Life As Performance Art 179

I tend to shy away from trying to solve all the world's problems, even if I try to come forth with some of my own brilliant ideas from time to time. But it's really all too complex, I am one person, and only one person, with almost no influence, and poor single persons of a certain age living in social housing, like me, are always going to live at the bottom of the hierarchy and we are going to be treated by almost everyone else like those who live at the very bottom and we will be always regarded as such. I write this blog in the hope that at least someone who has even just a little more influence than I will take just enough interest in what I am writing, will come to recognize my unmatched brilliance and originality of thought, get a lovely aha moment with my deft turns of phrase, and perhaps could bring my written brilliance (or tiresome screed) to the attention of others who might have even just a little more influence, or at least that their own thinking and way of seeing things will be so tweaked or inspired or challenged that maybe this will help send them in a certain direction of life that will be both redemptive and impactful to themselves, people in their circles, and maybe even in this world. Or maybe it will just give them something to laugh about. Better than nothing, I suppose, since this world could often use all the laughter it can get. I can only hope, Gentle Reader. On the other hand, there are also the daily annoyances that can make life a constant slalom. For example, the elephant who lives on my ceiling. All apartment dwellers who are not blessed with living in a penthouse or in a top floor unit have to cope with rampaging elephants that walk, run, dance, skip, stampede and jump up and down in erotic joy and unfettered delight every single day on top of our apartment and condo ceilings. This one decided to get frisky at six this morning and she has been a constant irritant for years. There is also the fledgling seagull with its rusty hinge squeal, a chronic constant and nagging squeal at its poor tired parent birds to keep feeding it, and he lands on the roof or ledge of the building next door (which has a lovely selection of problem tenants) where he squeals and squeals and squeals day and night and this is one of the many sounds of autumn in Vancouver. If there is ever a case for a truly ugly bird, it is going to be the fledgling seagull, mottled brown, fat and squat, with none of the grace or legendary elegance that it will eventually grow into over the next year or two. If ever I find myself forgetting that I am a vegetarian, if ever I would love to have a shotgun handy, Gentle Reader....Ah, the sounds of nature! but these are such as the trivial quotidinal annoyances that we all have to live with, while wishing, or presuming that we could solve all the problems of the world. Because this is not just the voice of the powerless, but the voice of powerlessness itself. We can scarcely solve our own daily annoying little problems and yet with a couple of shots of caffeine in a nice little coffee shop, or worse, a Starbucks, or even more abominable, in a Tim Hortons or a Mcdonalds we can sit around all morning with our coffee shop friends, as if we are high ranking elected government officials solving all the problems in our community, our city, the province, the nation, the world. We ought to be working for the UN. We ought to be running the UN! If this is how retirement is going to look for me, sitting around all morning in coffee shops with other old farts carping and postulating as though all the world is hanging on our every inspired word and utterance, then, I don't know what I am going to do. Maybe just keep writing this dreck and otherwise shut up, go for long walks, keep making friends with nice neighbourhood cats and dogs and practice my Spanish with the squirrels and the crows. Here is my idea de jour for solving the problems of my nation. This is an idea for restructuring government in a way that no single party can enforce its agenda on the seventy percent of Canadians that neither voted for them, never would vote for them, nor want them in power. How about limiting partisan politics only to the election of MP's or Members of Parliament. They can go on representing their electoral districts to their hearts' content, but they will not, nor should be allowed to make or set or enforce public policy. For the most part, they are politicians, and usually only qualified to be politicians, because that is all they are good at, and should not be permitted to come anywhere near the portfolios of economics, housing, health, the environment, justice, etc. It is the way the prime minister and his cabinet are selected that is problematic. When we had a Harper Conservative majority for most of ten years, the seventy percent of Canadians who could not stand him or his government or policies had to cope while his hand-picked cabinet ministers basically set this country back decades. And no one could do anything to stop him. It's been somewhat better under Junior and his Liberals, but his arrogance, his spoilt white rich boy privilege, and lack of ethics have been problematic. So, here's my brilliant idea, Gentle Reader: let's do federal voting more or less the way we do city and municipal. That's right. In every city council you have often councillors of diverse political stripes and philosophies and ideologies having to work together, especially in a City Hall so politically diverse as the current administration here in Vancouver. The prime minister should be independent, nonpartisan, and voted for specifically and individually by the electors. Likewise, each cabinet portfolio should only be filled by a candidate who is independent, nonpartisan and carries all the skills, the CV and the resume and related experience, education and professional expertise that would make them the ideal pick for said position. And each cabinet minister would have to be elected, like the prime minister, by the people. I think this kind of reform would do much to break the stranglehold hegemony of majority governments elected by a minority of voters. Worth a try?

Life As Performance Art 178

Friday, two days ago more than eighty thousand people, mostly young, many of them still children, converged in one of the many global demonstrations against climate change that were happening around the world that day. I am sitting this one out. As I said to a friendly bus passenger who wanted to chat while we were waiting to leave, I completely agree with and support the protesters, even if I don't share in the despair of the younger ones, but I am tired. I have done activism all my life, and I am happy to pass on the torch to younger and stronger hands. Though I cannot help but agree that the situation is dire I have hope and I strongly believe that we will get through this, not unscathed, but hopefully we will come out of this wiser, humbler and more apt to work in cooperation and harmony with the rest of nature and with one another. This is not the end of our planet, nor of our humanity. But our collective ass is going to get kicked and we are going to get kicked rather hard this time. There was, yesterday, in Toronto another, fortunately much smaller and very toxic form of protest. A gang of fundamentalist Christians had intended to converge on the local gay village, with placards and bullhorns, protesting for their own human rights, especially their presumed right to hate speech. Uh-huh. People who don't really know the Bible very well, though they presume to read it and study it, er, religiously, and even less do they appear to know the Jesus of the Gospels that they claim to know so well. I don't think they know him at all. And what if a gang of militant LGBT activists walked into one of their church services, with placards and bullhorns? Oh, but it is the same thing, Gentle Reader. As you know, my seasoned readers, anyway, I am a Christian. And I am totally ashamed and embarrassed that those whack-jobs still parade around with their Bible based hate speech making life difficult for others and constantly disgracing the name of the Saviour they presume to serve. I spent many years in ministry of presence in the gay and street communities. I remember clearly the call from God, and this came to me in a vision, while I was kneeling on the stone floor of the chapel at St. James Anglican Church in 1983. It was just following a Tuesday evening mass, and I sensed very strongly the presence of God. Then I saw a vision of a newborn baby lying on the ground in its mother's blood, the umbilical cord still attached. I sensed the words that God was calling me to walk and live among my gay brothers and sisters, to serve and love, and respect, and learn from them, without judgment, and only to serve and to love, to not judge, not criticize, not take any positions, but to also not to get sexuaslly involved with anyone, as this was a call of ministry and service. I was also going to be on a steep learning curve. I especially had to evolve out of my then righteous opposition to gay marriage, and it was through my growing friendships with the many kind and welcoming queer people, transpeople, and single gays and lesbians and gays and lesbians in couples I came to know that I came eventually to grow out of the systemic homophobia for which my religious faith has been notorious. I have other reasons for no longer wanting to participate in demonstrations. Primarily it is the us versus them, black hats versus white hats, four legs good two legs bad kind of mentality that often contaminates the protests that I have grown weary of. I try to remember that, even if I vehemently disagree with the other side, the other side is also made up of frail and imperfect and wounded persons, every bit as wounded as the people on my side, and this must never be forgotten. Life is full of nuance and nuance is so often missed in our zeal to make ourselves heard and persuade ourselves as well as others of the rightness of our cause. It is not black and white. It isn't even shades of grey. It is a matter of learning to see all the diverse and myriad colours that surround us.

Life As Performance Art 177

This is about dogs, Gentle Reader. Not about my love of dogs. I merely tolerate them, sometimes like them. I have not succumbed to the frenzy of dog-mania that seems to have swept our city, our country, and I have also noticed, other countries and cities, such as Mexico City, and Bogotá, Colombia, for example. where everyone would rather feel unconditionally loved by a four-legged animal that is going to be like having a permanent two year old child to have to care for and clean up after for the rest of its life, rather than have to endure the challenges of interacting with other humans. I prefer cats. (Yeah, you're not surprised, eh?). If having a dog is like raising a permanent toddler, then a cat would be more like a permanent teenager. I don't hate dogs, not any more. I did for a while, but only after surviving one threat after another, near-attacks and the occasional bite. After a while, one is not going to harbour much fondness for beings that tend to hate and threaten and try to harm. I also heard all the lame and blaming excuses from others, barmy and rather brainless dog-lovers (why do extreme dog overs always seem to hate, loathe and fear cats?). I was told that it was my fault, I'm afraid of dogs, they smell fear, therefore they are going to attack me. Which doesn't explain the many other friendly, warm, affectionate and loving dogs I have also been privileged to know. And fortunately, none of those shamers and blamers are any longer friends of mine. Their judgment of my problems with dogs were merely symptoms and manifestations of a lot of other problems they seemed to carry, and refuse to reckon with, and now that I am rid of those people, I am also quite free from their many other neuroses (including their irrational fear, loathing and hatred of cats!). It also turns out that the problem was never me to begin with, but with all the badly trained, poorly socialized dogs that used to run around free because their owners didn't care enough to keep them inside or at least confined to their property. There was a time, until the last twenty years or so, when dogs were allowed to run around loose in many neighbourhoods, often harassing and sometimes terrorizing people. I have had thousands of such encounters in the past with random untrained dogs and it hasn't been pretty. Even nowadays there are dog owners still too dumb or too arrogant to keep their cur on a leash, which is just as unsafe for the dog as it is for others. There are documented accounts of dogs off leash recently ending up in a marauding coyote's stomach. Badly trained dogs can also be very unfriendly dogs, and will treat anyone who isn't part of their pack, human or otherwise, as a threat. It is doggy instinct, and in such encounters I have sometimes narrowly escaped from being severely mauled and bitten. I am not blaming the dogs, by the way, they are just dumb animals, but I often think their humans are even dumber. It was my father who, when I was a child, taught me how to deal with an aggressive dog. He told me to never run away, but to stand my ground and speak to the dog in an authoritative voice. Then came the test. In our neighbourhood there was first a loose aggressive German shepherd who tried to threaten and corner me. I stood my ground, though at the age of ten, I was also shaking in my booties. But it worked. When the dog saw that it could not intimidate me or get me to back off or treat me like a chew toy, it eventually got bored and backed off. Spmething similar occurred a year later with a random Doberman. Terrifying, natch, but I was not going to budge. It worked. I was set for life. This, by the way, has also become my way of dealing with obnoxious and threatening humans. Never yielding an inch. It has never failed me. Thanks, Dad.

