Surviving The Fall, 28

I made the mistake of listening to yet another Ideas program about political correctness and Privilege. Those people on the CBC seldom fail to raise my blood pressure. And for the simple reason that they have certain elephants in the room, or they make silent, unspoken assumptions. For example, that all white Canadians are well off, that we all own our own homes, we all drive cars, earn an above average income, have enjoyed post graduate university education, dine in nice restaurants and go on lovely vacations every year that we post on Facebook for our envious coworkers who share with us our lovely, decently remunerated and meaningful occupations. It was one of the Munk Debates, by the way, and it was about whether it is political correctness or progress. Why am I so annoyed? Because in these programs, I don't exist. No one in my category exists, except as an occasional program about what an embarrassing social concern is the poor, underemployed white male. We're not supposed to exist. We are not allowed to exist. And if we do exist, then we are mouth-breathing Trump and Harper supporters on the Alt-Right. We are not allowed to or expected to be: well-read, educated, well-travelled, with progressive views and opinions, fluent in another language, able writers and talented artists, as I happen to be, nor are we allowed or expected to work in underpaid professions with vulnerable adults, as I do. We are expected to be religious, as I am, and if we are then we are Christians, which I am, and mouth-breathing fundamentalists, which I certainly am not, and with below average IQ's (mine is above 140, if you must know, placing me in secure Mensa territory, which I care not a rat's ass about since I don't approve of elitism, intellectual or otherwise. If we are ever mentioned on the CBC we are always spoken of in the context of "The Other". This is such an insidious and nasty expression of classism and casteism that I don`t even know where to begin. Perhaps by explaining to the eggheads of Ideas that when I worked in a homeless shelter for a year in 2003, that almost all of our clients were Caucasians, more men than women, some but not many aboriginals, very few blacks, Latinos and almost no Asians. Yet the theory of White Privilege would have it that the shelter be teeming with people of colour and hardly a pale face to be seen. Neither are the eggheads at Ideas able to explain why so many of our panhandlers and homeless population are-guess-white males. Could it be that the reason why has very little to do with the postmodern nonsense about categories and privilege and a lot more to do with the unfortunate and individual circumstances that people find themselves in: that my own failure to succeed in life might have a lot to do with childhood abuse and family breakdown and instability and simply not being able to do more with my life than survive? Race has nothing to do with my situation. Yes, categories do matter, up to a point, but only insofar as understanding demographic trends. Individual variables trump categories. Get your large heads out of your asses, already and start to think with some sense of nuance, please! And start talking about those of us who don't fall under your neat, safe but intellectually lazy generalizations.

Surviving The Fall, 27

One of the downfalls, or let's say, the dark side, of democracy, Gentle Reader, is that governments are always going to do their damnedest to get elected, stay in power and not lose in the next election, because, well, power is quite the aphrodisiac, to paraphrase that loathsome Machiavellian, Henry Kissinger, and in order to hold onto power within the norms and rule of law of a liberal democracy, then the vast majority of voters are going to have to be taken into account, not necessarily pleased, but at least left with a vaguely warm and fuzzy feeling that the government is on their side. Which brings us to what has likely been the most unfortunate, stupid, destructive and self-interested move yet made by prime Minister Junior and his federal Liberals. They have nationalized the Kinder Morgan Pipeline, to the sour tune of Four and one half Billion Dollars (not a typo!). Four and one half Billion. Money that could have solved once and for all our nation's housing and homelessness crisis. Now flushed down the toilet of dirty oil, a dinosaur industry that endangers the environment and contributes to the kind of disastrous climate change that we are already seeing in this country and all over the world. Prime Minister Shirtless really exploited his (in my opinion anyway) overrated good looks and rent-boy charm to really seduce the Canadian public. He did a pretty good testosterone packaging job on the rest of the world. I remember a friend, (now ex-friend), a likely gay man in Mexico I was doing language exchange with on Skype whom on several of our sessions would totally fag-out on our good looking prime minister (oh, el es tan joven, guapisimo y apuesto! Oooh soy envidioso a ustedes Canadienses, si pudieramos tenerlo en Mexico! or, in English, Oh, he's so young, so handsome and good-looking! Oooh, I am so jealous of you Canadians, if only we could have him in Mexico!) And more such drivel. Now, even though some of ou are likely overreacting and offended by my way of writing, may I remind you, Gentle Reader, that I am queer, myself (asexual and gender neutral), believe fully in gay marriage and childrearing rights, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, but sometimes language has to convey the right colour in order to bring a point across, even if that colour is a little bit offensive to some of us. (I don't ordinarily use the f word, myself, if you must know!) So, there he was, little Justin Trudeau, strutting and peacocking about like a rent-boy in heat, just registering enough with heterosexual women and gay and bi and bi-curious men, and keeping his rating high by wiggling low. Now, in the last half of his administration, we are seeing his true colours and they are pretty hard on the eyes. He keeps his shirt on now, too. What does this have to do with me? As a low-income Canadian I have a vested interest in social justice in this country for low-income and marginalized Canadians, such as myself. When the final math is calculated, this purchase of the pipeline is going to put Canadian taxpayers on the hook for 11 billion dollars (still not a typo!) I could see through Justin's charm offensive from the very beginning. You see, Gentle Reader, I have spent years in street ministry to socially marginalized people, including sex-workers of all genders, and let me tell you, the most obnoxious species is the straight or straight acting and extremely good looking hustler, and that was exactly how Justin Trudeau was comporting himself before the cameras. I could see what was underneath and it is not pretty. One also has to consider that the Federal Liberal Party, being centrist by profession, is going to do everything they can to stay in power, playing to the left when it is convenient, then playing to the right. These politicians, in my opinion are ethically bankrupt. Even though you would never catch me dead or alive voting Conservative, I will say this much for the Tories. You always know where you stand with them. Stephen Harper might have been obnoxious, rigid, power mongering, lacking in empathy, and not good-looking, but we always knew what to expect from him. He had no charm to offend with. There are other questions and problems here. For one thing, those aboriginal communities who have bought into (or been bought off by) Kinder Morgan. Their excuse is, of course, they want jobs. I think it's a really sad reflection on the state of things when employment is considered as a good in itself, regardless of all ethical and environmental concerns. Any job? As long as it pays the bills and helps us with our upward mobility? Did I mention about our prime minister acting like a rent-boy? And by extension we have to prostitute ourselves just to stay alive? The economy trumps ethics. All the time. And it isn't only the undecided and swing voters on the right that Justin wants to appeal to. There are also his millionaire buddies in Texas, his real bosses!

Surviving The Fall, 26

I hate my job. It wrecks my sleep, and I resent having to struggle to survive for an unjustly low wage meted out by an employer that can afford to pay better and lies about not having the funds. In less than three years I retire. In exactly two years, two hundred seventy-five days. I like what I do and I like my clients and coworkers, but the big bosses have made this a toxic and unhealthy experience, and likely for a lot of us. I am especially sick of the sleep problems, which only really go away when I don't have to work. And our government is especially stingy about shoving out for early retirement and this is because the conservative voting base, that fearful and selfish thirty percent of Canadians, are powerful enough a block to keep even progressive governments nervous. So, we still get nothing or almost nothing. Being a contractor makes it even harder, because I get no paid vacation time and not having union protection, my government funded employer can exploit me and other contractors with impunity and they do. To add insult to injury, in our contract we are called self-employed contractors, yet we are not allowed to set our own rate of pay. Come on, you guys, you can't have it both ways. I am so sick of being lied to! The only buffer I have is subsidized housing, for which I am extremely grateful..........I have never swallowed the Koolaid about work having value in itself, that nonsense that any work is good and you should be grateful that you have a job. I have no time for meaningless work, which I think is soul-destroying and toxic to the human being. Remember that famous slogan in German at the entrance to Auschwitz: "Work Makes You Free?"................What a difference a bit of breakfast makes. My stomach is full and I am thanking my lovely bosses that I can eat for another day. Sad indeed that it gets to this, that we owe body and soul to those who hold our lives hostage but it keeps me alive. This does not mean that I love Big Brother. I will never love those bastards. But keeping us well fed will shut us up a bit. And if they really want us to shut up then they can start paying us a decent and living wage. Until then, they are going to have to continue to resort to intimidation and threats because that is all they know and it really reveals them for the kind of people they really are. In the meantime I will continue to take care of my clients, whom I care for deeply. I will continue to enjoy my coworkers, whom I have become fond of. I will continue to enjoy the long walks and coffee breaks I can often secure because of variations in scheduling. And I will continue to give thanks for social housing. Perhaps this is the best way, for now, to channel my rage: by loving those who need to be loved and laughing in the face of the others who continue to abuse the power that they think they have over our lives. And to eat a good breakfast every morning and to be thankful. For everything.

