What's Next? 30

What's next? we ask.  How about a sense of proportion, Gentle Reader?  Emotions and high and lovely feelings and strident and just outrage are all well and good, but they don't get anything done.  Setting buildings on fire and tearing down statues of people you don't like is not going to move anyone nor anything one single millimetre forward, and more likely is going to set in reverse even the worthiest of causes and movements.  Destructive actions do absolute nothing to build a new world, and will simply make the perpetrators turn into monsters every bit as vile or even worse than the horrible oppressors they want to replace.

What are we going to replace them with?  We have only to consider what happens when oppressed people take power, without sufficient self-reflection to prevent them from repeating and perpetrating the abuses and crimes that were done against them.   Consider the Jews when they founded the modern state of Israel.  Following all the horrific persecutions and attempted genocide throughout their troubled history, now they are marginalizing and mistreating the people who were living in their country long before they returned.  And of course, the many white settlers who came here to the Americas were fleeing persecution, oppression and genocide (remember the French Huguenots, anybody?)  And look what they did to the millions of aboriginal peoples who inhabited these lands millennia before we ever did?

I have given up on a lot of my previous activism.  The sloganeering and the black and white thinking and all the heightened emotions have done absolute squat to change anything at all, and serve only as an emotional outlet for immature and developmentally arrested adults.  We cannot validly protest anything without being prepared to provide or recommend viable alternatives that do not involve rampant destruction or fear or hate mongering.  And none of this is happening.  That is what is really concerning.  Especially during this epoch of fear and heightened anxiety that we are all living in right now.

I can't even offer anything constructive, except maybe for this little challenge.  Everybody.  Think before you speak or act.  Never mind about destruction or tearing down monuments.  Focus instead on what you intend to build. Make friends and allies everywhere possible, and accept whatever help or support is being offered, even if it does not meet your lofty expectations

Humility, anyone?  Patience, too.  Nothing good is ever going to come overnight.  You have to work for it.  And you have to earn it.

All for now, duckies!

What's Next? 29

I think that the next step that we need to take is doing something constructive with our emotions.  Everyone seems to be losing it these days, or pretty darn close.  It's understandable.  We are living with this global pandemic and it isn't exactly going to have many of us at our very best.  The hysteria seems to have particularly spilled out into interracial relations and on all sides I find this problematic.

They have found that hate related incidents against Asian Canadians have risen significantly because of ignorant and fearful idiots choosing to blame Chinese Canadians for the corona virus.  Uh-huh.  Just like my mother, a third generation Canadian and descendent of German immigrants from Crimea (none of our ancestors lived anywhere near Germany before the year 1800 or so) was to blame for Auschwitz.  Yeah, really!

I won't repeat on this page any of the despicable acts that have been perpetrated against Asian-Canadians here in the last three and a half months or so, since I do not like giving oxygen to such ugliness.  I did refuse to work with a client because of her racist views towards Chinese Canadians and oh, did the occupational therapist working with her howl and whine when I refused to budge, but especially in this climate of heightened emotions and hate, I am not about to waste my energy on haters.  And I made that quite clear to the indignant OT who after rather pathetically trying to pull rank on me ended up losing her temper (I call this exploding someone) and finally admitted that she could have handled things a lot better.

I also find my patience being challenged by the Black Lives Matter folks.  I will not use that slogan, by the way, since, like all slogans, this also tends to foster a lot of black and white thinking (pun maybe partially intended, Gentle Reader)  I do agree that systemic and historical racism are still huge problems here, and the police record for mistreatment of persons of colour already speaks (or rather, screams) for itself.  By the same token, no one ever hears any statistics about the proportion of men of colour who actually commit crimes, only those who are incarcerated.  I can only offer anecdotal experience, but all the violence, aggression and threats that I have ever experienced have been from black or indigenous males.  I have also been on the receiving end of some verbal violence from a couple of black women.

Do I think that people of colour are more inherently violent than others?  No, I do not.   Do I believe that there are serious problems of inequality and bigotry and racial prejudice that are still not being properly addressed?  Yes I do.  Does white privilege exist?  Yes, it does.  Does being genetically caucasian make one inherently privileged?  Not necessarily.  Are non-caucasians capable of racism?  Every bit as capable as anyone else. I have been poor all my life, live now in social housing and I sunburn very easy.  Are people of colour overreacting about a high school principal wearing blackface on Halloween thirteen years ago?  Well, they seem to overreact about almost everything, and this is because they are collectively traumatized, but I would say in this instance yes.  But the principal should have known better, though I do find intriguing his excuse that he and his black colleague dressed as each other, and this does put rather an intriguing twist on things, but the louder and more strident voices keep drowning out all nuance and paradox.