Life As Performance Art 176

I will write whatever the fuck I want. That's what I said to my priest last week. I said it with such a sweet little smile on my face, and in a very quiet voice. She said nothing, but looked like she had just swallowed a raw oyster and had forgotten the lemon juice. She doesn't like what I write. Neither does the archbishop. I'm not always nice, you see, and people, when they see me in person, anyway, often have the mistaken notion that I am a nice person. Gentle Reader, I am proud to announce here on these pages that there isn't a nice bone in my body. And I am proud to write this. Anglicans are good at one thing in particular, and I sometimes wonder if it's all that they are good at. Being nice. And they confuse it with kindness, they confuse it with compassion and empathy, they confuse it with love. Nice doesn't cost us a bloody thing. Kindness, compassion, empathy and love are going to cost us, and they are going to cost us dear and without those virtues we are not going to be terribly persuasive as Christians. Being nice to newcomers in church is, well, nice. But it is not the same thing as feeding the poor, letting the homeless, lonely and unwelcome into your home, or seeing that justice is actually done in helping people who have been abused by the church to restore and get on with their lives. I pull no punches. And I always punch up, above my weight because I am not a bully and I certainly am not a coward. Unlike people in the church who treated me like crap, sent me into a downward spiral of nervous breakdowns and homelessness, and now what do I get? An apology from the archbishop and five hundred dollars. Nice. A little bit helpful. But still not enough, and even though she is trying to stonewall me, I am not going to let up the pressure, even if I have to go public. And I just might. I will write whatever the fuck I want. An ex-friend tried to scold me for challenging her politically correct nonsense. Too bad. I am interested in truth, not niceness. I am interested in kindness, not niceness. I am interested in justice, not niceness, I am interested in a Christian discipleship that will cost me everything including my life, not niceness. Niceness is cheap. Niceness is easy Niceness is a cheap trick whore who puts out for the lowest dollar. Notice I am not calling her them, nor a sex worker. She wears pearls, sensible walking shoes, and a tweed suit and a black leather bra underneath with crotchless panties and in her dear little carryall, underneath the packets of lavender tea are hidden her whip and leather handcuffs. And if you ask me about any of this in person, Gentle Reader, I will be, well, nice. Even if I enjoy writing this caustic dreck, Gentle Reader, I do like to get along with everyone.

Life As Performance Art 175

I am changing some of my recently engrained lifestyle habits (what a word, lifestyle. The language of privilege!), partly from expedience and necessity, partly from boredom, partly to shake things up a little. I recently wrote here about the Duchess, a rather interesting tenant in my building whom I also know as the Queen of the Laundry Room (there must be one in every social housing building!) Anyway, I had reported a bit of an altercation between us, her muttering at me for sitting on the folding counter and my simply telling her to get over it. On further reflection, I have decided to do my due diligence to avoid further conflict with this woman. I was also getting in the habit of doing laundry early Thursday morning instead of early Friday, but for the simple reason of having my full Friday (which is the first half of my forty-eight hour Saturday), free. Now, the Duchess tends to use the laundry room in the mornings, early, like me, and unlike me or other tenants, tends to really monopolize the space, being down there three days a week and using all the machines for three hours or longer. How can one person need so much laundry service? But this person can be quite disagreeable and querulous and I really want to get along with others (really, Gentle Reader! I am telling the truth, I actually do want to get along with, well, almost everybody. See? My nose hasn't grown. Not a lot, anyway!) I actually began using the laundry facilities in the small hours of the morning, maybe twelve years ago, or so, because it was getting so difficult finding laundry space in the afternoons or evenings. But then, I noticed that other tenants were getting the same idea, and eventually it got difficult finding laundry space even at five in the morning. The laundry room here has only three washers and three dryers. Not a lot for sixty tenants. Even if they are not free, unlike in other BC Housing buildings, at least they are cheap and mostly seventy-five cents a pop. Therefore, I have to do my laundry every single week, especially given that I have a social conscience and I am only going to use one machine, in order to free up the other two for other tenants. It is a shame that no one else who lives here seems to share in my altruism, (sigh!, always the role model!) and the selfish inconsideration often demonstrated in this building can at times be discouraging. I have come to notice that the laundry room appears to be more available during the afternoons. Since I have an early meeting at work today, I decided to do my laundry yesterday after work in the afternoon, instead of waiting till this morning. The Duchess also runs the store in our building and that is situated exactly between the elevator and the laundry room. So, there she was, watching over her stock and goods the way a crow watches over her stolen shiny bits, when she noticed me walking by with my bag of dirty clothes and a bottle of detergent in my hand. I was just loading the washer when she came into the laundry room, presumably to through something in the garbage there (as if she doesn't have a trash can in her precious store!), and of course she copped a glance at me. So, yes, Duchess, you are no longer going to have me around to fight with in the mornings. Poor you! I just hope that you don't decide to start sleeping in in the mornings and switching to afternoons, since I am happy to wash my clothes after work, get everything done, one hundred percent conflict free!

Life As Performance Art 174

Here, in the True North Bland and Boring we are in the early stages of a federal election campaign, and, as always, it is turning out to be annoying, ugly, negative and so full of shit that it's all beginning to resemble (and smell like) a dog park that hasn't been cleaned in months. I suppose I'm going to vote. I still don't know why I even bother, since the candidate I vote for (so far, always NDP), never gets elected and they are still considered too radical by the many conservative idiots that still make up this electorate. So much for politics. It is ugly, boring and every bit as necessary as taking a crap and properly wiping your butt after. In the meantime I am singing Should I Stay or Should I Go? about my least profitable worksite. I have been chronically underemployed there for the last eight years, and if I do leave, it will not financially hobble me between now and when my full retirement pension kicks in in just over a year. I would be using up only one third or so of the extra savings I have built up over this past year, which is actually nothing to sneeze at. In other words, I can afford to walk if that becomes my only option. I am meeting with my supervisor next week and we'll see how it goes. It's basically all about me having been recently character assassinated by several new, and very conservative, peer support workers, with her alleged or passive consent, and of course I no longer feel safe there. The supervisor, herself, is relatively new, having been there for just over two years or so. She has recently hired all those new people and appears to be stacking the place with new recruits that reflect her point of view. If she continues to be hardline with me, I'm walking. I and one other peer support worker, alone, are left from the previous administration. Others have left by attrition. One, just two months ago, our longest peer support worker who predates even me, for reasons undisclosed, was fired two months ago. (the euphemism de jour is, they would not renew her contract this time). I find myself wondering if I will be next. But it is like that in the workplace, as in politics and also in churches. When a new priest, or new prime minister, or new boss or supervisor appears, they will often want to change everything to reflect their own particular perspective and interpretation, and (dare I say!) bias and prejudice. This can often mean somehow getting rid of inconvenient incumbents and replacing us with new and loyal folk who will channel their every wish and desire and will basically dance to their tune and defend their new bosses' honour to the death, if they have to. But I have also decided to stop worrying about it, even if the stress has deprived me of an hour and a half of needed sleep, but I am taking a nap after breakfast and I have also been excused from the meeting this morning at the eponymous worksite, since the supervisor wants to talk with me about the incident before I attend another meeting, since it could be otherwise very uncomfortable for everyone, especially given that these new hires appear so quick to take offence at me. So I can rest this morning and just meet with my supervisor at a different worksite where things usually tend to go rather well. I have decided to minimize the drama, since that just ratchets up the stress. I would rather pretend that this is a B movie drama that I happen to be a bit-player in, for which reason this is just not worth taking too seriously. I am reminded of a conversation I had yesterday with some of the staff at a café I enjoy visiting. I mentioned that one of the reasons I seem to prefer drawing and painting beautiful aesthetic subjects is actually rather simple and profound. Creating beauty helps inoculate me against becoming cynical, bitter and angry as I age. I'm not always convinced that it's working, but let's just pretend that it is working, for now, anyway, Gentle Reader!