Surviving The Fall, 25

There are things in life that never do and likely never work out the way we'd like them to, nor the way we need them to, Gentle Reader. I live downtown. I do not like living downtown. I have been here for sixteen years. It is noisy, doesn't feel safe, crowded, chaotic and impersonal and to the eyes very ugly. There is poverty, homelessness, the illegal drug trade and other crime, and arrogant young middle class adults who use my neighbourhood as their weekend toilet. Sometimes all night you can hear sirens wailing, and woe betide if, like me, you are a light sleeper with a mild sleeping disorder. Because of all the vehicle exhaust, the air is not going to be of an ideal quality, thus causing long-term health effects: cancer, heart and cardiovascular disease, allergies, as well as the psychological impact of stress on depression and anxiety rates. I do not have it as bad as some of my neighbours. My unit looks onto the quiet side of the building, but still there is noise from homeless and street people outside and assorted mouth breathers at all hours of the night. This isn't so bad in winter, when we can keep our windows closed. But in the summer? It is late May now and the nights are warmer. Every night I put in earplugs and have on the kitchen fan for white noise and I have been trying to sleep with the window open. Sometimes okay, but this is one of my light sleep cycles and I might have to start leaving the window closed all night while relying on my small electric fan for ventilation. So, why don't I move? Quite simply, I can't. I am in government-subsidized housing. Because of my lack of postsecondary credentials and my age, 62, I am not exactly a rare find for any employment that is going to offer at least a living wage. So, I've been stranded all my life in low wage employment. I am one of those many Canadians who work hard and don't climb the socio-economic ladder, despite being a white Canadian male, fourth generation, from upwardly mobile parents. I am one of many in this country that they don't like to talk about, because we really give the lie to the popular myth of the land of opportunity. There are many reasons for not getting ahead, though working hard. A lot of the obstacles begin, as in my case, when we are young: family abuse, the disruption of family breakdown and divorce, and unsympathetic family members. I have had to work hard at surviving for the simple lack of the kinds of connections and open doors that others take for granted. I have somehow made it through. Still poor. But definitely not miserable. Even though I am stuck where I am I have found many innovative ways of making my situation work for me: I have sourced meaningful if low-paying employment as a mental health peer support worker. I am a peer support worker for the simple reason that the stress and trauma of everything I've been through since childhood did take its toll and after homelessness I went through four years of psychotherapy. It went well and this has qualified me to work well with others struggling with mental health issues. This is beautiful work and despite the low pay (which is inexcusable, by the way), my last fourteen years working in this profession have been some of the richest and most gratifying years of my life. Regardless of my opinion of upper management (not flattering to them, I'm sure!), I am happy to staying this work till post-retirement, regardless of the lack of options. Having sleep difficulties certainly poses challenges, but it isn't that bad. It is now 3:39 in the morning and I've been up for more than an hour. Once I have finished writing this, I am going to have some breakfast and do some more prep work for some of the art classes I will be co-facilitating for some of our clients (I get paid for working from home, fortunately) Then I'm going down for a two or three hour nap, after which I am going to enjoy a long walk in the nearby wealthy neighbourhoods where everything is beautiful, apart from the hostile and screaming door-size lawn signs of some of the not very happy burghers who resent paying a little bit of extra property tax on their multi-million dollar homes (and their other First World Problems!) I expect that I will be feeling reasonably well-rested, not quite perfect. When I get home this afternoon, I will have phone calls to make to coworkers and tomorrow's clients, and I will likely be so tired that sleep will come sweet and easy. I am also going to have plenty of time to work on my art, reading and other projects. This is far from a perfect or ideal life. But I'm well-employed, well-housed and well-fed. I have friends. I can still afford to travel to other countries every year. My health is good. I have earplugs. Life could be, and for me, has been a lot worse. Right now I am also listening to some fascinating radio documentaries about science, psychology, philosophy and the environment. There is so much fuel for thinking and learning about ourselves, our world and our universe. I am very grateful.

Surviving The Fall,24

I am going to church this morning. This will be my fifth Sunday visiting this Anglican parish, St. Faith's. I know, after some of the horrible, if true and accurate charges I have written elsewhere on these pages about the Anglican Church, there must be something seriously impaired with my thinking if I want to go there. Well, I'm going. Four visits, while not quite enough to determine a good fit, have been pleasant enough, without unpleasant surprises nor warning signs. This really is not bad. They don't all seem to be well-off burghers, but being in a well-to-do neighbourhood there are some locals represented, and I am holding out in hope that they are not the ones who live in the houses where some very angry and irrational homeowners have erected door size lawn signs accusing the provincial government of theft for modestly raising property taxes on expensive homes. From what the priest has suggested, if there are any like that in his congregation, they already know that they would do well to keep their mouths shut. I like. Do I have long-term prospects at St. Faith's? How the hell would I know? it's one Sunday at a time. I know this church has been staring me in the face two or three times a week for the last five years since the coffee shop opened across the street, which brings us to my reason for spending so much time in this wealthy neighbourhood. I simply enjoy long contemplative walks of three to four miles among the mansions and huge trees and gardens. It is quiet, and if I can ignore the whining lawn signs, downright enjoyable, though I don't think I'd want to live there. In all fairness, I really should get ready to go, and it might be better to leave the second half of this blogpost for when I come home this afternoon, following this Sunday's service.............I'm back now from church. Visit number five. Still okay. Chatted with various individuals, mostly in my age group, between sixty and death. Nice people. Some likely very conservative and traditional, a few more seem progressive and open-minded. One really old fellow, likely old enough to be my father, is really stuck on his old school version of a white Upper Canada that is the only real Canada. So, why challenge him? He's old and likely very stuck in his ways, but seems also like a good, kind sort of person. Just pick your battles. A lady near my age is in agreement with me about climate change and the environmental stupidity of people who support pipelines and dirty oil. One of the more vigorous church ladies already has tried to pressgang me to help out with the annual boulevard sale, and I have had the common sense to politely decline, at least for now. I am on my best behaviour, of course, and I am going to try to maintain and expect from myself a reasonably high standard of conduct. We are not all going to agree, but I sense that there is enough good will and patient compassion in this parish to accommodate a diversity of opinions and perspectives. This looks like a very mature group, and I'm not just thinking of age demographic. It could also be that I am the one who has had to mature. But isn't it always so? This place has the look and feel of a refuge, and for me to be safe here I am also going to have to do my due diligence to help keep this a safe place for others. There will also be challenges to grow, and to love more and to love better. We are not all going to be in agreement, and one thing I have already determined to do: that is to bury my earlier grievances against the Anglican Church. Not to forget them, nor pretend that those things never happened. But at least to acknowledge that my offenders and abusers were other people, operating in other places under other auspices. Time to give myself, and others a fresh start.

Surviving The fall, 23

I had one of those dreams last night, Gentle Reader. You know the kind I mean? No need to go into a lot of detail. I was having a series of conversations with various folks about my work and how I fit in and of basically... How angry I am. This is turning into one toxic little dance number. I returned into steady employment with the proviso that this time I wouldn't do anything to undermine myself and end up jobless, homeless and even worse off than ever before. A succession of rightwing governments in our province and in our nation have really slashed and reduced programs of social assistance, making those who don't cope well in the workplace more vulnerable than ever. It has been with this sword dangling over my head that I have done my due diligence of staying employed, and of getting along as swimmingly as possible with my bosses and coworkers. This hasn't been a cakewalk. First of all, if you are at the bottom of the pile, as I am, you are vulnerable, more vulnerable than anyone, and if you, like me, simply are constitutionally incapable of behaving and talking like an incredibly grateful serf or slave, then it is going to be all the worse for you. If you, like me, are going to find yourself resenting being treated like inferior trash because of your lowly position in the hierarchy, then you are likely to have a miserable time. If you, like me, are going to be feeling chronically shoved aside and undervalued for your talents and potential with opportunities for training and real advancement in the workplace being either not available or virtually snatched away from you by those who don't want you to succeed, then after a while you are going to thirst for blood. If you, like me, are going to be carrying throughout your remaining work life a festering slow burning rage at your employers and the kind of oppressive douchebag society that enables those kinds of monsters, then you are likely at times going to need professional help. This hasn't been easy. I spent the early years of the Millennium in contact with a publicly funded employment counsellor. The idea was to connect people with little or no formal skills training or post-secondary education to employment that would get us off welfare, help keep a roof over our heads, and provide us with at least marginally meaningful employment. I should mention here that recent studies indicate that the many workers stranded in meaningless occupations have very high rates of depression and anxiety. Who knew? I at least have the good fortune that my employment is not meaningless. I actively engage every day with individuals on their various journeys of recovery and wellness and I get to help facilitate them. My immediate coworkers and supervisors, with the occasional toxic exception, are good, kind and helpful people. There is also, and this was noted in my dream last night, an ongoing struggle with workplace stigma because I am a mental health peer support worker, which also marks and brands me with stigma as a recovered or partially recovered mental health patient, or client. I have had to do bloody battle with some of the arrogant swine in my various worksites: nurses, case managers, psychologists, occupational therapists and recreational therapists, all determined to lump me and my other colleague peer support workers as damaged goods. It's better than it used to be, and unlike others I have stood up and fought and I am proud of this. I have never been a mental health consumer myself, since my contact with the mental health system was only in four years of biweekly talk therapy with a psychiatrist. I have never been on medication and I have never been hospitalized. I have never been sick, nor identified as damaged. This has been for me a most peculiar experience as I have had to navigate a workplace full of professional colleagues, some of whom habitually stigmatize peer support workers. It is not my coworkers that I blame for this, but upper management, the same ones who refused to give us a modest raise for almost ten years, and now are finally letting the money get pried from their cold dead fingers because the government has put a gun to their head given that the minimum wage is finally going up. But paying us a living wage? Peer support workers? Damaged goods? Oh, don't make me laugh! In the meantime I carry this low burning rage and I am determined to get through without incident these remaining three years before I can fully retire. In the meantime I am going to have to go on seeking constructive means of channelling this anger. Wish me luck, Gentle Reader. I am battle hardened and ready to keep fighting.

