Now that's a topic wide open for discussion. I am often told that here in North America how spoiled we are for all the wide open space that we still take for granted. Especially here in Canada. Let's see, we have slightly fewer people here than Uganda (and thank God that's all we have in common!) and more than four hundred times the land area. This means that theoretically each Canadian can and should have his or her own huge back yard with a big three storey house. If it were only that simple. Still, people move here from Europe or Mexico or the Philippines or China (usually China) and they think they have found heaven on earth because even our tiny apartments are palatial compared to the broom closets with windows back home.
Here we are obsessed with personal space. No one who is not intimately, and I mean intimately(!) involved with us should dare stand within four feet because that is the average comfort zone for North Americans. Tell me that next time you and I are both squeezed together like peas in a pod on a bus seat. Our countries and our cities, but especially our cities, are also getting more and more crowded as our global population increases (now more than seven billion strong of us giant two-legged cockroaches) and space is becoming, well, should I say, something rather precious?
If I am noticing this anywhere here in Vancouver, Canada's own Shangri-La, population creep is really being felt these days in our big urban forest, Pacific Spirit Park. I have blogged previously about this natural treasure. A lovely swath of second growth forest in the west side of the city near UBC that is almost double the size of our famous Stanley Park, at one time it was the ideal place to go for solitude. It had not yet received official park status and was then known as the University Endowment Lands crisscrossed with trails and almost nobody there. I discovered this forest when I was a teenager and it became for me a refuge. But it was a refuge under threat of development and for years we all had to work long and hard with petitions, town halls, information sessions and meetings to persuade the government to preserve the majority of this forest in perpetuity as park land.
Then they came. Everyone and their dog, and mountain bikers hopped up on steroids and Gatorade, and joggers and more walkers and suddenly everyone wanted a piece of the cedar tree. I recently told a friend without exaggeration that on a weekend one can walk one kilometre of forest trail there and easily encounter as many as thirty people or more, not counting their dogs (which they also think are people). I still like to go there, but for solitude I really have to count on staying home inside my little apartment with the window shut.
Our personal space is gradually shrinking. It is being eroded. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, even if it isn't comfortable. We are spoiled here. We are used to space, of not having to share. I was sitting with my sketchbook today in one of my favourite coffee shops, which happens to be near the forest. The area I was seated in was almost empty save for two young women, British students, middle or upper middle class as I could tell by their accent, or by her accent since one of them was clearly dominating the conversation jabbering in a loud precious and neurotic monologue that was so loud that I nearly went over to ask her to please shut up, or if she had nothing intelligent to say then to please say nothing at all. It was of course girl talk on steroids and it was evident that she was needing to vent, her friend was being very generous and kind with her attention and this loud pommy British girl was likely herself emotionally fragile, possible here in foreign colony Canada, her first time away from home, absolutely frightened and wondering why Canadian girls are so mean since who really has time to put up with a loud, neurasthenic upper class girl from the UK? In other words, once she left I tried to consider what she might be going through and finally felt for her at least a small measure of compassion.
It's like that with children. I basically like kids but their noise can be maddening. I listened recently to a radio broadcast about Jean Vanier, founder of the L'Arche communities and son of the former governor-general of Canada. He is in his eighties now, a man I have long looked up to and counted as a mentor. He has always promoted the rights of the poor, disabled and socially marginalized to be treated with dignity, respect and inclusion. I also noticed that his undoubtedly well-intended speeches at times can come off as a bit of sanctimonious hectoring, not because he's wrong but more often because he is right.
I think there is also another element in some of what he has had to say. He mentioned in his speech that the reason adults do not like the sound of a crying child is because we are selfish and don't care about the suffering of helpless beings. Fair enough. But I also felt a little unfairly judged, primarily because I do care greatly about the suffering of the vulnerable but I also have fragile nerves myself when it comes to noise and even while I have convinced myself of a baby's right to cry and scream because teething is hell and she has no other way of expressing her needs I will also take the first convenient exit in order to encounter a bit of quiet and blessed relief from the little darling's piercing screams that have been drilling bore holes into my skull.
Yes, we have to learn how to share space, and how to share ourselves. On the other hand I also have to accept that I am rather a different individual from Jean Vanier. I did not grow up in a wealthy and privileged home; I did not have at my fingertips any of his advantages. When I owned him as a mentor I also identified a little too strongly with him, not factoring in that my background in poverty and personal trauma would actually list me as one of the poorest of the poor he has felt called to help instead of his clone.
Still, taking into account what I have suffered, but also the recovery and healing I have encountered I am ready or almost ready for the next step. To hear again the Lord's gentle call in the voices of those who are the most in need.
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