Life As Performance Art 173

It is hard getting anything done when you have never been adequately connected. Talent and ability seem to count for very little. Hard work, too. None of those elements are going to help us move forward if we are not already socially and professionally connected. Which is why a blandly handsome mediocrity such as Justin Trudeau got to be prime minister four years ago. It's all in the pedigree. If you start with nothing, then you don't necessarily end with nothing, just not with a lot. Still, my brother did better than me, a lot better, and we did have the same kind of upbringing, more or less. Of course, he was favoured by his father and was always popular in school and always had zillions of friends. Unlike me. He already had advantages that I lacked, so, I was left floundering while he went on to be a local, and very well-paid, celebrity in radio broadcasting. Me, I struggled along earning a low wage as a professional caregiver and living in a cheap basement apartment. By the way, my brother has always hated me. We haven't seen each other in twenty years and I no longer care. I don't want in my life people who despise me. The last time I saw my father, some years before he died, he admitted to me that the reason he didn't help me financially was because he was subsidizing my brother's coke addiction. Way to go, Dad! I am not surprised that you never wanted to see me after that little confession. I later found out from someone who once worked with him that my brother was every bit the cruel, sadistic and psychopathic bully towards others that I had grown up with. He actually honed his skills on me when he used to beat the shit out of me. So, no envy here, Gentle Reader. My life has always been focussed on serving God. My brother has always been totally consumed with serving himself. Another reason for my lack of success, since that is not one of the things that Jesus promises those who follow him, rather lives of suffering, poverty and rejection from others, but also lives full of joy, love and peace, so it's still a worthy tradeoff. My frustration is having a lot of paintings that I don't know what to do with. I have been roundly rejected and ignored by galleries, and I have neither the time or the energy to promote my own work. My own church isn't even interested. I asked the archbishop, since she had nothing but praise when she saw some of my work, but really turns up her nose at the idea of the diocese buying any of my paintings. Not even as a token for the way her colleagues drove me into a series of nervous breakdowns rendering me for a while unemployable and homeless. Probably, she really doesn't like my art at all, but was simply being nice about it, which is the Anglican concept of kindness. Be nice, for thy father (or divine parent) in heaven is nice. Uh-huh. It seems that I'm still on my own. Even if I have been given a token apology and a very modest payout, I still cannot trust anyone in this church. She, the archbishop, did suggest a couple of individuals, my priest and the former priest at St. Faith's, for pastoral support, but I really don't think they are capable and, besides, I don't feel that I can trust any of them, and trust is essential in a pastoral relationship. Getting a spiritual director is out of the question, too, since Anglican spiritual directors expect monetary payment for their services and this goes so contrary to the spirit and teachings of the Gospels, that I am not even going to consider this as an option. I have brought this up, by the way, and no one seems prepared to answer. Typical, eh? Neither the priest or the archbishop seem to like the way I write my blog, either, because I'm not always nice. My priest has also tried to actually tell me what I should and should not write ion these pages. I told her, too bad, I'm not changing anything. I am writing the truth and if they can't handle it, then they can just go away for all I care. I don't trust anyone in this church, and likely never will, since so far, what I have seen has been so deceptive, disappointing and wounding. I also have reason to believe that I am looked down upon because of my poverty and other crap that has stigmatized me. Oh, they would never admit any of this. That wouldn't be nice! I just go there to worship God with others and perhaps make some new friends. My priest has reassured me at least, that so far I haven't written anything litigious on these pages, which to me comes across as a veiled threat. I responded in an email, yeah, wait till the media gets hold of it, should you guys decide to take me to court. " Wealthy Christian Denomination To Sue Low Income Senior." Just the kind of optics that I'm sure the Anglican Church of Canada would love! I'm sure we will get through this eventually. They are not bad people, but I still haven't received justice for what I have suffered from this church and I am going to go on reminding them until they do something about it.

Life As Performance Art 172

It seems that there really are a lot more people out there who are willing, in fact, who are longing, to interact with a kind friendly stranger than I ever would have imagined. Oh, don't get me wrong, I am not that naive. There are still plenty of self-centred narcissistic little douchebags out there who would sacrifice their own mother for the latest model smartphone, but I still like to believe that that kind of pondscum, that waste of DNA, is still the minority and simply is not factually representative of our faltering, foundering and oh so gravely wounded humanity. I think that almost everyone, basically, is lonely. I also am aware that many of us have been so hurt, and feel so wounded by others, that it is really hard for a lot of people to actually reach out to others. Someone has to do the job. So, I have decided to give it a try. I talk to strangers, often, I just simply say hi to strangers on the street, not to everyone, because I am not crazy (well, I'm not that crazy!) and I simply don't have that kind of energy. But I try to say hi to a minimum of two people a day, random strangers, people I have never seen before, and likely never will see again, though you never know. Now I am chatting with people at the bus stop. Not all the time, but it just seems to happen now and again. Twice in three days at the same stop outside my building, for example. The first time, Friday, I was standing right by the bus sign, where the bus drivers want us, so they can see us all the better, and there was a sign of bus schedules posted wrapped around the street light, right next to me. I could feel someone right behind me. I turned around, and there was a random woman reading the bus schedules and almost walking into me. I smiled and said, it's all right, we are in Vancouver so I feel safe. She was friendly, maybe because I was smiling and joking about it, and we chatted for a while, and I also joked that at least here I don't get stalked and followed the way I was sometimes in Bogotá. Then, yesterday, Sunday morning, on my way to church, a First Nations man, possibly homeless, who said he was fifty years old, and was talking about having scored a drink this morning to help him cope better, and that he was on his way to the liquor store in Kitsilano, which is rather a pricey and coveted neighbourhood in my city, where he would spend the day panhandling. He also went into a lot of detail about why he had to finally start wearing underwear, going into rather an excess of personal information about it. Well, you never know what you are going to get while waiting for the bus on a Sunday morning. I of course also attract strangers who want to interact, and I suppose this is at least partly because I invite it. It isn't just that I'm friendly, and I'm not particularly outgoing. I think that people can often tell if you're okay, and that you are going to be decent and kind when they talk to you. And I hope that I'm a decent and kind person. I usually try to be, though not always with success and not everyone who knows me is going to be in agreement that I am either decent or kind, but you can't please everyone, eh? I only wish that we could all stay in touch with each other somehow, or maybe not. It is quite daunting, and exhausting, simply thinking of the consequences of staying in close contact with every single stranger I chat with. I don't even attend meetup groups, for crying out loud, and for the simple reason that there always seem to be one or two obnoxious idiots who end up hijacking the meetings, dominating everything and holding everyone hostage, simply because they never shut up, they are loud and have absolutely no respect of appreciation for social cues and everyone is too polite and timid to put them in their place, and if you do, then you also run the risk of alienating everyone else in the group, given how allergic so many Canadians are to assertiveness. I think the real problem is that our cities are too big, there are too many people living cheek by jowl and it is simply numbing having to cope with so many strangers throughout the day, strangers who simply would rather stare at their phones than talk to each other. But I still try with others. It is my one small personal step towards fighting against the darkness. It is all I can do for now and it is better than nothing, or at least, I really hope it is better than nothing, Gentle Reader.

Life As Performance Art 171

I have come to believe that it is a myth that a translation of an original work of literature cannot be as good or as effective as the original in its original language. It can be rather hard to get this across to some people because we have many popular myths and beliefs that are held so dear and are so cherished that they are held as popular and personal dogma, and that any light that gets thrown on them or any experience that will challenge them will be viewed as heresy, and thus one can understand a little bit better why witches and heretics used to get burned at the stake. Being fluent in another language, Spanish, I also have experience of reading various authors in both languages, only to find that I find Gabriel García Marquez equally boring in his original Spanish as in English translation, as I find Isabel Allende equally enchanting in both languages. Now, I also own that that is considered heresy not to admire the work of el Don Gabriel Marquez. I actually made that mistake, commenting online just following his death, and the blowback I got from some of his fans! I have never been so viciously, or traumatically, assaulted online in my life. But this is just an example of the power of myth. Marquez might have been an okay writer, but his awards, high visibility, hard work and whatever other stars were aligned to help his success have also impacted the minds and opinions of his reading public. He is great, not just because of his body of work, but even more so because He is Gabriel García Marquez. In my experience, I have read better writers. But this is like criticizing Tolstoy or Margaret Atwood. But I still say I have read better, much as I respect them for their success. I think this notion of the original language being the gold standard is an easy myth cherished by people who have themselves been too lazy to become proficient in another language besides their own mother English. but when you start reading back and forth, as I often do, and translating back and forth which I also have done, you are going to find that a translation could even be an improvement on the original. But this can end up in a lot of useless quibbling, since the reading of literature is also very subjective. My take is that the reader is every bit as much participant in the writing of literature as the author themselves, because the writing always passes through our own individual filtres, and if you believe as many do, that the original language is always superior (I no longer believe this) then that is also going to colour your experience of reading, just as you are going to admire Marquez, not so much because he was a great writer, but because he is Gabriel García Marquez and how dare you such impertinence! Not even the author can always adequately mine the best and purest possible meaning out of their unconscious minds (I am speaking here as a writer) in their bid to write outstanding literature. Every language has its limits, just as every language has its advantages. So, really, it is the work of the reader to extract meaning, and this is going to be abetted or hindered according to the kind of mental filtres we are wearing while we are reading. We all do this, Gentle Reader.