Surviving The Fall, 22

Today, Gentle Reader, I am going to write about a couple of my First World Problems. Yes, even I get them, partly because I have benefited from a First World Upbringing in a First World Country. Well, maybe my upbringing was a little less than First World as things got pretty rocky after my parents' divorce and my life still hasn't really settled since that unfortunate event, even though it's almost fifty years later. But things are a lot better than they used to be. Now, I don't make a First World income. I never have. My earnings would be more on par with a lower middle class salary in Mexico, with what I earn, like many low wage earners in my country. However, I can complain about my friends. I have friends I can complain about. And that is a real First World Problem since it implies that I am privileged enough to have friends. I don't complain about them for being horrible people, since they're all good and decent and kind, otherwise, they would not be my friends. Remember that old Russian saying (but I think it's also Spanish, Italian, Chinese, German, Japanese, to name but a few)...If you really want me to know you, introduce me to your friends. Well, Gentle Reader, some of my friends are disorganized flakes. Not all of them. Age and generation seem to play a role. The older ones, who are around my age, give or take a year or two, have greater humility. Much greater. If they're behaving like twits, and I tell them (kindly, of course), they take it very well, apologize and stop behaving like twits. And I do try to reciprocate with the same kind and receptive response when they need to tell me the same. They are also much more considerate of my time and generally seem better organized. But I don't know if this comes through the wisdom and humility that comes from the many good ass-kickings we get in life; or maybe it's generational. We grew up without the high tech distractions that younger people (I mean younger than fifty!) seem to embrace as all too convenient excuses for being unreliable douchebags. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, cat videos and porn. And not necessarily in that order. I think the younger ones have also grown up with a sense of selfish entitlement that my generation had only not quite sloughed off. It was, unfortunately, my demographic, the Boomers (though I'm a bit younger, Generation Jones and a bit less entitled than those smug morons) that launched the Me Generation and now we are paying for our folly through the nose and other orifices. And they get, oh, so angry, hurt and petulant when I tell them, plead with them, ask them, remonstrate with them that maybe they could be a little more considerate of others, a little bit less self-centred, a little more organized. It really isn't that difficult, by the way, to be organized. I am very well-organized. However, it has taken me years to get to where I am. I also am very spiritually centred, with a strong discipline of prayer and sacred reading, and I do tend to organize my life around my Christian faith and desire to serve humankind. I also have to remind myself every day that I am the oddity, here, most people are just out for themselves, put themselves first, and also flail and struggle out of their own inner chaos that results from chronic and culturally embedded narcissism. Younger people usually lack much of a calm spiritual centre to their lives (not a lot of older ones seem to have this either, unfortunately). Hence the booming industry of meditation and Yoga classes and other bogus commercialization of enlightenment. Well, I almost never cancel on people, myself. But this is because I care enough. And that is one of the key features in having friends and maintaining sustainable and healthy relationships. Putting yourself in other people's shoes. Now, often it gets to be like I'm the only one doing this and then things can get really unbalanced from this chronic casting pearls before swine and that is when it comes time to remind people. This is also a valuable litmus test for the quality of a friendship. As William Blake famously wrote in his Proverbs of Hell, "Speak your mind to a base man (or an asshole) and he will avoid you."

Surviving The Fall, 21

It is to easy to get angry, grumpy and miserable about everything, decide that the world is incurably going to hell and then refuse to get out of bed and simply wait and whine and whimper while expecting the world to come to a fast and decisive end. But it is not going to happen that way. We still have to live on this planet, as long as it can sustain us and after that there will be no intergalactic refuge. We are part of this planet. We are of this planet. From this Earth we sprang and to this earth shall we return. And now we are miserable about global warming and planet change, about pipelines, about the economy, about war and conflict, about President Dump, the Great Deplorable in the Outhouse (Oops, I mean the White House) and with things as they are, how can we possibly expect to come out alive, or at least with good skin? But we always do, and no we cannot forecast the future, regardless of how accurate the scientific models because there are always variables and the universe always has its sucker punches. I have decided that I am not going to worry. That isn't the same as denial. I am well aware of what is wrong in our world, in my country, my province and my city, and I stay up to date and I even try to nag elected officials about whatever I am able to nag them about, but for me, joy is the fuel in my engine and it is environmentally friendly, renewable and does absolutely nothing to contribute to climate change and without joy I would probably stay in bed and whimper. Love is the source of this joy. It is the same love that makes me outraged and angry about the social injustice in our cities and communities, the inequality, the poverty and homelessness and the shameless wealthy burghers who flaunt door-sized signs of protest in front of their mansions protesting tiny property tax hikes on their lavish palaces just so that people less fortunate can do a bit better. The world is not necessarily a worse place than it was a hundred years ago. We do have a lot more people and that creates its own hazard, and this is also accelerating climate change and global warming, so we are facing threats and challenges heretofore unprecedented. But, there is less hunger. less war, more democracy. greater education, and more human rights, as well as a generally better quality of life, than what was enjoyed by any previous generations. We also have some much bigger problems as I have already indicated. We also have instant access to global news, twenty-four/seven and this makes us paralyzed with fear and dread because we are not biologically or evolutionarily designed to absorb or sustain this kind of onslaught of information. So, Gentle Reader, get out of bed. Have a shower, eat a nice nutritious breakfast and get your sorry heiny outside and breathe in the fresh air. Give thanks for something, even if it's just the fact that you woke up breathing this morning. Take a few steps. Stop. Breathe, give thanks again. We will get through this.

Surviving The Fall, 20

It's in the news these days that one of Emily Carr's paintings hanging in the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto has just been renamed from "Indian Church" to "Church at Yuquot Village." This is the idea of their curator, a very nice white woman who doesn't want indigenous Canadians to feel hurt or insulted. How does she know that First Nations Canadians find "Indian Church" offensive. Well, she doesn't. I have heard the opinions of at lest one local First Nations Canadian, and an artist and an administrator at our local arts college, and they all say the same thing: the artist, Emily Carr, named her own work "Indian Church" and in their opinion, "Indian Church" it should remain. Why would a white settler woman in a prestigious art gallery presume to know better than our aboriginal people what is best for them? Because this is classic European white arrogance in motion, perhaps just a little bit red-washed, but still arrogance, still colonialist, still racial and cultural superiority. Do I really care? Well, I'm not aboriginal, neither do I relate to the snotty white establishment of Canadian society, and really it's none of my business. Except, I am really sick and tired of this Post-Modernist sourced racializing nonsense that we are being bombarded with. Especially when it's coming from someone who should really butt out and mind their own business. This isn't to say that their aren't any indigenous Canadians who don't find the name "Indian Church" offensive. There likely are, but their voices need to be heard, and not some well-off white lady who knows what's good for them. I appreciate and respect the outrage and anger that is being expressed by First Nations people as well as by people of African heritage and other non-Caucasian categories of humans. I do get impatient with the undirected rage that often gets expressed and I am rather sick and tired of feeling demonized simply for not being a person of colour. And I do hope that as we lurch and struggle towards reconciliation that we really stop looking at race and start seeing human beings. We are not categories. We are more than our cultures and way more than our skin colour. The human soul does not have a skin colour. Hello? But we still have to struggle through the mess that our ancestors and too many of our contemporaries have left behind for the rest of us to clean up. On one hand, I do not like being yelled at by black women or physically threatened by black men for the mistake of being white. I feel I can understand where the anger is coming from but we do not need whipping boys and more, much more needs to be done to help persons from traditionally oppressed minorities heal and move beyond their collective trauma, and for the well-off white folk who still think they can speak up for their poor coloured brethren, to get past their blindness and arrogance. Starting a race war is not going to do it. Neither is getting people to hate themselves for their lack of skin colour. Race is a myth. A construct. Even while clenching our teeth and white-knuckling it, we still have to learn to live together, and live together we must, whether we like it or not. And once we learn to like it, or better, to love living together, then we will really begin to move forward.

Surviving The Fall, 19

I am thinking of the last words of an ex-friend. This was in 2008, when I was checking in with various friends about their plans for Christmas, because I was alone and upset about being alone and isolated. All my so-called friends bailed on me and she had the nerve to tell me that she doesn't feel sorry for people who feel sorry for themselves and that I have to accept that I am alone in the world. Of course, I promptly ended that friendship, and only with words and acts of repentance from the others were our relations reasonably restored. But I also want to focus here on this nonsense that you are alone in the world. This is the most hateful language of capitalism. It is the language of Margaret Thatcher: "There is no such thing as society", that we are all alone, isolated individuals who have to somehow find their way through a cold, cruel, nasty and competitive world. This is pure Darwinism, with the influences of the Industrial Revolution. This is also unfortunately a really hard fact of life. When I am out on the streets I notice homeless individuals begging or sleeping on the sidewalks or in doorways, while other folk are busy getting on with their lives in the local restaurants and coffee shops and bars. We have grown used to the homeless. We have become accustomed to seeing homeless people suffering on our doorstep. We don't like it, I hope. Many of us are still upset and outraged, but really, what can we do? Yes, we can share money and food and stop to talk with anyone who would welcome our incursion, but so much is still beyond our reach. Our governments say they are addressing homelessness and that more housing is on the table. The process is slow. And the damage has gone on for so long thanks to previous governments and selfishness and greed of Joe and Jane Average Citizens, that it will be decades before this crisis is resolved, and so much of that is going to depend on the political will of future administrations. We are all interdependent, whether we like it or not. We rise together and we fall together, and when we go about our small daily lives pretending that it doesn't matter, and that their lives and sufferings touch us not at all. Oh, but they do touch us. When we shrug and walk away we end up hardening ourselves just a little bit more, making ourselves less kind and less human. And more fearful. Cue the angry shouts of local burghers when they demonstrate against shelters or housing for the homeless in their lovely neighbourhoods and the impact on their darling little mouth-breathers as well as their cherished property values. Especially their cherished property values. And there is of course the primal human revulsion that we experience when we're exposed to suffering in others, especially if those others are ill, addicted, distressed, crying, dirty, and smell bad. I believe strongly in repentance. Not just because I'm a Christian, though that certainly helps. I believe that repentance is an underwritten concept in most of the major faiths, and even among the atheists and the agnostics among us, there is still the need for repentance. Not necessarily to change our belief systems, though that might also be called for but simply to get the stone out of our hearts, to receive tender, live, beating hearts of flesh. This is not easy, and it is going to make us vulnerable to others, not only to our families and friends and loved ones but to the stranger in our midst and this is where we need to direct our focus. I cannot solve our homelessness crisis. Indeed, I usually can't even give money away, especially this year, given how much Canada Revenue was wanting from me (and if any of it is going into housing then they are welcome to it). I can help by reminding myself that the homeless on the streets are people in crisis and that I was once there myself, and only by the grace of God have I been pulled out of it. I can help but simply making eye contact, saying hi, acknowledging them. Learning their names and telling them mine. Being poor myself, I can only share myself, but maybe sometimes that's the best that can be done.

