him father, Senator Murray Sinclair from the beginning of his life. The pope said.

“The pain and the shame we feel must become an occasion for conversion: never again! And thinking about the process of healing and reconciliation with our indigenous brothers and sisters, never again can the Christian community allow itself to be infected by the idea that one culture is superior to others, or that it is legitimate to employ ways of coercing others.”

Nigaan Sinclair commented to the TV host what a difference it would have made had a pope said this five hundred years ago? How would our history be different in this land? It speaks to the depth of the damage and the need to learn more quickly how to undo it. It will not be easy. It must happen.

Livable Cities

I’m glad to live in one. Here they are according to the Economist

Vienna, Austria
2)  Copenhagen, Denmark
3)  Zurich, Switzerland (tie)
3)  Calgary, Canada (tie)
5)  Vancouver, Canada
6)  Geneva, Switzerland
7)  Frankfurt, Germany
8)  Toronto, Canada
9)  Amsterdam, Netherlands
10)  Osaka, Japan (tie)
10)  Melbourne, Australia (tie)

And the other interesting part - not one American City made it . . . .

Attention

I’m disheartened to see another shooting on the front page of my morning newsletter in the country to the south. Disheartened because it is a country where I lived some years ago. Disheartened when all the columns say that nothing will be done about it. Disheartened even when an article about the lack of progress in meeting the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission - who dealt after all with even more deaths that the current tragedy - has only addressed a small percentage of them, and token ones at that. And that article appears on a back page because it doesn’t sell newspapers.

But I felt more positive after a comment made by a man in a discussion group later this morning - that if there is to be action, it has to come from mothers. That’s who made things better in Ireland. Mothers on both sides of the Troubles complained to their own leaders that what they were doing was unsustainable. Today is where those mothers need to get to work.

There are only two places where guns have any legitimacy that I can think of. One is hunting for food. The other is as a last resort in a time of war. A second amendment right in the US Constitution related to a particular time and place. To pretend that it has validity in 2022 is a twisted sense of logic that ought to belie belief by any sensible person. But it’s cleverly retained by appealing to greed and fear.

But I am wrong in thinking that all Americans love their guns. This is what Pew Research Centre said earlier this year:

• A third of Americans own at least one gun. 40 % say they live in a household that has one. If you do the math, that means that the majority don’t. Men are more likely to say they own one (39%) as opposed to women (22%).

• People say the reason they own a firearm is for protection.

• 48% of Americans see gun violence as a problem. This includes 82% of Black adults, 58% of Hispanics but only 39% of whites.

• 52% would like to see stricter guns laws - but that number is declining. They are divided as to whether lower ownership would lead to fewer mass shootings. They are also seriously divided politically.

When society has changed dramatically throughout histroy, it has almost always started from the ground up - though sometimes with tacit agreement from the top until support grows. Women know about waiting nine months to bring new life to fruition. The cost of remaining silent is too high. Let’s get started.

Other

The week’s news continues - elections in Ontario, primaries in the US, hate crimes in cities, wars, resignations. So much involves anger that can turn to violence.

I’m interested in Larry Rasmussen’s and Matthew Fox’s comments about the common metaphors that we use, The former talked about the Great Chain of Being - a picture of how the universe was understood - with a supreme Being at the top with a series of steps down with lesser and lesser agency at the bottom. The Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny are similar examples - how those in power “lorded” it over those below by assuming the right to take over their territory, their culture and their language. To do so, it is necessary to think of the other as inferior. The most extreme is a Master/Slave relationship but there are lots of gradations that are more nuanced. Witness our attitude toward people of so-called colour and toward nature itself.

We often are smug as Canadians in examining American race and immigration rhetoric while conveniently ignoring the history of our treatment of our original inhabitants. Whether we believe that humans are inherently good or inherently bad, we nevertheless cannot ignore the existence of evil - as a possibility within ourselves or a reality in the larger world around us. But how does the possibility gain such a foothold?

Is tribalism learned? We belong to many groupings. As a small child I was troubled when my Presbyterian mother commented on a coming wedding. “She’s marrying a Catholic”, she said. “It’s too bad”. Something piqued my curiosity. We had a live-in maid in the household who was a Catholic who sometimes too me to her church. As a five year old rather liked an Angel who would bow her head if you put a penny in an urn she was holding. That probably is long gone and not representative of Catholicism in any way, but at least I questioned the tribalism pf my mother’s comment at the time. Why as it too bad? Since I didn’t get an answer, I decided for myself that on that point at least, she was wrong.

How do we get from too bad to replacement theory? How does a teen embody so much hatred in the span of 18 years. Is it fear? Is it the desire for celebrity? Do we have any idea of the difference between a disagreement on a certain issue or policy and turning someone with a different point of view into an “other”?

Matthew Fox today notes that hatred has always been with us as a species when we don’t examine the five year old’s conscience or curiosity to ask why. We protect our own. And when that doesn’t allay our fears we turn the other into a scapegoat. The other side of that is the hubris that builds our view as the right one and gives us the authority to exercise power. When we turn that power into an institution, we may be on the way to hatred in some circumstances - and violence is the eventual outcome.

Abandon all hierarchies and we often end in chaos. Keep them in place and the other may become objectified. It spreads to gender, race, nations and the elements of the planet - fire, air, water, soil.

How Fox deals with hatred is seeing it as the negative form of energy - the positive one being love. Both come from the heart before the mind deals with them. Anger, he says, can be part of the positive side when it follows from compassion for the other as an injustice is clearly perceived. But it can also grow into resentment that becomes hatred and ultimately leads to violence.

I can see in myself how a small thing can lead to resentment. Without reflection, it can so quickly lead to scapegoating and blame. Reflection has never been more necessary in our world of constant noise. We need to examine the small resentments that lead to such engrained ones that spring up and grow among us like viruses. They have always been part of human history in all cultures. We are no long part of a world of chains. We live in a world of networks. How do we use them to infect others with love?