Life As Performance Art 170

Living in a building full of people who have problems is not a cakewalk. This is why I tend to avoid everyone. Some simply do not have a filtre. They will talk endlessly at you if you are trapped with them in the elevator, just to make sure they have your full and undivided attention, or they will launch personal insults at you if you aren't doing exactly what they tell you. For example, the Duchess, as I call her, or the Queen of the Laundry Room. A real piece of work, who is in the laundry room at least three times a week, usually for as many hours, monopolizing all three washers and dryers. She also runs our local store, so she does have quite a sense of self-importance and entitlement around here. Quite a messy individual who talks in a low discontented mutter, and has all the tact of one of Hitler's generals. Thursday morning while waiting for the last two minutes that my clothes were in the dryer, I was seated on the folding counter, for me not a big deal. My clothes are always clean, I had put on my jeans clean that same morning, and I wipe my butt very carefully every day. So, no problems of cross contamination. But the Duchess has to have everything the way she wants it and if she doesn't like what you are doing she will tell you so, and will continue to mutter at you if you dare talk back. I had to shut her up, simply by telling her just that, to shut up. When she tried to order me to get off the counter, I simply countered that I would do whatever I want, she tried to remonstrate and I told her to mind her own business. When she called me a moody person (I am not moody), that was a bit low, so I simply said, "Is there any part of the words shut-up that you have trouble understanding?" And she did. We will likely not speak to each other again, which works for me because who needs to be living at close quarters with that? This kind of altercation has taken various forms with various other dysfunctional tenants and I simply stay away from everybody. I have noticed that like me the other high-functioning tenants all keep to themselves, and simply are getting on with their lives while staying away from other tenants, whom they likely find toxic. This doesn't exactly square with the ethos of the society that runs our building, since their emphasis is on building community. I don't know how carefully they have thought this out, but there are going to be people living in social housing buildings who simply are not able to do community. They will be usually too mentally ill or too socially dyslexic to be able to coexist well with their neighbours, and we their neighbours do want to protect our own mental health. This is why I avoid social events in my building. Even two nights ago, following my chat with the Duchess, I backed out of a film outing with other tenants. We were going to see a Swedish film in the Cinematheque, which is a five minute walk from our building. It was all paid for by our housing society, but after fighting with the Duchess I simply was not feeling like being social with other tenants, especially knowing that I would have to navigate other people's mood disorders and lack of good social skills during a time of day when I myself am often feeling tired and vulnerable and in need of rest and feeling emotionally safe. I also prefer seeing films alone, or with someone I feel safe around, because films often impact me emotionally, and then I have to sort through my vulnerability and visceral responses afterward. I cannot be social around people with whom I cannot feel emotionally safe, but I think that our current management is more aware and more accepting of this reality than some of their predecessors. Quite honestly, I can't even say that I feel totally safe around anyone, not even my closest friends. I am always on guard, always feeling a little bit wary, always concerned and wondering how the other person is feeling, what the other person is needing, how I can best help, or, should they want to snap at me or lash out, how best to avoid getting injured. I love people, I enjoy being with others, but this delicate dance of coping and self-preservation is often exhausting. No wonder I so often want to be alone. But I don't do this entirely out of self-preservation, Gentle Reader. I actually really care about these people, with a desire to be whatever help I can to them. Sad that this is almost never reciprocated but it's part of the package when you are a survivor of child abuse and neglect. You carry it with you to the grave, or to the crematorium. We are not going to expect to be valued by others, because we never really experienced that during our formative years, and the beat always goes on. All the attention and adulation is going to go to the smug charismatic narcissists whose families treated them like little gods and goddesses and then go through life conquering and to conquer. The rest of us get nothing.

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I don't seem to have a lot to write about this morning, Gentle Reader. My fruit bowl is full of bananas and apples (galas, lovely golden and red) with dried lavender and bay leaves which do help to repel fruit flies, and I marvel that I, a person on a low income, could enjoy such luxury and privilege of such fruit and beauty as many would take for granted, but I will not take for granted this unmerited loveliness, just as I will not take for granted that I am enjoying a cup of delicious, rich and intense Cuban dark roast coffee (fair trade and organic) and I am drinking it from a beautiful mug with a jungle bird and critter design in flamboyant colours. For breakfast, I am torn between a cheese omelette and boiled eggs with toast with natural peanut butter and rosehip jam. I have three varieties of cheese in my fridge, by the way, extra old white cheddar, Gruyere, and a milder Italian cheese, Montegrappo Stagionata, it is called. I have already mentioned that every week I visit the Bosa, an Italian Market near where I used to live off Commercial Drive, where each week I buy an unfamiliar Italian cheese. I am poor, and I can enjoy such a range and plethora of luxuries as not even my parents had at their fingertips. I have just heard on the CBC a panel of three academics, all persons of colour, weighing in about our sitting prime minister's donning in his salad days brown face and black face. I am not going to further explore this theme, by the way, as I am still in the seat of the unlearned and I am still listening to a whole plethora of experiences, opinions and experiences about race and respect and cultural insensitivity, besides which, there are already so many others commenting about this, that I don't really feel that I should have to, or that I ought to, nor that I have any right to, or at least not on these pages, for now anyway. I am meeting a friend for coffee this morning. It is my first day off, or the first half of my forty-eight hour Saturday, which I can enjoy now thanks to early Canada Pension. We are the same age, we were both born on the same day, the twenty-ninth of February, oh, so very long ago, and this makes us both rather rare and unique for which our celebration of friendship is roundly enhanced. I am grateful that I have other friends, old and new. I am grateful that I have a good friend in Colombia with whom I can practice Spanish while helping him with his English twice a week on Skype. I am blessed with good health, and I am in my sixties. I expect to enjoy a walk or a couple of walks, of some six to nine miles today. Even if all this beauty that we enjoy, that surrounds us could be snatched from us at the blink of an eye, it is here now, and yes of course we must also plan for the future, a future that looks now very dark and uncertain. I think our challenge is how we can plan and prepare for and make a better future, while still valuing what is current and what is in or near our hands, and to appreciate and cherish all the more one another and this beautiful gift called life, but also taking care to live and walk simply, with care, with love and with grace. Happy Friday, Gentle Reader.

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Ah....Snowflake Nation. Apply for your citizenship now. Seriously, we live in a culture of such politically correct delicacy that sometimes it makes my stomach heave. But I am not going to tell everyone that they have to stop being so piss-delicate just to satisfy my own sensitivity, or to keep me from getting so upset that I have to throw up because, really, I don't care. I am not going to get upset. I won't have panic attacks, and I'm certainly not going to threaten to kill myself, just because someone else is saying or expressing something that I don't like. I might tell them what I think, or maybe I will try to listen carefully to be sure that I am not overreacting and misjudging, and perhaps that they might have a thing or two to teach me that I am needing to learn or accept. I have also experienced panic attacks, and suicidal ideation. I have never tried to use my sense of trauma as a bargaining chip for getting my own way. (I'll hold my breath till my face turns blue if you don't give me everything that I want, the way I want, when I want!) Be as delicate, precious, and neurasthenic as you like. Just don't expect me to buy into your nonsense. We live in a culture of offence and small wonder that. No one really wants to make room for a difference of opinion. And the emotional blackmail! For example, when my supervisor informed me yesterday that it was someone in the meeting who felt disturbed by my behaviour two months ago (drawing during the meeting, opening the blinds to let in some sunlight, and politely asking the person next to me to move their paperwork so I could have some room at the table), I wasn't in the least bit surprised. We have some new people there and I am almost sure that one of them is a control freak spy for central office, so, no, I'm not at all surprised. Annoyed, yes, because I am really embarrassed at the way that some mental health survivors will use their diagnosis as a pass for emotionally blackmailing those around them into doing their due diligence to not offend or upset them. I have seen this happen and I have been tempted myself on occasion to play this particular ace, but I think of this as morally reprehensible behaviour. What ever happened to taking personal responsibility for one's own reactions and behaviour? I mean, before the right wing had hijacked and appropriated this very strong and very important value of human ethic and morality? On the other hand, am I any better for demanding my own way? I just had a verbal altercation with a rather difficult tenant in the laundry room. She was mad at me for sitting on the folding counter for the last two minutes my clothes were in the dryer. I told her to mind her own business. She continued carping at me, made a personal remark and I replied, what part of shut up do you not understand? So, my neighbour, who monopolizes the laundry room and seems to think it's her personal property, and I will not be on speaking terms for a while, but I will still be polite to her and I will not complain because there is nothing to complain about. She might report me to management, but I am not particularly worried about that, as they could probably use a good laugh today. There is nothing wrong with accommodating others. There is also nothing wrong with calling them out for blackmail. Neither is there anything wrong with being kind, a lot that is right with being kind. So, that is my takeaway, on today. Be kind. Even if I want to gag.