Surviving The Fall, 18

Costa Rica, or rather, Monteverde, has come back to bite me. When I am travelling I sometimes exchange, or at least offer, contact information with potential new friends. The other day, I got an email from said potential new friend. He is very young, a waiter in a restaurant I was eating in, likely not much more than twenty, if that, and quite reminds me of aspects of me when I was that young, and I think he is aware of me as someone he could turn into when he is older (whether he wants to or not, perhaps). So, he wants me to help him sell some family property, a lovely chunk of land that his parents want to get rid of. I am from Canada, you say? From North America? Like an American but nicer, kinder and with better manners. I am white and speak English as a second language. Therefore I have money pouring out of my backside. Or at least that's what I suspected he might be thinking when he wrote me about this the other day. Mind you, in his first email he didn't tell me what he wanted to talk to me about. I thought it was just friendly contact and that he was looking forward to seeing me when I return to Monteverde next March. And likely, this is all true, since for a lot of people, the most effective way of snaring a new friend is by trying to get the new interest interested in and onboard our personal projects and to flatter them to death by insisting that they have the expertise and we are simply waiting with baited breath for their words of wisdom and help. In my response to his second email I took great care to disabuse him of any assumption that I was going to financially bail out him and his parents, and I told him that I am on a low income, with limited savings, and only because the government pays most of my rent can I afford to visit him in his beautiful country. With dramatic flourish he wrote back that I shouldn't even think that he was targeting me, and simply if I know anyone in my dear Northern Paradise who would want to buy some land in Costa Rica. I had to think hard, and I actually know someone who has already bought property not far from San Jose, so he might have an idea of what channels my friend could go through. Then I recalled another friend who now lives in Costa Rica, a Canadian like me, who owns a bed and breakfast in Alajuela and has contact with tonnes of reasonably well-heeled Gringos just itching to live in that country. I did scold my new friend a bit for not wanting to sell to Ticos (the name Costa Ricans call themselves) and I wrote to him about what offshore millionaires have helped do to housing costs in fabled Vancouver, much as offshore white folk and others have been doing to housing costs in his own Costa Rica. He insists that a foreigner would take better care of the property than a Tico. I think what he really means to say is they would get a better price from a foreigner. Him being young and quite new at doing this, I thought it necessary to snare as much information about the property and their expectations as possible, and he kind of reluctantly complied: a three hectare piece of land, no buildings, with tropical forest and trails and clear areas and a kickass view for around 600,000 USD. Then he seemed to get the idea that I was going to find them a buyer. Again, I had to disabuse him, saying that I was promising nothing. I did suggest that he do an online search for sites where he could advertise, in English and I have offered to translate the ad for him from Spanish if he wants to write one. He balked about the extra work and I told him, too bad, he has to do it, not me. He seems pleased so far, and sometimes the best way to help others is to help them help themselves. In the meantime, I'm not going to worry about it, but this is what has particularly come back to bite me from Costa Rica: it is this revelation I had in the cloud forest about the interdependence of all life forms and the importance of receptivity. So, now, expecting no financial reward, I get to put my money where my mouth is. I do hope they find a buyer for this property. I have no idea if I will be of any help or not, and really, I feel a little bit squeamish about abetting this process of their selling off yet another couple of hectares of their beautiful country to foreign nationals, thus further pushing upward the cost of living and housing for their fellow Ticos.

Surviving The Fall, 17

Gentle Reader, today, my journals from early July 2002 will do all the talking for me. I wrote this when I had just transitioned into subsidized housing. I had a lot of free time which allowed me to explore a number of personal themes from my life, among them, my time spent in London in the summer of 1991 shortly after my mother's death. "I was often visiting the British Museum of Natural History in South Kensington. I would arrive at four, since admission was free then until closing time at five. Likewise with the National Art Gallery. In the natural history section I was particularly intrigued by the hummingbird display. Also appalled because the poor birds had been killed for this. They were all predominantly iridescent green tropical species and they were arranged in a full-frontal assault of some thirty or forty birds or so. Upstairs in the geology section, certain brilliantly coloured (especially in shades of green and turquoise) minerals kept catching my attention. Thus many future paintings of mine were being nurtured in utero. Even though I still considered myself a writer, I was far more interested in seeing art, and anything of beauty that would visually stimulate me. In London I was often meeting street people, feeding them, hanging out etc. I otherwise found the English elusive, impossible to reach. Except for Liza, who was outrageous. She thought me the first Canadian she’d met whom she didn’t find boring. NEWSFLASH: I see my psychiatrist on 16 July, 11:00am. I am nervous about this, even though it’s two weeks away. I ate lots of pistachios while in London. Almost every night I’d bring back to my hotel room a bag of pistachios, a half-pint of milk and a bar of Toblerone, and have myself a feast. Then I’d read myself to sleep, only to wake at 6 am or so to the intense morning light gleaming on the ancient slate and terracotta roofs of London. I would take a lengthy prayer walk through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park and slowly wander while seeking to know the will of God, Then I’d go for breakfast, sometimes at Hyper-Hyper (a collective of boutiques. I used to hang out in the café in the back, an antique converted rail car, where I met a lot of intriguing local folk), but oftener at a cafe where I’d have two eggs deep fried in oil, with rather horrid bacon or sausage, and dry white toast and coffee, while reading the Times of London I had just bought. After this I would either return to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, or, I’d go straight to Holland Park after which I’d do a prayer walk through Notting Hill, to Champion’s, then up through Kensington Palace Gardens and back to Hyper-Hyper, stopping at each (please) place to write or read. Then I’d spend the afternoon wandering and sightseeing, eating sporadically, as I felt like it, trying to get all my nutritional needs met. I would often, but not always return to my hotel room around dinner time to rest and pray. Then I would go out again, from Champion’s (a pub), back through Hyde Park, Green Park and James Park, to Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, Piccadilly and Leicester Square, up through Soho, then along Oxford back to my room. Except for the constant novelty and diversion of being in a city so new to me and so fascinating as London, I think I would have found the solitude and monotony intolerable. Prayer also helped. But I had no friends, no community and no grounding there, which, I think, is why I was constantly writing letters to Doreen, Dianne (two women who joined our community), Jonn and Duff, as well as frequently calling Doreen. Sure, I was worried about them, and legitimately so, but I was also terribly and desperately lonely having just been abandoned by Jeff (a nasty and pathetic drug user with AIDS who I brought with me because Scotland Yard wanted him for questioning about a murder he was connected to. I felt sorry for this failed rock star who didn't forgive me for refusing to go bed with him and ended up scamming me for thousands of dollars, most of which went up his nose!), and before him Doug, and just processing my mother’s death, while experiencing emotional exhaustion from three years of trying to look after her, just when I was recovering from two years of living downtown--the noise as well as the intense spiritual warfare, while trying to nurture and care for a huge succession of lost street kids and alcoholic gay men, while trying to minister to Duff (a failed and very bright ex ballet dancer who became a close friend) and his drinking binges and erratic and selfish behaviour, while working for St. James Social Services and all the sad, tragic lives I had to work with, including two weeks of overtime giving palliative care to Bud Wilmot and looking after people who were mentally ill and cleaning up their filth and coping with cockroaches, lice, scabies and shit and urine incontinence, and then Doug (we were in intentional Christian community and street ministry) and his manipulative demands and controlling personality and violent behavior and the intense grinding poverty he dragged me through and all those people dropping dead from AIDS and other causes and the lack of support from the churches, then came Doreen and Dianne with their baggage and problems and then feeling put in a position of responsibility by them for mentoring neophyte Christians who refused stubbornly to listen to the wisdom of my experience, making it unfortunately necessary for me to suffer from the fallout of the stupid choices they were making, since they said they wanted to err on the side of compassion (I told you so, I told you so, and I told you so) and then came more betrayals from some of the very people I was trying to help, while feeling totally lost and stranded myself without being able to recognize or admit it. And this was what I was recovering from while wandering alone in a foreign country, trying to stay close and faithful to God, lest my feet should slip." When I was in London I was thirty-five. While writing this journal entry I was forty-six.