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Those who are fortunate enough to occupy the higher echelons of the unconstituted socio-economic hierarchy of the moneyed middle class really have no idea how the rest of us live. Of the sacrifices and trade-offs we must engineer, craft, accept and live with just in order to get by. Such privations as would never be dreamed or imagined by our more privileged brethren. I have mentioned in previous pages here that for some years I quit reading the Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper, or rather, a poor Canuck relation to the New York Times. I read it daily for years, from around 1984 until about 2008, or for around twenty-four years. I was a faithful reader, and even though the price was rising incrementally, even on a scandalously low income was I able to go on reading the Globe and Mail, almost every morning buying a copy at the neighbourhood convenience store. It was a culturally and intellectually nourishing exercise, as well as helping me stay well-informed of the events and affairs of the nation and the world, enjoying the insights and observations, and sometimes the opinions and acerbic wit of some of the top journalists and writers, not only in Canada, but the entire English-speaking world. Then, two things happened. The price began to rise dramatically, and the new editor-in-chief was a spoiled rich kid who imprudently declared that the august pages of the Globe and Mail must forever remain the purview of the wealthy and the privileged. Poor people, such as myself, no matter how educated, cultured and well-lettered, needn't apply. I was insulted , of course, as were many other Canadians, and then I decided to save my money for other activities, such as investing in international travel. About three years ago, with a new editor at the helm, I resumed reading the Globe and Mail. It had become hideously expensive, so I just opted to read it on weekends. In the meantime, I had discovered CBC Radio One, which I could listen to for free, and enjoy a quality of journalism and reporting equal in quality and calibre to the Globe and Mail, but much more affordable. Still, reading the Globe and Mail on weekends became kind of a privileged and almost decadent past-time for me, and of course I could feel so cultured and educated and worldly, sweetened all the more knowing that even on my poor income of just slightly above minimum wage that I could also count myself among the ranks of this privileged elite. I even entered an occasional correspondence with the people's editor, a very pleasant and engaging individual. She suggested to me some books that I might want to read, by currently trending international intellectuals. I considered, and decided to wait, and for two simple reasons. For one thing, I already have a home library of some five hundred volumes, half of which are in Spanish (a language in which I am fluent), and I have read but maybe ten percent of my books. The other reason was a little more insidious. If I were to go on reading the Globe and Mail, even just on weekends, then I would have to forego buying books other than second hand because new they were just too expensive. The Globe and Mail has just spiked its price again. I was sticker-shocked two weeks ago when I found myself shelling out six bucks for a newspaper that is not the New York Times. Last weekend I decided to try coping with my Saturday without the Globe and Mail. It was easy, and very enjoyable. I simply did some work on a drawing, read some interesting stuff on the CBC website then had a lovely one hour nap. And I came off six bucks richer. Yesterday, with one of my clients, I was browsing around in the local Chapters-Indigo bookstore. They have there a modest selection of books in Spanish. Among them, are two books by said international intellectual recommended by the Globe and Mail's people's editor, in Spanish translation. These days I prefer reading in Spanish, because it challenges my brain more than my mother English. The price of that book will equal four weekend Globe and Mails, plus maybe a cheap coffee. I can now afford to read this author, and in Spanish translation. For the simple trade-off of giving up the weekend Globe and Mail. Of course, they could always hire me as a columnist, writing about the lives of poor and low income Canadians, but they don't seem at all interested in contracting my services nor in knowing anything at all about how we really live or who we really are. Too bad. I could use the extra income. And this way, I could also resume reading their fabled newspaper.

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Yesterday I wrote an email to one of my supervisors where I have threatened to resign. Here it is, Gentle Reader: "I am not comfortable with our conversation today about the second last meeting. I feel that you overstepped, as my mental health is for me a personal matter, and I do not believe it is your place to bring this up with me. I have thought carefully about how I conducted myself and I see nothing wrong with anything I did or how I expressed myself. I simply asked if it would be okay to do some art during the meeting, as I have been having a strong creative impulse lately (not at all related to anxiety), and had anyone expressed discomfort I would have had no problem with not doing it. Concerning asking someone to move their paperwork. there was no room for me at the table, and I was polite. Concerning the window blinds, I simply thought it would be pleasant for everyone to have some daylight and to be able to see out the window. It really perplexes me that you would find cause to pathologize any of this, and this actually makes me want to tender my resignation.... This is not certain yet, as I would like to continue to work with my current client as long as he can benefit from my support, then perhaps you and I can discuss it from there. But I cannot work comfortably with colleagues by whom I feel pathologized. I thank you for your understanding." I had been showing some of my drawings to my colleagues during check-in that day as part of letting them know what I have been up to. Since I find it easier to focus during meetings and listening while drawing, I didn't see any harm in asking if I could continue doing art during that particular meeting. I don't know where the supervisor got the idea that this was somehow associated with me having anxiety but this assumption is very insulting, and coming from a coworker, inappropriate. Understandable, of course, because at the mental health team where peer support workers are employed, we are considered and treated as damaged goods, as not quite equal to union staff and they really do look down at us. It's inevitable, along with the offensively low pay that keeps us marginalized and stigmatized as workers. Likewise about asking for room on the table. There wasn't any, given other people's natural tendency of taking up as much space as they can. I simply politely asked the coworker next to me for a little room, and no problem. Why would the supervisor conclude that I was having a mental health crisis, when had it been regular union staff doing the same thing she likely wouldn't have batted an eye? But because we are already labeled as mental health consumers, we are also considered damaged goods and this stigma never quite escapes from us, nor us from this stigma. Neither can I figure out why anyone would take offence that I would open the blinds to let in some daylight and so people could see out the window. To me, if there is anything questionable about someone's mental health, my concern would be about the mental health of the person who would prefer that we have our meeting behind closed blinds in a darkened room, shutting out all the beauty of the sunny day outside. The problem here is very simple. When you have been identified as having been diagnosed with a mental health issue, and your employment as a peer is defined by this diagnosis, then that is really all that you are going to be to others in the workplace: a life-support for a mental illness being controlled and managed by medications and approved therapies. I am none of those things. I was never even mentally ill. The PTSD diagnosis was just and only that, Gentle Reader. A diagnosis. I was never on medication, never hospitalized. I was emotionally exhausted for a few years due to such shitloads of trauma as I have already written about in these pages, and now I am completely recovered from all of this, and I am not going to be quiet about this.

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I think I have reached the age of irrelevance. It used to be that you cannot trust anyone over thirty. It is popularly assumed John Lennon might have said it, but it has also been attributed to radical sixties activists Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Now John Lennon was forty when he died, ten years older than thirty. Abbie Hoffman died when he was fifty-two, or twenty-two years past his shelf life and Jerry Rubin would have been fifty-six when he went to meet his Maker, twenty-four years past his best before date. Jack Weinberg, an American environmental activist, is said to have coined the expression. He was twenty-four at the time and said it in 1964. He is still alive. Next year he will be eighty. Uh-huh. Now that forty is the new thirty, one would imagine that the goalposts have been moved. And thirty is the new twenty, making twenty...the new twelve? Given how cosseted, coddled and overprotected middle class kiddies are nowadays, factored in of course with extended lifespans and better health outcomes, well, but of course, Gentle Reader! Daycare and play school now extend into the teenage years, and don't always end there. So I am approaching my mid-sixties, and I feel now that my age of irrelevance has only just begun. It is actually frustrating hearing about the new trends in thinking, and realizing that it isn't that they confuse me, nor that I necessarily disagree with them. Rather, being of a certain age, and wisdom and intelligence, I have decades of experience over the younger folk, and also a capacity for nuance that simply leaves the brightest of them baffled and confused. There are a lot of older people like me, by the way. Let's begin with smartphones. I have had cell phones, now I can't afford one, given my low income and my need to make tradeoffs and sacrifices if I want to honour my love of travel every year. This is a way of thinking, by the way, that is totally strange to younger people who cannot imagine spending even five minutes estranged from their precious little tech toys. (Pathetic!) Naturally, I make a virtue out of necessity, quite enjoy being out and about without being encumbered or annoyed by electronic distractions, and I also get to feel all superior to the rest of you. Yet, I also completely enjoy the blessings of computer technology. I have a friend in Colombia and we regularly visit each other on Skype for language exchange, which is just like having a visit over coffee twice a week with a cool buddy. I can search Google images for ideas for making art, including every tropical bird on the planet. I can find great documentaries in Spanish on Youtube for language practice, entertainment and education (but no porn, which is boring, and I do have standards after all and I even maintain those standards in the privacy of my home!) And of course I can write this blog and put it out there for whomever is willing to read it, for their entertainment, diversion, and annoyance. I control technology. Technology does not, and never is going to control me. But that is part of getting older. We acquire wisdom, knowledge, perspective, and, yes, strength, simply for having endured and survived for a few extra years. Younger people are for the most part too hobbled by their own fear of decline and death in order to even consider who we are or what we have to offer as having value. And that is their loss. No one ever really prepared me for my sixties, not that it would be such an awful time in my life. Anything but! This has actually proven, so far, to be my best years ever. And I am not afraid to die, knowing and feeling totally safe and assured, after surviving so many other people's deaths, not to mention threats on my own life, that that is in God's hands (a very unpopular belief, I am sure, but too bad for you. Your loss, not mine!). Now, if only I could get some of you to forget that I'm older, at least long enough to actually pay attention to what I have to tell you! Hello? ¿Hola?

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Ah...the Anglican Church. They talk so much and they do so little. That should be their official motto. When it comes to actual community engagement, especially with the homeless and economically marginalized, outside of a few community meal programs, Anglicans fall way behind other denominations. Other churches actually shelter the homeless. Anglicans? They just complain to the government. Yeah, real Christian activism. Excuse me while my stomach heaves. They are still cosseted rich people living primarily in wealthy leafy neighbourhoods and for all their pious and lovely noises about inclusivity while doing tokenism with queer and First Nations people, Anglicans still seem to prefer comfort over challenge, safety over discipleship. Pathetic. Why am I still there? I only wish I had an easy answer for that. I seem to relate best to the way they do public worship, and that's about all. And I still like most of the people (with maybe a couple of exceptions) who attend St. Faith's. Here is the email I almost sent to the archbishop and company, but I will publish it here, instead. It's titled "Consequences: As the Diocese of New Westminster has refused to offer me a just settlement or redress for the wrongs that I have suffered from some of your clergy from 1997 to the present, injuries that for a while impaired my mental health, my employability and my ability to earn a liveable income, I will not be offering any money or other material support to help subsidize the church, nor will I invite or recommend to anyone that they visit an Anglican church.  Until the decisions that have been made against my claim for justice  have been reversed, these consequences shall remain in perpetuity.  I will still attend church, and I will still report about the church in my blog and to the media in a manner that is fair, balanced and honest but not necessarily kind.  I regret that our friendship has been so badly compromised, but I do not believe that I should accept the responsibility for this.  There will  be no further need to communicate about this and until these conditions have changed, I will no longer be in touch." So, it is Sunday morning. I am probably going to attend, and go on attending. I still want to focus on building relationships with people as individuals. The politics of the beast, the way sausage is made there, are none of my business, and is going to remain none of my business. Aside from the blessing of my bodily presence on Sundays, they get nothing. Because nothing, from me anyway, is exactly what they deserve. Trust, which was slowly beginning to build, was still so fragile that it has died in me towards the archbishop, towards clergy and towards the institution. Can't be helped. Will trust ever be restored? Time will tell, but methinks not. I did get at least a verbal acknowledgment that I had been mistreated, a verbal apology and a token payout. Could have gone worse, and even if somewhat grudging, I am grateful. In other news, Gentle Reader, I am enjoying spending my Wednesday mornings working with a client living in a long term care facility near my dear old neighbourhood, Commercial Drive. I take him out for walks in the area. I am also visiting the Bosa, an Italian market across the street where I used to live in the neighbourhood. Every week I buy a cheese I have never tried before. It is an enjoyable culinary adventure, and a way of continuing to say thank you to the Bosa Ladies, the Italian women who worked there more than twenty years ago when I lived in the area, and shopped there. Knowing that I was on a tight budget, those women treated me with incredible kindness and I will never forget this. Happy Sunday!

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This feels like the calm after the storm, or perhaps the calm before the next storm. Maybe the calm between the storms. Or could it be that there are merely storms between the calms? So that it is really the calm that is the norm, with occasional hiccups from pesky and unanticipated storms. CBT 101, Gentle Reader, which is to say Cognitive Behaviour Therapy 101. My issues with the ACC (Anglican Church of Canada), for now, seem settled, if not resolved. Our differences are never going to be resolved. I have come to accept this as fact. This is sort of okay, if disappointing and annoying at times, but I am going to stay as far away as possible from church politics and just focus on relationship building with individuals that I know there. Everything else I will leave to those who are in with the in-crowd, and clearly I am not one of those illustrious personages, otherwise, the priest would not have actually thanked me for coming to an information session about a safe church. She certainly didn't thank anyone else for attending and this simply seals for me my status as an outsider at St Faith's. As well as the passive-aggressive treatment I received last week during a forum facilitated by a wealthy parishioner, who is very much in with the in-crowd. I can live with that. And I am quite prepared to fight my battles if I have to. And I am going to have to fight sometimes, and it is not going to be pretty. Neither is it my business if the pews get filled with new bums, nor to what class of people those posteriors might happen to belong, given that it isn't really my church to begin with. I am kind of a long term visitor, or squatter, if you like, and I am never going to be treated like I really belong, since a lot of people still treat me, even if very politely and cheerfully and warmly, like an outsider, so I had might as well get used to it and go on squatting to my little heart's content. Anglicans can be notoriously elitist and even more notoriously dishonest about their elitism. They can make all manner of lovely and agreeable sounds about inclusion and diversity and welcoming and have also adopted queer people and native people (even better if you happen to be both, or two-spirited) as their official tokens, or mascots of their public repentance and forward march towards being a socially progressive church. Anglicans still do abysmally at including and welcoming the poor, and we will probably always be pariah, given the church's fixation on staying alive from financial contributions, which people like me really cannot offer. Anglicans can sometimes come across as consummate liars, very polite, nice and agreeable liars, but liars all the same, which is why I often feel that I would do well not to trust anyone there, which could complicate relationship building, because how can you really be friends with someone if you are always feeling that you have to watch your back for the next stiletto or sucker punch? I think it's mostly the clergy that find themselves in very complicated and sometimes compromised positions where they have to obscure, bend or massage the facts just in order to keep their job, and for this I cut them a lot of slack. I think it is possible to be an Anglican and still have integrity. I know some of them. And a few of them are also clergy, so I do well not to tar everyone with the same brush. There are also ingrained attitudes of middle class entitlement and social elitism in the church, and those things, unfortunately, change very very slowly. I am not about to leave because I am going end up having to encounter this kind of shadow everywhere I go, partly because i also carry this same darkness. It is almost in our DNA. I still want to cut everyone some slack, just as I hope they will cut me some slack, and I admit that I could be wrong, and I hope I am wrong, and often (or maybe sometimes!) I am wrong. I am still waiting to be proven that I am mistaken, despite all the circumstantial evidence that suggests otherwise. This could also be the impact of the same shadow that covers and taints and pollutes all of us, because, really, I am no better than the rest of them, I have also been called a hypocrite and sometimes unfairly, and sometimes because I am a hypocrite. That is the problem with people who call others hypocrites. They tend to see hypocrisy everywhere but in their own dear and precious little selves. Hello? Herein lies the real reason why this church is shrinking and slowly dying. And this is also why I am not going to waste any more energy helping to fill the pews, because this is not a church that I want to invite others to, much as I like the priest and a lot of the people who attend here. I can stand being here myself, but this is because I am no better than they are, but this denomination, to me anyway, does not really or authentically show the life or the gospel of Christ. Too much middle class and other social baggage. Otherwise, I would not have been treated just recently with such egregious hypocrisy by the archbishop, though her apology and donation are greatly appreciated by me, and if they don't like me writing these things in my blog about them, then they can just go ahead and sue me. It will make for great optics, but won't it, Gentle Reader? Wealthy Anglican Diocese litigates against low income man for writing unkind but true things about them. I can see it now. But I still have a somewhat higher opinion than that of the Anglican Church. So far, anyway, Gentle Reader.

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I seem to have dealt with the Anglican Church all I can, in terms of resolving the abusive treatment I suffered from clergy and others over the last twenty years when they were conspiring against me in order to silence me, given my tendency of calling them out on their crap and duplicity and trying to get me on medication on the basis of a bogus mental health diagnosis (both my doctor, and a psychiatrist later debunked what they were trying to pull off and they not only backed off, but royally shunned me afterward) The archbishop has apologized. That's nice. She also awarded me five hundred dollars, to help defray some of my dental costs. Can't complain. I was hoping for more, money and other actions, such as maybe buying my art, which they seem to admire, but people always seem to love what they don't want to pay for. Or they might try to help me find other ways to help me reintegrate. No one is biting. Anglicans seem to be very bad at pastoral care. There is not going to be any show of genuine contrition for what was done to me and Anglicans tend to be all talk, and nothing but talk. As I tried to communicate to the archbishop, the abuse that I suffered from her church impacted my mental health and my employability and was instrumental in, in fact, was the first and primary cause of, the tailspin my life went into that left me homeless and desperately poor with PTSD. She doesn't seem at all interested in acknowledging or addressing this. The mental health issues are resolved, and I have an apartment in a BC Housing building. Better than living on the street or in a shelter. I am also stably employed, but in a chronically underpaid position that promises to keep its workers near, and eventually stranded, at minimum wage, and in just over a year I will be retiring to a very poor and likely difficult old age. So, according to the Anglican archbishop for the diocese of New Westminster, that isn't the church's problem, regardless of what some of her colleagues did to wreck my life. Apparently, they owe me nothing. I am on my own. Christian Love 101, Whited Sepulchres Division. This is problematic on so many levels, especially given what particularly egregious hypocrites Anglicans are. For example, just last Sunday at my church, we were having an information forum about what we are going to do to try to fill the pews, presumably with the bums belonging to hopefully well-off white folk just like them (but of course, they would never actually say that!). When it came time for open discussion, I was raising my hand, and holding it up for quite a while, while the facilitator, who is wealthy, strove to ignore me and took a question from the priest instead, then would have persisted in further ignoring me afterward had his wife not been badgering him to let me have my say. No one is going to successfully convince me that I was not being shunned. I have to accept that, because I am not one of them, I am always going to be treated like an outsider at St. Faith's and likely by other Anglicans, as well. Anglicans are always going to other me and they are also going to continue to other anyone else who doesn't fit their genteel middle class values. But they will be nice and polite, even warm and friendly. But we are never going to be treated like true members. I am not about to leave, and for the simple reason that, as exhausting and as onerous as it can be, why should I let them get away with it? Am I perfect? Hell, no! I know my shadow. And I am quite aware of my anger and my tendency towards resentment. I don't think that they know their shadow. And I know that this shadow of hypocrisy and fear and privilege and bigotry that clings like a soiled negligee around middle class niceness, is never going to entirely go away. We can only stay conscious of it, refuse to be lulled into complacency and work towards living lives of repentance and renewal. We are nowhere near this goal, perhaps we never will be, but we have to start working towards this. If this means suffering the pain of facing the lies and lovely illusions that we base our lives on, then too bad. We have to grow, and this can only begin with our really beginning to wake up, and put paid to all our lame and precious little excuses. Happy Friday the Thirteenth, Gentle Reader!