Surviving The Fall, 16

I am thinking this morning of my family and upbringing, and how different my life has turned out from the expectations of my family. I told a new language partner on Skype (he lives in Colombia) yesterday that I was the only Christian in my family, that this created major ongoing problems between us and now I am the only surviving member (I didn't mention my older brother, who likely is still alive and whom I have not seen in almost twenty years, but we have been dead to each other for years). Needless to say, there has always been between all of us a huge values clash. Or should I say, I had values, unlike them, who were simply materialistic, hedonistic and upwardly mobile, and yes this created quite the toxic dynamic between us. A former friend told me how sad it is that I don't have a family. But really, what have I to be sad about? I feel secure and safe. I don't live in a big house, but in a small subsidized apartment. I am surrounded by beauty, art, books and colour here. It is usually quiet and it is secure and long term and most of all it is affordable. I am happy, and I cannot think of a time in my life that I have not known such continued and uninterrupted happiness, late in life perhaps given that I am sixty-two, but this is way better than nothing. I feel so much more blessed than the angry and bitter home owners in our wealthy neighbourhoods, some of whom have erected signs the size of doors on their front lawns screaming their opposition to the new expensive homes tax. If the house is valued above three million dollars, a modest tax of 0.2 percent on the amount over three million. If the house is worth over four million it's a 0.4 percent tax above four million. If the house owner is on a modest pension or limited income (hard to imagine, but it does happen) then they can defer paying property taxes until the house is sold, then it will be taken out of the equity. So then, what are these wealthy home owners so upset and angry about. Well, being already wealthy, most of them are going to also be quite selfish and greedy. It's an unavoidable marriage, so to speak. They are going to believe that only their hard work and industry gained them their wealth, whether it has or not, and that anyone not so fortunate as they are somehow deserve it for being lazy and not working hard enough. The real truth is, we are not guaranteed equal outcomes and there are many people, myself included, who have worked hard all our lives and still struggle on low incomes and often in substandard housing, and sometimes at risk of homelessness. But these wealthy burghers screaming like stuck little pigs don't care about people like us. In fact, a lot of them hate us and wish we were dead, but this is an elephant in the room that no one likes to talk about, eh? Poor people are the last category that it is acceptable to hate and discriminate again. Regardless of what the Black Lives Matter folk like to yell and scream about, we have made tremendous strides in combatting and fighting against racism, and yes, we still have a long way to go, but at least it is widely acknowledged that discrimination and bigotry because of race is not acceptable. Likewise for women. Years of feminism and consciousness-raising have moved women forward to full equality with men. We are still not there yet, but women's rights and equality are full on the radar and we have a lot of work to do. Queer, or LGBT rights have been moving forward. Close but no cigar because we still have too many mouth-breathing homophobes in our midst. Now there is much public battle being waged against stigma and discrimination against people living with mental illness. Some people think that it is still considered acceptable to mock and discriminate against people with mental health issues, but they are not aware of the gains that are already being made. Still a long way to go. Now. What about poor people? When is the last time that you, Gentle Reader, called someone out for referring to a homeless beggar as a "bum?" Hm...Didn't thinks so. How about for being a Christian? No? I am not surprised. If you are poor or Christian, or like me, if you happen to be both, you are going to be shamelessly discriminated against and targeted because it is still acceptable to hate people like me and this is simply unacceptable. I went through years of this from my family and from society in general. I am not complaining and I have done well despite the obstacles but our lovely liberal social democracy does not yet seem prepared to really include everybody who is vulnerable under their umbrella of rights and protection, and I believe that poor people and Christians should also be protected from discrimination and bigotry. And so should poor white trash Caucasians. No I am not going to blame our plight on immigrants nor on political correctness, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. But we are also human beings and we are also marginalized and skin colour, or lack of it, is not a free pass for living without discrimination. It is because this has not been factored in south of the border that helped make possible the presidency of the Great Deplorable in the White House. In a truly just society, no one is going to be left behind. And no, this does not give a pass for poor Christian white trash males, such as myself, to be anti-women, anti-colour, anti-queer or anti-mental illness. And some of us are also, by the way, queer and living with mental health disorders. And some of us, regardless of our colour or lack of it, have not benefited from so-called White Privilege, have had to live with police harassment for being poor and other kinds of discrimination just as I have. We have to stop seeing people as categories and get back to appreciating the humanity that we all are in common. This identity crap is just that. It is crap. We are all persons. I still feel incredibly fortunate. I really want for nothing. I don't know what the future is going to be like, but this doesn't fill me with dread. It fills me with hope!

Surviving The Fall, 15

You know, Gentle Reader, we are often so inept at caring for one another, of caring even for ourselves, that is it any wonder that our world is going to hell so quickly and so inelegantly. There will be no noble sacrifices, no band playing "Nearer My God To Thee", just a bunch of dying, selfish less-than-humans scrabbling and clutching at whatever they can claim as their own while sputtering their final fetid breath on this planet that their wanton selfishness has helped kill. Well, it need not be so bad, I suppose, and I like to be optimistic. But this is the end-game if everything goes according to the formula of death culture capitalism as it has been set in motion. I still like to believe that we are better than that. I fail, we all fail, at taking proper care of each other, of ourselves, of things in general, and then before we know it we're suddenly all teetering towards the same abyss. I mentioned in yesterday's post my difficulties with a lot of my Latino friends, and there are likely things we all need to improve in. But I still hold that I have done my very best with people who simply do not care as much as I do. But for me to care less, is for me to become less than the person I am, the person that God has made me to be, so I might be doomed to forever looking for worthier swine for my pearls. But someone has to set the example. Or then everything is going to collapse. I am thinking of Jesus' famous words about being the salt of the earth and the light to the world and I take seriously this solemn calling. I keep wanting to hope that with even one person seeking to embody the highest virtues that this could become a kind of holy contagion. I think there is some evidence to suggest this, but time is of the essence and it is running out. Our species is both legendary for being destructive and for being resilient. We are destructive and self-destructive: whether the homeless beggar scrounging a lit cigarette but from the sidewalk, smoking it, catching a disease from the used filtre in his mouth, while affecting others with the toxic second hand smoke being exhaled; or the wealthy prime minister and his wealthy cabinet ministers doing everything they can to bully my province into accepting a new pipeline that will carry toxic death fuel to our coast, endanger our environment, so it can be shipped off to China, to foul the atmosphere even more and to be shipped back to us in finished products that will only help finish off our planet if we don't put an end to this death project of fossil fuel dependency. This same instinct of self-destruction, this instinct of Thanatos, hovers over our humanity and by extension over our planet like a gigantic black ugly rock suspended by a thread. We have to go on changing, growing, learning repentance, learning to take care of ourselves and one another, learning to care for the sake of caring itself and to keep doing everything in our power to slow to a halt this death march. Anyone know the words to Nearer my God To Thee?" How about I hum a few bars.

Surviving The Fall, 14

One of my friendships has just hit a bump. This is a Latin American individual who seems to think that they can cancel on me whenever they like (we had been meeting for this individual`s English practice, and not going at all well, by the way) So, this same person, instead of reasonably respecting my boundaries and accepting the responsibility of giving me three days notice before cancelling, after being warned a few times, given how tedious it was getting trying to come up with a plan B every time they cancelled on me, decided to play brinkmanship with me. I reminded them several times that they cancel often and that this is inconvenient for both of us given that this person's English has not been improving, and I called them on their game of chicken, offering next week to meet up instead since they wanted me to wait till the last day again for them to make up their mind, and instead of having a respectful and adult conversation, hung up the phone on me. Likely this individual wasn`t particularly happy that after texting each other briefly on Skype, and phoning me while I was at work, I was not going to give them time to stage a little drama with me. I politely cut them short, repeated what I wrote on Skype (simply that waiting till the last day, I can't guarantee being available, so could we try next week instead?) and this person suddenly hung up on me, likely signalling their desire to end for ever our four year friendship. So it goes. The stress from these kinds of drama queens does impact me, and in my profession as a mental health worker, this kind of drama can also wreck my sleep for the next night or two, and if I am going to work well with my clients, I need a decent night`s sleep. It seems that my friendships with Latinos are usually less stable and more fragile than with Canadians. This I can understand. There are cultural differences that really grate on each other's nerves and both parties have to be very committed to the friendship for these things to be overcome. My experience suggests that Canadians tend to be by far the more generous party here. Latinos have a lot of racism in their culture and many particularly dislike white North Americans and Europeans. Fortunately, this isn't always the case, but it is an elephant in the room. They will cut slack for one another and respect one another in ways they would never imagine doing with non-Latinos. It appears that for them North Americans exist primarily to facilitate the upward mobility of Latinos, and there are many who never appear to abandon this kind of mentality. Which makes friendship a rather flawed and difficult adventure, but still worth it. It becomes particularly complicated if there is romantic or sexual attraction, or if we find that we simply really like each other, because we still have to get through the racism and the cultural barriers. I find that when Latino friends are particularly attracted to me that things can get really complicated, because there are unwritten expectations, and whether it`s from a woman or from a man, there are going to be set but largely unconscious or unsaid cultural expectations that come from a culture that is very hierarchical, very gender binary, homophobic, macho, and very patriarchal. This isn't to say that I don't find some of them attractive, at least at first. But as an asexual I never want to go to bed with anyone (and I know that some of them will find this annoying), and as a mature person with a lot of common sense, I also know better than to let this cross any boundaries. It is often even more tricky if there is a same-sex attraction, given that a lot of Latino men are highly closeted, given the homophobia of their cultures, and the shadow boxing can get very weird at times. But I am also willing to work through this for the sake of preserving and fostering friendship. It is only too bad that very few of the Latinos that I know could be bothered. But I'm not Latino, and therefore, unless I am helping them improve their English, or become successful in my country, I am not going to rate. It is also onerous trying to talk openly and clearly with a lot of Latinos about these things. Most of them are just cowards and will run away and find another sandbox to do their business in. Others will get emotional, nasty, upset and ugly. Real drama queens. But to get any of those people to own up, to admit that they are wrong, or to apologize? I really like Canadians better. A lot better, and no I am not a racist, regardless of what all the angry people from the Black Lives Matter movement would like to scream in our faces, about being Caucasian making us genetically flawed hating mouth breathers. Here in Canada, a lot of us anyway, are owning up to our racism and prejudice. We are not perfect. We still make mistakes, and we own up to them and try to do and be better. Unfortunately we also have the naïve expectation that everyone else in the world, especially those whom we welcome into our country are going to be every bit as generous, benevolent and tolerant and accepting of diversity as we are. And, very rightly, we still welcome the rest of the world to share with us our blessings and our largess. But getting others to clue in that it's a two way street? We have our work cut out for us.