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The shadow is everywhere, and it infects and defiles everything we say and do. No one is clean, no one gets off scot-free. Whether it is a coffee shop run and staffed by naive twenty-somethings who put up a sign declaring that they uphold and honour all trannies and hookers (which by implication means that they likely also believe that a transwoman is a real woman, a transman is a real man and that prostitution, or, it's politically correct monicker, sex work, is indeed a legitimate profession.) Who only knows what they must use for brains, but they're usually all so stoned on cannabis that their critical thinking has gone way down the toilet and their cognitive functions are probably on their way down there as well. But this is just another example of the prevalence of the shadow, which also exists in my tart and barbed commentary about people that annoy me. It's this white hats versus black hats mentality, good guys versus bad guys. Cowboys and Indians, anyone? Okay, we will give a five minute pause for the shrieking, screaming and squealing from the politically correct thought police to die down a bit. Indians is, after all, not a nice word. These are people who have absolutely no sense of humour, no sense of proportion, are so blinded by their self-righteous indignation that they are absolutely convinced of their virtue and moral superiority over anyone who happens to disagree with them while they themselves remain completely blind to what obnoxious, judgmental and sanctimonious twits they all are. That is the shadow. He (or she? How about they?) doesn't play favourites. We are all fair game and we all live in its noxious and toxic thrall. Or like this barmy man-hated feminist who was featured recently on an Ideas program about PMS. She waxed shrill and indignant about all the comedic mileage that has been given to PMS on TV shows and that it is all the fault of patriarchy and woman-hating misogynists. As if no one has ever heard of Archie Bunker and Homer Simpson, those famous butts of anti dumb cis binary male humour? I actually emailed Ideas about that shrill and humourless man-hating female. Here is my email: "One of the great indicators of maturity is the ability to laugh at ourselves. Humans are intrinsically funny. So, honey, stop blaming it all on patriarchy, grow a skin and a sense of humour too." I received a nice reply from the producer of the program who said she would forward my message to the offended lady (oh, they´re starting to shriek again! What fun!) So I replied "I do sympathise with what women have to go through, and as much as I can within my limited experience I do try to empathize, but there also comes a time, I think, when the best option is laughter. And I mean this as much for men as for women (Homer Simpson, anyone?). There is something so dreadfully serious about the way people seem to take everything these days and it is concerning that humour seems to be really endangered in these oh, so very earnest times we are living in (which is never the same as being derisory or disrespectful, by the way.) all the best" In other words, we're all pretty bad, white hats, black hats, cowboys and First Nations Warriors (tee-hee!) We are all slaves to the shadow and even if we are never completely set free from it, the very least we can do is acknowledge it and do what we can to mitigate the damage, because the shadow thrives on our blindness and ignorance.

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The shadow is problematic, primarily because we can never quite get rid of it. It is always there, always present, squatting over us from behind, tinting our sunlight in sombre, often subtle shades of grey and umbre. During the era of self-help and psychobabble, in the eighties or so, they used to say that the problem was fear. John Bradshaw wrote and published his famous book, "Healing the Shame that Binds You", which is a very good book, where he talks a lot about fear and its indelible relationship to shame. Christian worship songs at that time were rapidly substituting the word sin with fear. It seemed somehow less blameworthy, less stigmatizing, less blaming. Also less stereotypically silly for some of the backward and ass backward Christian stereotypes we were all wanting to leave behind. I am not arguing with any of this. We were no longer going to see ourselves as being nasty reprobate sinners who just wanted to have our own way, like naughty children throwing tantrums whenever we don't get our own way. And of course all the fun, enjoyment and pleasure of sin, and it was really a very nasty and dictatorial old English schoolmaster kind of God that was going to call us to repentance, the consequences being getting caned and bonked on the head. Our images of God, in the Anglican Church anyway, have quite changed, leaving behind patriarchy and the masculine references to the Almighty, to referring to her as a nurturing mother, always there to protect and nourish and console and love us. No fear of punishment. No sin. Just getting over our fear. Lovely. Tempting kind of rebranding and in many ways I endorse it. However, not even that kind of rebranding or changing of language is going to erase the shadow. I have seen and experienced this in so-called progressive parish churches, where I myself have been stigmatized for asking uncomfortable questions that challenge some of the fatuous and flabby thinking that often is part and parcel to that sort of sacralized politically-correct rebranding. I was impacted by their own shadow, of fear, exclusion and intolerance. They excluded me, shunned me and slandered me without making even the remotest effort to engage me in dialogue. This is now being addressed, and I feel that I can begin to move forward again, but there are still going to be obstacles and I would be an absolute fool to assume that the collective shadow of the Anglican Church, the collective shadow of my parish and my own personal shadow along with the personal shadow of each individual parishioner is not going to be somehow, at times, problematic. No matter how hard we try to be better, our progress is always going to be slower than glacial. Right now the shadow, our collective shadow, is really taking full rein, especially with the rise of right wing populism in the US, Russia, Brazil and in many European countries, and this also raises from its crypt that particularly nasty shadow of fascism. The shadow we can never quite get rid of. No matter how hard we try, no matter how nice and kind we try to be, it is always there waiting to taint and spoil all of our lovely basic human goodness. What I am saying here is, yes, let's keep trying to move forward, let's try to make ourselves better people. That is our part. And if we are not moving forward, no matter how glacially, then we are condemned to fall backwards and fester in the very barbarism that is always nipping like rabid rottweilers at our heels. But let's not delude ourselves that we have arrived there. If we can remain conscious of our shadow, our individual and collective shadow, seething with fear, rage and resentment and unquenched desire, then I think that we will do okay. The only thing is that we have to remain aware, awake and constantly wary and vigilant, without turning into hand-wringing neurotics, because we are all flawed beings, we are all still hobbled by the same crap filling the same trash bags, and that we have to keep identifying and throwing out the garbage. This requires of us a constant discipline and a constant effort because there is always going to be trash to throw out.

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I am currently reading an article printed a couple of years ago in the online edition of the Guardian about why prostitution should not be decriminalized. The author, who is a woman and a feminist, gives some very convincing arguments, and for me, she is preaching to the choir. I still tend to have no clear opinion about the legal status, since that doesn't seem to do a lot to change people's thinking or behaviour, and that kind of change is going to have to be at the heart of any lasting kind of social change. This is not about changing language, nor terminology, nor substituting common words with politically correct euphemisms. One only has to look at the rise of right wing populism all over the so-called free world. That kind of pressure simply increases polarisation, because it leaves those who are not persuaded, or on the fence, into feeling pressured, judged and emotionally blackmailed, and the fallout is going to be resentment, resentment and resistance. When Hilary Clinton referred to Trump supporters as a basketful of deplorables she shot herself in both her feet and practically gave the election to what will likely go down in history as the worst US administration ever, run by the most deplorable president ever. But this doesn't really touch on prostitution, which has always been with us, and likely always will, unfortunately, which does not mean that we have to sanitize an industry that is so clearly toxic and damaging to the human soul and spirit and body. I see a lot of this all tied up with some very rotten aspects of human nature. We could call this our collective shadow, and for now, Gentle Reader, that is what I am going to dwell on, for this post anyway. It seems that people, or persons, are life supports for hunger. There appears to be a kind of unfulfilled void in the human soul, and so we have people looking for love in all the wrong places, and joy and relief in all the wrong substances. We are not complete. We have hunger, as they say in Spanish (tenemos hambre), or as we say in English, we are hungry, or, we are hunger. And being vectors of insatiable appetite can often have us doing some very nasty and unkind things to one another. We basically cannibalize others. We are consumers. This is what makes consumer capitalism so successful and so globally virulent. We are addicts, to affection, sex, drugs, alcohol, food, social networks, tech toys, shoppíng, you name it. Humans are one of the most interdependent species on earth. We are also among the most stubbornly individualistic, and this is especially problematic. We cannot function as individuals unless we are all collectively well-integrated, so dependent are we upon the support of one another. This is why a lot of the psychobabble that has become popular parlance is so useless. The word codependent, for example, I think more expresses the opinion that we are all rugged capitalist individuals and that there is something wrong, weak and sick about needing other people. Codependent relationships, no matter how we want to judge them, occur because people do not do that well on their own. When we live in a culture that abets and fosters loneliness and alienation, then we also become all the more needy and more likely to cling to close friends, family members and significant others as though we were all oxygen tanks for one another. And, of course, codependency is not healthy. But look at the social conditions that foster codependency. We are life supports for appetite, and anyone who boasts that they have no need for others, that they did it all on their own, without help, that they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps and owe nothing to anyone, well there is but one word that will really and clearly define those boasters. Liars.

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We have lost our moral rudder. We no longer have ethical moorings. Perhaps we never did. When I hear and read and even remember the very selective manner in which the teachings of the Gospels have been treated and conveyed, I find myself feeling very squeamish and embarrassed about being a Christian. Not because I am ashamed of Christ, but because I am so deeply ashamed at the way we have disgraced him. There still was a vague Christian ethos that used to govern and influence our way of thinking, but people got really obsessed over sexual conduct and female modesty, while still gleefully going to war to slaughter the enemy, as well as performing acts of near genocide (it wasn't complete genocide, the memory of and ongoing experience of trauma does cause some of our First Nations people to exaggerate a bit, but their treatment was still egregious and in so many ways resembles genocide, that maybe we'd might as well just call it genocide and stop quibbling). I do not like the way people have become so sexualized that even prostitution is being whitewashed as a legitimate and ethical choice of vocation. This is just so ridiculous. It has to do with zero sum thinking that leaves absolutely no room for nuance. There is this dumb ass assumption that you have to somehow approve of prostitution as a valid career choice in order to not judge, and to respect the hooker who is plying her craft. Well, I worked in Christian street ministry, for years, with hookers (sex worker is a politically correct post modernist euphemism, and I simply refuse to use it) This is exploitation. It crosses so many lines and boundaries. Anyone selling sex is degrading themselves because in order to do it they have to somehow dissociate themselves, treating such an intimate practice and function as a mere trade for getting some money. The man who pays for sex is actually saying that this woman, or man, providing the service, is no more than that, a service provider, like a Starbucks barista, but more expensive. There is so much emotion, so many psychological and spiritual dynamics that are connected to the sex act, that any situation involving sex where there isn't love, intimacy, trust and deep caring and mutual care and mutual commitment is nothing more and nothing less than a degradation of something that should be considered sacred, especially given that it is sex that produces offspring, it creates life, and even if it is same sex intercourse it still bears that essence of life. Turning it into a commercial transaction simply degrades and debases the sacred and the poor idiots who participate. I do not, and never have approved of prostitution. I will not dignify it be calling it sex work. It is prostitution. I do not condemn women or men who sell or rent out their bodies in order to pay the bills. But a legitimate profession! Give me a break! I have no problem with women and men who have to sell or rent out their bodies in order to pay the rent and keep food on the table. But I also sincerely hope that they will come into situations where they can actually find and develop their true potential and leave behind this degrading practice. When there are no other options, it has to be respected that they are going to get by however they can. But when you also consider how many prostitutes have also been sexually abused or exploited as children, then this becomes even more problematic. How many little girls, and little boys, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, are going to answer Sex worker? Maybe, doctor, or firefighter, or nurse, or astronaut or artist or pick any one. But if I were to hear my kid say, Daddy, I wanna be a ho when I grow up, then I would have a very long and serious talk with my kid. There is absolutely nothing legitimate about sex work, or prostitution. It is an emergency measure for survival that too many people get unfortunately stranded in, and it always involves some form of exploitation. I only wish that the academics that try to control the way we think would get their heads out of their politically correct ass and actually learn how to think. And don't give me that female empowerment horse shit!