Surviving The Fall, 13

The hardest thing, I find, about maintaining lasting relationships with others is that there seem to be so few people who are interested, motivated and committed to seeing things through over the long term, so corrupted we have become by this culture of convenience. This happens in families. It happened in my own family, and I ended up cast away by a father and brother who didn't love me (this happened after the death of my mother) as well as uncles aunts and cousins who simply couldn't give a shit. This has been for me a major motivating factor in trying to stick with people for the long run. It isn't to compensate for my lack of family but to try to create something healthy and stable as a bulwark against a death culture that values not persons but things that function to help generate wealth and diversion. I have heard others say that for them, if they decide they don't really enjoy someone's company, will simply bail on them, go their own way and make new friends, who likely will also outlive their best-before date and then on the go leaving others behind for the next diversion. These are not real relationships. This is pure consumerist selfish behaviour. This anti-communitarian behaviour and it falls right into the gaping maw of capitalism, because capitalism places zero value on anything but generating wealth and maintaining their brand. But human beings are not brands. And this isn't to say that you stick it out in an abusive or toxic relationship. Some things have to end for the life and safety of the vulnerable, some things need to be placed on hold, and some limbs become so gangrenous that they have to be amputated. I have a number of friendships that seem to be in suspended animation. They could restart in the future, and I try to remain open to this possibility, no matter how annoyed I get at the others' indifference or passive-aggressive contempt towards me. There are those who have said goodbye forever. This is sad, and must be respected, but as a Christian I am still committed to the friendships eventually renewing should they turn around and say, yes, let's try again. Much also depends on what quality or intensity of friendship can be reasonably sustained. I think it is possible to have perhaps a half dozen close friends, with a mutual commitment of sustaining the friendship and of being there for each other. But beyond a half dozen? I think it would be psychologically difficult and emotionally draining. But at least to stay open and to keep the doors open, always with the exception to those who pose a real and present danger to your life, safety, psychological wellbeing, which can also be used very broadly and loosely as a weapon of manipulation, so caveat emptor! For me, the current challenge is to not get bogged down in petty grudges, which can easily build up with some people, especially if they are particularly self-involved and apparently unwilling or unable to appreciate how their actions are affecting others. And there are many of us who are like that. I am sometimes guilty as charged. But my plea, my appeal, to all of you, my Gentle Reader, is this: that we really start to re-examine, reframe and reconsider friendship. Not as bromance or sisters for ever, but in terms of the long term good we need to become for each other and the community. No one is an island, and neither is any healthy friendship. We are all connected and we all affect and impact one another. Can we come to view friendship as a kind of healthy contagion. Yes, there will always be those who are closer, who are more trusted, who are worthier of our time and attention. But we need to expand beyond our personal borders, while doing our due diligence (pardon the alliteration!) to maintain firm and committed relationships with one another, outside of the usual bounds of family and romance, and by extension to draw others into the circle. Yes, we are busy, there are limits to our time and energy, but if we really value others as something more than their utility and our convenience and enjoyment, then we will also be able to make the necessary trade-offs to facilitate real, authentic community. We just might have to spend less time on our phones and laptops, but that is ersatz community. We need to learn again to value face to face contact in long term friendships and efforts towards community. If we re going to successfully resist this ongoing toxic tsunami of mass consumer capitalism, and the whole climate of fear and distrust that is being enabled by this mentality of individualism, then we are going to have to start trying a little bit harder. It's work, but trust me when I say this, because I have experience here: it is worth it.

Surviving The Fall, 12

We need to rediscover not only friendship, but community. Not online community. We all spend way too much time with our phones and in front of screens already. We need to engage, in person, with one another. This is what we are designed to be. We are not destined to evolve into cyborgs. This is science fiction seizing hold of the popular scientific imagination and fiction becoming dreadfully confused with fact. We are not machines, but flesh, blood and bone. We are not above nature, nor apart from nature. We are part of nature. We are born through sexual conception, carried inside our mother's wombs for nine months, then emerge as helpless, crying little infants into a world where we will only survive with the care of our parents. Even as we go through the stages of life, through childhood and adolescence into young adulthood, and acquire spouses and have children while participating in this world and while living on this earth we are part of, we are part of nature. We need human contact, touch, to hear human voices, to smell one another (though sometimes it would be better not to!) And we don't have to go as far as dogs, even if we ourselves happen to be animals. There will never be a protocol for sniffing each other's bums (thank God for that), but we really need to start pushing against technology, at least when it comes to honouring and validating our primal human need to connect with one another, in person. Yes, social media and emails can do wonders for helping us connect, but we still have to do the actual work of putting down our phones or getting away from our precious screens and actually going out to meet one another, or invite one another into our homes. This is something that is never going to change because this is part of the essential human. We are tribal, we are communal, social, tactile and sensual. All those need to be factored in for a healthy and sustainable form of human interaction that forms community and is formed and sustained by community. But now comes the elephant in the room. How can healthy community be made possible in a society and an economy that is so anti-community, which is to say consumer-capitalist, idolizing the individual, the self, and the right to buy, acquire and consume and downgrading all human interactions as consumerist transactions completely void of love, respect, caring and nurturing. We do have our work cut out for us. This is why I greet and talk with strangers, and why I try to employ humour wherever possible, and as sensitively as possible when I`m out among others. It doesn`t always work, and I sometimes completely lose my sense of humour while coping with all the dumbass self-absorbed narcissists surrounding me, and this too is going to be inevitable given how alienated this consumer-capitalist ethos has made us. I have no magic bullet to provide or suggest, simply that we keep getting out there. How do I do it? I make a virtue out of necessity. I can't afford a smart phone, so I have to pay attention to the people around me. I can't afford a car, and even if I could, I probably still wouldn't own one. This means that I have to be out among strangers on the bus when I have to ride it (I would rather walk!), but it keeps me in contact with people I wouldn't ordinarily be in contact with. And I say hi to strangers on my walks, not always, but as it feels appropriate. I also have friends, and make an effort to nurture my friendships, even if some of my friends are self-absorbed doofuses who need to be reminded two or three times a year that I haven't died yet. It is about caring, and actively caring. And I have every reason to believe that I am also positively influencing others. This is inevitable. We all have on one another this kind of impact. So, Gentle Reader, get your head out of your ass, get yourself outside and out of your comfort zone and start interacting. I'm sure you're not that pathetic.

Surviving The Fall, 11

Given how unstable things are becoming, globally nd locally, and how fraught our lives have become with stress, anxiety and uncertainty, one can only imagine the toll that is taken on our friendships and other close relationships. There is cruel irony here, because during these times when we most need others are those very vectors of stress, fear and panic that drive people apart. I recall how badly impacted some of my friendships became when I was hospitalized three years ago during a multiple health breakdown. After that, I lost some of the very friends who visited me in hospital, three to be exact, and other friendships were put under stress as well. It was as though they couldn't handle seeing me vulnerable and this in time caused the friendships to implode. Some friends. But this also brings to mind how shallow a lot of people are, and how so self-involved that any indication that they might reciprocate the love is taken as an offence and they slink away to their little holes. We are living in an era where we need one another more than ever. We are also, it seems, less equipped than ever to sustain healthy and life-giving relationships with one another. I partly blame this on our consumerist mentality towards everything, including friendship. Somehow, what we get out of the friendship becomes more important than the person we are friends with, and as an awkward excuse to cover the fact that we are simply shallow and bored, we simply say, well, we've grown apart, have different interests now, but there's still Facebook, eh? Some friendships are resilient, but I think this really depends on how much the two friends value each other and in this culture of consumer relationships, everything is going to have a shelf life. We live in very different times now. First of all, the word friend has been really cheapened and debased thanks to, of course, Facebook. I would also imagine that the whole fleeting character of marriages and family relationships has also had its influence. My parents, for example, couldn't stay married. Mom was bored and chronically annoyed with her dull husband who had to go out and cheat with floozies. They both behaved like consumers in their marriage. Great role-modeling. I was not good for my brother's developing branding of cool and so I was ostracised and also beaten, often savagely by him, whenever he felt annoyed with me, and this was an almost daily event. I am not the only one who has had it bad, and others have had it far worse than me. But now, having survived many friendships, most very toxic, I have been taking a different approach. I understand more than before how much we need ballast, not just me with my obvious lack of family, but almost everyone I meet. There is such a lack of stability in people's lives, and I am intentionally cultivating relationships that can provide a kind of bulwark. I no longer easily let people drift away. Yes, I accept that we can't always be together, that we are often going to find ourselves in different orbits, but if things go on like this for too long, say, for up to a year, then I renew contact, and you know something, Gentle Reader? People often do want to come back and reconnect. It can be awkward. Sometimes there's guilt and a bit of shame for not being in contact, for not being supportive, but really, it's more about being a friend than having a friend, right? And it's about establishing and sustaining community. In our primeval hunter-gatherer days, lifelong kinships were forged and essential to the survival of the clan. We have long ago lost this sense of necessity, but we are still lacking if we cannot maintain with others a sense of sustained community, and this is a circle that must be always widening.