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Living in a rapidly gentrifying disadvantaged neighbourhood of Vancouver does present its challenges. And surprises. And sometimes shocks. I often like to brag that I've seen it all, heard it all, maybe not quite done it all (but let this get your filthy little imaginations going this morning, Gentle Reader!) What I saw, two days ago, Friday, is something I am still not able to unsee. That's right, Gentle Reader. I have just been shocked, grossed-out. But not traumatized. Traumatized is a word you use for having survived war zones, armed robberies, mangled bodies as a first responder, or childhood abuse (and I don't mean strictly enforced bedtimes or being forced to eat your broccoli!). It is a word so overused by the delicate who can't even cope with a broken nail, or the fact that they cannot get into a prestigious university, that I would like to see the word trauma and all its variants placed on the banned words lists for at least the next decade! Trauma is the official anthem of Snowflake Nation! What I saw Friday, was a likely homeless young street guy, casually applying an electric razor to his nether regions, while leaving precious little to the imagination. I was just leaving my apartment, taking the back exit through our enclosed parkade. Through the fence, there he was, his bright red sweatpants lowered and I didn't have to guess what I was seeing. When he saw me, he at least had the good sense and decency to at least partially pull up his bright red sweat pants and return to his street friends on the other side of the alley, though he was still exposing his very pale white derriere. Even though I still don't get this rather gross nonsense about manscaping, it is interesting that someone living on the street, not knowing where his next food is coming from, would obsess over something so trivial. Perhaps he wanted to look his very best for his next hookup? Or maybe his girlfriend, if he has one, has ordered him to trim and shave. Who only knows? Or cares. I suppose, as a homelessness survivor myself, I can understand that one will grasp at whatever triviality in order to preserve one's sense of dignity, even if it manifests in ways that are so visibly undignified. But right now, Gentle REader, I still cannot unsee this act of furtive but so very public manscaping, and I want badly and desperately to unsee it. It's like being hit by a Madonna or Michael Buble earworm (apologies to any fans of those two, er, performers, and I suppose you can't please anyone, but maybe in twenty years or so I will be able to listen to their music without irony and actually enjoy it, just as I have but recently come to actually enjoy, without irony, the music of ABBA! No kidding, Gentle Reader! In the meantime, we have to keep thinking of how we ended up living in a society where, in a country as wealthy and internationally prestigious as Canada, there is actual homelessness on the streets, the alleys and sidewalks, under bridges and viaducts, and in public parks. This has so little do to with drug addictions or mental illness, and almost everything to do with living in a country and an international community that has lost its moral compass and ethical rudder, and become so ethically defunct and so greedy and materialistic that no one really thinks twice about throwing overboard the poorest and most vulnerable in order to preserve the prosperity of the fortunate, lucky and strong. It shouldn't be that hard to solve. Neither, if enough of us really cared enough, would it be that difficult to solve. But people are really deficient in basic kindness and compassion, or so it seems. While I am numbered among those who work against climate change and global warming, I sometimes wonder if, for some of us anyway, it is far easier to care about the future of the planet than some of the individual and very poor people who have to live here, especially those of us who are left in the margins, having to live, sleep, urinate, defecate, and, yes, even trim their pubes out in the public open. Could we work, perhaps, a little bit harder, at integrating our concerns, that getting people decently housed and saving the planet are really one and the same thing, that they are integrated concerns, and that it should never be either or, but both and? But I still wish I could unsee that guy trimming his pubes in plain and open view. Hurry up and get that poor idiot housed!

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I used to attend language meetup groups for Spanish. I don't anymore. I just really got tired of the same two people dominating the conversation, making it almost impossible for any of the rest of us to get a word in edgewise. It really became toxic when one of those idiots turned out to be a vicious poor-basher, so I bailed from the group, after telling off the ungrateful Filipino immigrant who couldn't get his head around the idea that some people who were born in this land of opportunity are poor not because they are lazy but for all sorts of legitimate reasons that his shallow little mind couldn't fathom. Except for one or two excursions, I have since stayed well away from group language practice. I find it much better one to one and for me the language exchange format is ideal. And this way, I also get to help others learn and improve their English. It still isn't that easy, especially given how difficult it is getting people to commit. It seems that if someone is doing language practice with me, that I usually am going to rate very low on their social hierarchy, they will cancel with any excuse or pretext, or simply not respond at all, likely because of homophobia or ageism, or both. This I have become rather sick of over the years, and I also accept that a lot of people will also have very legitimate reasons for not engaging. They could have family, social and professional commitments, they might have some health challenges, or they could also feel uncomfortable with their own level of English, or they just might be really shy about engaging with some pale face foreigner on Skype. But I have finally found someone ready to commit and we have also become close friends (¡ya tu sabes quien seas tu, mi querido amigo que vive cercano de Bogotá!), so there has certainly been a payoff. There is something about connecting socially on the internet that can really cheapen and lower the value of friendship, though, and I really try to avoid this. Facebook friends, anyone? Um, no thanks. For me, friend implies someone who is going to be there with me for the long haul (and vice-versa) and the user-friendly consumerism that comes with the internet is really something to beware of, methinks. I think the selfish, consumerist and self-referential kind of consumerism that appears to have taken us over has really degraded social intercourse. I am a Christian and I have values, and this consumerist narcissism does not at all square with my values. So, in most of my contacts through language exchange, as through meetup, I seem to be always up against this huge tide of publicly sanctioned narcissism, which also causes a very utilitarian mentality. This is very sad and it also shows just what a minority Christians have become. This isn't just because of what we believe, but of who we are. We represent a value and ethos of love, selflessness and care and truth that is simply now unfashionable and runs contrary to the selfishness that now has inundated us like a huge tsunami tide of sewage. Even my reasons for wanting to speak Spanish have nothing to do with the trending attitudes of the day. I am not doing it for work or career purposes, not to enhance my income prospects, not to get into bed with a lovely series of Latin lovers. And I no longer answer if asked what my motive has been for learning Spanish, or any language, since that implies self-interest and self-interest has never been my reason for learning Spanish. I did have a longing, a hankering, when I was young, to become fluent in another language. But I didn't have a reason why, nor did I know yet which language I was going to learn, though I had already had three years of high school Spanish under my belt. Except, I believe that God put that desire in me. For his reasons. Now try and explain that to a bunch of secular atheists and other nonbelievers. They will simply shake their heads in contemptuous pity and try not to ask me any tactless questions about whether or not I am taking my medications regularly. But that is why I learned Spanish. Yes, I was also spurred on by my first visit to Costa Rica. I felt drawn back to that country, either to live there or at least to be a frequent visitor, but I was going to be damned if I was going to expect myself to be there without being able to communicate with the local people. I was not interested really in interacting with any of the well-off Gringo and European expats, as to me they are exploiters who live there for selfish reasons and simply drive up the costs of property and housing for the local people. I could only see myself being there or in any other country as a guest in someone else's home, and I had every intention of making myself the kind of guest that would be invited and welcomed back, again and again. I found that I love the Costa Rican people (¡y también, saben ustedes qien sean ustedes, mis amigos en Monteverde!), and as I began to learn and grow fluent in Spanish, I also grew to know and love Mexicans, Colombians, other Central Americans, people from Spain, from Chile, from El Salvador and wherever the language of Cervantes was being spoken. I can only guess what language learning has done for my brain, but it must be something good. I do know, that despite the frustrations I have often encountered with Latinos who do not want to engage reliably or responsibly, or regularly, I have also made some wonderful friends, and really, Canadians are also every bit as bad, or good as are Latin Americans and other people who inhabit God's lovely green and blue earth. I have jokingly replied "God" on occasion, when asked by anyone about who taught me Spanish, but I think that from now on that is going to be my stock reply. It is God who opened all the doors and arranged all the contacts with other people and resources to help me become fluent in the Spanish language. And, when anyone asks me why I chose to learn Spanish, I am simply going to tell them the truth. God put the desire in my heart and I simply felt that I had to obey. If they try to get me into any useless arguments or debates about religion I will simply shut my mouth and refuse to budge. Really, what other reason is there, Gentle Reader, for anything that's worthwhile?