Surviving The Fall, 10

I was having coffee with a friend the other day, Friday (well, he was having tea, and I was drinking decaf, since it was getting late in the day) but the word resilience came up once or twice in our conversation. For me a very relevant and powerful word, as this is one quality that really seems to define me. I wasn't always resilient, mind you, and there was a period where I let everything slip for a while, and became homeless. I was in a state of despair, I believe. I could no longer survive at my occupation, home support work, for the simple reason that there were no longer enough hours to pay the rent on and my employers, cowing to their corporate bosses, had nothing but excuses to offer. So, after six years of clustering indignities, I left. Without any other employment to transition to. I was not eligible for unemployment insurance, because the criteria had been tightened and restricted over the years, and I was already traumatized from previous experience on welfare and didn't want to go back there. I was not thinking properly. I was still processing the six years of my usually nightmarish experiences of Christian community and street ministry, and there just wasn't anyone around interested in helping me transition back into ordinary life. The church I had been connected to was generally hostile towards me, as they really hated our community and ministry, and I had few friends, and no one who seemed able or interested in helping me get through this. I tried to trust god for my provision, since I really had no sense of vocational direction, and felt completely unqualified and unable to do even basic labour. The loss of my community had been very traumatic for me. And no one, not even I, seemed to know this. I somehow got by for the next year. My father helped me with some of my rent, as did a couple of friends. There were art sales, but never quite enough. Eventually I was evicted for not having rent. My father in another town, and my friends in Vancouver, all took turns sheltering me in their homes for almost a year. I continued to paint and sold some of my work. I also did some housecleaning. There were certain things that I was not willing to let go of: 1. my ability to work with the materials and resources at hand; 2. my personal care and hygiene; 3. certain valuable books (I just carried them with me in my duffle bag; 4. my personal dignity. Which is to say, that I was determined not to become street homeless, to not end up sleeping out on the sidewalk or in a homeless shelter. I somehow got through this, and I think that my obstinate refusal to compromise on certain personal standards helped me get through. I was able to bounce back, even when I wasn't able to. And there were always those last minute, eleventh hour rescues, and they happened with such frequency and with such regularity, that I have to give credit where credit is due. It was the hand of God helping, guiding and protecting me all the way through that labyrinth. He did not prevent me from becoming homeless, and really I have only myself to blame for that. But he did create the circumstances and conditions where I could learn some lessons and extract the maximum good from my situation before moving on into recovering a sense of a rewarding and responsible life. I have no idea why I am so resilient. In my work with people with mental health issues, addictions and housing challenges, I have long wondered, why them and not me? This is an answer I still have no answer for and I can only think of those familiar old words, there but for the grace of God go you and I.

Surviving The Fall, 9

Gentle Reader, I have done a huge declutter in my little subsidized apartment and the only bit of detritus I still have to sort through is my journals, all handwritten in at least a couple of dozen notebooks and writing pads. I am transcribing a lot of them onto Word on my computer and they are certainly providing a window onto some rather challenging periods in my life. Here is one of my entries, written about sixteen years ago, in June, 2002, when I was a tender 46 years old. I was on social assistance and had been living since March the same year in social housing. I was just a month and days from moving to where I am living now. In these writings I have been reexamining my two months in Europe in 1991, just on the heels of my mother's death, and also about my complex relationship with my family. Here it is: "I have just been reading my journal entries from my time in Europe. These are my findings: a vulnerable, insecure person, emotionally immature, and quite self-involved, but simultaneously aware of the people around him. A person with a strong faith and genuine humility and integrity. What particularly stands out is my desire to serve God, to be real and totally transparent. I was very needy emotionally, and I think a bit unstable. A gentle, caring and loving person. Somewhat pretentious, and pompous. And vulnerable. So vulnerable. Honest and open, Acutely aware of those around me. I think, much as I am now, but a bit maturer, a little wiser where people are concerned. And somewhat burnt-out. What has changed the most is entering a vocation as a visual artist, and learning to speak Spanish fluently. I am more political now, and much more aware of global socio-economic realities and how they connect to my personal life. I’m particularly unconcerned about the approval and good opinion of others. I’m a lot more cautious with people than I used to be. I am much older now. Wisdom? Perhaps. I don’t think that I’m as self consciously Christian as I used to be. God is everywhere, and totally, if implicitly, present for me. This is a matter of knowing. The sense that I would much rather speak to God than about Him, that I would rather be with Him than theorize about Him. I try to be a lot more careful now with my words. I have been on social assistance for more than three years now. The realities of my age, lack of training and consistent work experience has converged with the harsh realities of the new job market. Add to this burnout from everything I have just lived through and survived over the last two decades and I think you have here a good prospect for disability. At least my paintings sell, even though it still isn’t enough to live on. I am much happier alone now. It’s taken a while to get here. At times I am still vulnerable to others’ neediness, but I seem to shake those people off a lot better than I used to. Besides, no one can really offer me anything that I haven’t already got. People are very limited, particularly in what one can do or be for others. Human interactions are always interesting. Like today when D put her foot in her mouth again (I don’t think she’s aware of how often). And I overreacted. I know that I do this often. I didn’t like having to snap at her, but it seemed the only effective way of dealing with the situation. She’s a dear soul, but clumsy. I dropped in unannounced with the Globe and Mail. The deal is, if she’s busy, or doesn’t want to visit, then I leave. Her friend, L, was there, another artist. So, she introduced us as artists. Fine. But, then, as I was borrowing her phone to check for messages she went a step further, telling L that I have the DERA voice mail. I abruptly said, “I will give that information.” I could see the embarrassment on D’s face, because she knew she’d overstepped. And I felt bad about it. But I also know that had I let it go, I’d have felt worse and it would have gnawed at me the rest of the day." D was one of the members of my Christian community. After we disbanded, she moved into a social housing apartment attached to her church and I lived in a building connected to the same church but a block away. She was the same age of my father, and died about eight years ago. If the situation of being outed as a poor person needing the services of the DERA voice mail (I still have this voice mail) were to happen to day, I certainly would have handled things differently. I likely would smile, make a joke of it, and say, now your friend is going to know beyond any shadow of a doubt that I am a poor, marginalized loser! and laugh, and get them laughing. I also still read the Globe and Mail, but only on weekends. It is huge and expensive. Otherwise I feel little resemblance to the person I was sixteen years ago, though of course I am the same person. I just feel stronger and better about things, is all, and feel a lot freer from the kind of baggage I was then writing about. Maybe the wisdom of age? Let's hope so!

Surviving The Fall, 8

It`s hard knowing what a reasonable expectation should be, at times. I had a couple of friends, now ex-friends, who used to chime the same tired old cliché (which will give you a clue as to why they are ex-friends. And one of them is also dead, now). Don`t expect a perfect (fill in the blank), because we`re all human and we all make mistakes. So, don`t expect a perfect spouse, partner, job, church, family, neighbourhood, home, country, prime minister (though he would beg to differ, I`m sure!), humanity, world... The chronically, perpetually, and permanently single (such as myself) are often accused of being picky, of wanting only the perfect mate, for example. However, not all of us are meant to be married or partnered. Some of us recognize being single as a valid and legitimate calling or lifestyle choice. Then there are those of us who simply don`t want to have to live through what would be a never-ending mini-series of nightmares, having to make one compromise after another with idiots who can never be pleased, who could be even abusive and murderous, if not just emotionally dangerous to want to live with. And this can be adapted to many other situations that involve coping with the hell that is other people. Nobody is perfect, this is true. So, when does this generous bit of wisdom get taken a bit too far, to the point of justifying, or at least merely excusing the extremes of abuse that some can take things to. Hitler and Pol Pot, after all, were only human. So was Stalin. So was Chairman Mao. As was Jack the Ripper, and need I say more? Part of not drowning in this morass of impending crisis and a huge global Armageddon of unparalleled human stupidity, for me anyway, involves living in balance, and this also implies balancing between maintaining reasonable expectations and accepting the sordid and inalterable realities. I will forgo any situation or friendship that is likely to spiral down into abuse and destruction. some people have a natural survival instinct and this helps rescue them from marriage hell. They also seem remarkably resilient and able to enjoy their solitude. By the way, I did mention during my blog from Costa Rica a chat I had with a rather barmy French-Canadian woman of a certain age who was staying in my bed and breakfast. She really felt sorry for me for being single and tried to buffer it a bit by assuring me that even single people can be as happy as married people. My reply? And some of us are even happier!

Surviving The Fall, 7

Sometimes, Gentle Reader, just coping in the workplace is all one can do for keeping one`s head above water and still attached to the rest of one`s body. I have complained randomly and bitterly about my awful employer, which is our public health care system and their complete disregard to the dignity of their peer support workers and other contractors. This month we have been given our first wage increase in over eight years. I suppose I should feel grateful, and in a way, I am. It is only two dollars an hour above what we have been making, but for me this could easily translate into an extra two thousand a year and given my low income, that is still nothing to sneeze at. On the other hand they are doing this with a minimum of fanfare and I think with good reason. Next month, in my province, the minimum wage goes up from 11.35 to 12.60 an hour. Which is to say that after this month, barring a compulsory pay hike, we would be making sixty cents less than the new minimum wage. Which is also to say that our employer had to wait till they were under duress from the government, till they had a gun to their head, before they would finally budge and raise our wages a little. So now, instead of earning sixty-five cents above the minimum we are going to get a whopping dollar forty! Wow! Still not a living wage, but for my employer to pay us a living wage that would mean having to, on paper anyway, declare that they actually respect their mental health peer support workers, that they do not stigmatize us, that they do not look down their fine thin nostrils at us as damaged goods that ought to be grateful that we could even clean their toilets for them (which, thank heavens, is not one of our professional duties) I retire in less than three years. I will never know the privilege of working for a living wage. This has never happened for me, ever in my working life. Working hard for a living is one thing, if there can be even a reasonable expectation of fair remuneration. But when you, like me and like many other Canadians, have been left stranded through no fault of our own in low-paying employment that really limits and restricts our life expectations, and even our life expectancy, then we are touching on the scandalous. And that our public health care provider, whose first interest in their employees and contractors should be in helping assure and secure their health and wellbeing, should with a gun to their heads just give us an extra two lousy bucks an hour and we should be grateful for it, that is just obscene! I am not going to go on whining, for the simple reason that it`s bad for my skin. I also have much to be grateful for. Living in BC Housing guarantees me a lifetime of cheap and affordable rent. I can still go on vacations. Even after paying off Revenue Canada the almost sixteen hundred bucks they are wanting from me this year. Most of this is CPP (Canada Pension Plan) contribution. Because I am a contractor, my employer is off the hook for paying half of my contributions. Which is to say, they are already saving money on our backs and they can afford to pay us decently. But enough for now. Even if the world could be on its way out, I will still combat my whining with gratitude, and just be thankful that I have a roof over my head and meaningful, if badly paid, employment.

Surviving The Fall, 6

There appears to be an unfortunate tend in academic thinking these days, largely thanks to the extreme postmodernism in the university curriculums for the humanities and social sciences. Basically, they are teaching that we are completely the result of our social environment and our genetics. That personal choice, free will play not an iota of a role in forming who we are. That of course is a complete one eighty from the belief of my parents' generation, of the self-made man (or woman) and that we all made choices and that those choices determined our outcome. This I believe to be a splendid example of how limiting the lens of the era can be when we are seeing through it, along with our blinding ignorance that insists that this has always been the only valid way to see things. The sad irony is that we are all completely blind to the biases of our era, or more or less, though some of us are aware of these things and their prophetic voices are generally shouted down, silenced or ignored. Indeed, it can be supremely difficult to effectively distance oneself from the thinking of the day, because the influence pervades and seeps in like rancid tenement cooking odours into every room and every nook and cranny of our being. I am reminded of a very critical time in my life when I was twenty-three and I made a conscious decision to limit, or entirely cut off all the influences of American pop culture in my life and way of thinking. So, I did not have a TV. Neither did I listen to pop radio. Those were the Halcyon Days of nonstop classical music on tap courtesy of CBC Radio 2, then known as CBC Stereo. The newscasts were brief and succinct, and the radio hosts fully knowledgeable, well-versed and cultured. There were always educated commentaries on famous composers and the times they lived in and the historical, cultural and political dynamics and fallout of their lives and times. I knew next to nothing about movies stars or pop stars, and I didn't want to. This was my lovely little culture bubble. I read voraciously, great works of nineteenth and twentieth century literature. I studied the writings of Carl Jung. I explored art and painting. I lived in a spiritually rarified state, developing my ministry to marginalized persons while coping with the equally insular and rarified high Anglican church I was part of, where almost everyone, like me, had their radio permanently set at CBC Radio Two, and who, like me, religiously read the Globe and Mail (though Canada's national newspaper still hasn't been integrated into the liturgy!) Even though my life felt socially isolated, I have no regret about any of the steps I have taken. The whole American garbage bin of pop culture has largely passed me by. Instead of sitting on my butt in front of the TV or more recently in front of Net Flicks, I go outside and walk everywhere. I also am careful to be a friend to others, and this approach has won me some very close and enduring friendships with very good people. Most important, I know that there is no one doing my thinking for me. I have cultivated the means sand resources for learning how to make careful informed and intelligent decisions, especially by keeping a healthy distance from the huge garbage can that we are forced to live in. am I influenced by my environment? Yes. Am I influenced by my genes and upbringing? Yes. By my generation and era? Yes. By the current era I am living in? Yes. But I am also arbiter over to what extent I am influenced, and I am the one in charge of mixing, matching and discarding, and I am the one who decides the direction that I am going to grow in. It is very sad, that so few people will do this. It takes work, it takes effort, and it can be very costly and socially isolating. For some reason, in many workplaces, it is unforgiveable to not know or be able to effectively expound about what everyone is seeing on TV, or has posted on Facebook. I am saying that not only is it possible to have a viable life without those props. In order to have a viable life to live and flourish in, it is usually highly necessary not to have those kinds of props. We need badly to not only recover our sense of choice and free will in defining who we are, but to also rediscover the priceless resources of our culture, heritage, and of everything that the diverse and incredibly rich cultures of the world, as well as aboriginal cultures, can also teach us. Just don't worry about cultural appropriation. Get out and learn. Travel. Read good literature and prestigious journalism. Spend more time outside. Observe nature. Enjoy God's creation, of which you are part. And don't let anyone do your thinking for you.

Surviving The Fall, 5

Gentle Reader, one of the biggest challenges that often faces me is the importance of maintaining that delicate balance between integrity and necessity. Sometimes, the best way to keep your head above water is to go with the current. Other times, that will be the quickest route to death by drowning. Our taxation system and its impact on low income Canadians is such a challenge. I just received horrible news from the Canada Revenue Agency that I owe them a very large sum this year. Now, I am not going to disclose my annual income on these pages as that is the Eighth Deadly Sin: Thou shalt not tell others how much money thou dost earn. Or something like that. Well, I've basically broken this rule over and over again, so I will give you a ballpark figure. I have never earned as much as twenty thousand dollars in a year, and often significantly less. This year, the government wants for me well in excess of a thousand, and most of this is for Canada Pension contributions, as I am a contractor, making it my responsibility to pay up every year. This is onerous and it is of course unfair. When you consider all the tax breaks and loopholes for high income earners, it seems like absolute mean-spirited sadism and cruelty for our government to go after its poorest citizens to pay up. There are things that I need in my apartment that I keep having to put off, because I can't spare the funds: a couple of new chairs, a new bedspread, and a new rug, for instance. One of my chairs has become rather wobbly and unsafe, another has lost a leg and is propped up by phone books. My bedspread has a saucer-sized hole worn into it, and the only way I can disguise it is by covering it with a folded blanket. My rug has several holes worn in it and I am able to disguise it by turning it around and covering it with strategically positioned furniture. I also need a proper desk, one with drawers. None of these extravagances are in my purview, and now that the government must have their pound of flesh, this is even less likely. Fortunately, my place still looks decent and presentable, even though knowing the flaws makes me feel somewhat deceitful for covering and disguising. I of course overreacted, panicked and became toxically angry when I got my notice of assessment, and this has totally wrecked my sleep (for all you mouth breathers who want to tell me to just put it out of my mind and get over it, please just drop on your pointed little head and swivel. I am a trauma survivor and stuff that you can drown out of existence with craft beer and pot aren't that easy for some of us to just shake off, and unlike you I don't have a substance dependency!) Back to my tax bill. I have decided that I`m going to pay up. In full. And for a couple of reasons. First of all, I can afford it. I have enough in my savings account to easily cover another month long vacation in Costa Rica next year, after tax expenses. My bottom line is going to be okay. I still might have to live a little more frugally than usual, but I'm pretty good at this already. I also had a financial head start, bringing back from my vacation two months ago more than $1200, which I have been living on since coming home, and waiting as my work earnings pile up in my chequing account. I was also gifted with a large quantity of Costa Rican coffee, and I am spending less in other sectors. I'll be okay. I also want to pay my share, having done rather well over the years on the public largess. Now I can start giving back. My other motive? To shame those whining rich multi-million dollar home owners in my city who are screaming and crying that they are now expected to pay a measly extra .2 percent on housing value that is above three million dollars, and that is only on the difference after three million, and .4 percent on the difference after four million. From the angry and self-pitying signs on some of the front lawns I saw yesterday while walking in one of those neighbourhoods, one would imagine that next week they are going to have to stand in line at the food bank! And please don't bore me with that drivel that they worked hard for their lovely homes and lovely high incomes. I have also had to work hard all my life, like every other low income Canadian, but not everyone gets to cash in on their efforts, so maybe spare a thought for those of us who work hard and stay poor. There are more people like me in this country than our government would like to admit. Am I going to suffer from this expenditure. Maybe a bit, but I still have everything I need, and I still get a holiday thrown in. Better off folk can look down their pitying, sneering noses all they want, but I have something that they don't, and I can suggest one of many words to describe what I have that they are lacking: integrity.