Am I a racist?  I will not answer that question.  Am I anti-racist?  Ditto.  I try not to do labels.  Let's just say that all my life I have worked bloody hard at resisting racial prejudice in all its forms, and if that isn't good enough for some Black Lives Matter folk then they can simply go away and bore someone else with their shrill postmodernist nonsense.  Do I admire Martin Luther King?  Profoundly, and it is my humble opinion that the Black Lives Matter people are only going to make any real substantial gains if they really seek to follow in his footsteps, but I fear that his shoes are too big to fit any of their feet.

Does that make me an Uncle Tom?  Maybe, maybe not.  I don't do labels.  All for now, duckies!

What's Next? 28

Today, I mentioned to two women walking behind me on a trail in the forest in Stanley Park that I was going to let them walk ahead of me, because when people are talking behind me, it's hard for me to hear what's in my head, and I want them to enjoy chatting, so please go ahead, and I can walk slow.  They seemed very good neatured about it and we exchanged warm smiles.  I found myself liking them both and wished that we could have found time to visit more.  Both women, by the way, are of African descent.

A bit later, there was an apparent family group of maybe a half dozen cyclists, a family group I think, basically obstructing the sidewalk.  I smiled and said, Hey, I have to walk somewhere.  They smiled too and were apologetic and very quickly made room for me.  I thought, what lovely people,  and would have liked to stay and chat a bit.  Incidentally they are Asian-Canadian, probably Chinese.

I had nice little chats with two different strangers near the bus stop.  One was really cheerful and seemed to be exulting in the beauty of the day.  This is a white woman, maybe sixty or so.  The other person was warm and friendly as we greeted each other.    He was younger, a man of colour. 

Twice after leaving the park, I scolded people for riding their bikes on the sidewalk (I said something like, "Silly me, I keep walking on the bike path).  They were white, both genders.

In the cafe where I sat for the next hour or so with my sketchbook I found myself enjoying the warmth and friendliness of the staff there.  They are both Asian-Canadians.  Then, I had to ask another customer, while she was waiting for her order, to please allow me two metres of space.  We both smiled and she was a good sport about it.  She is white.

On the news this weekend:  a black busdriver in my city was verbally threatened with racist hate speech by some white idiot passenger.  And, the wife of the Delta chief of police turned her garden hose on a young woman of South Asian descent, for accidentally walking on her beachfront property in order to walk without breaking her ankle.

We are all awesome.  Some of us are idiots.  I like to think what we can all be awesome.  And that we all can be idiots.  I walked past the Anglican Cathedral today and on their sign outside they were advertising the word love, and I was thinking, what abominable hypocrites, after their archbishop tried to sic her lawyer on me because neither she nor the horrible woman priesting at my parish church would lift so much as a finger to see if I could get decent pastoral support,,,, which is only available in the Anglican Church if you are willing and able to pay for a spiritual director. 

If love has any real meaning or resonance to us, then we had sure as heck better stop talking about it and start living it.  The sooner the better.

All for now, duckies!

What's Next? 27

What really matters is compassion.  There isn't enough of it.  And it is hard navigating some of the manifest stupidity of the toxic and ignorant people that make it bad for everyone  I am thinking of those who don't wear masks when in situations where physical distancing is difficult or impossible  Like that mob of a half dozen or so middle class white jocks, all twenty or so monopolizing the sidewalk, none of them wearing masks, naturally, and I had to cover my face with a bandana to get past them.   Of course the bandana was going to protect them, not me, but it also made it easier for me to not to inhale until I was past them. 

And don't get me started about the two out of three transit passengers who don't mask up even though safe distancing is no longer practiced or required while on the buses.  They have to start making masks on transit mandatory.  Especially younger people, who are wired to think they are immortal and indestructible,  are particularly delinquent.   and being young they are also going to be more selfish than others, because that is part of being young.  It is very difficult to have compassion for privileged idiots.  But they need it more than they deserve it, and perhaps in some ways even more.

I still go out.  I have to.  And I still reach out to others.  It is so necessary and so vital,.  And I still wear a mask in public, not everywhere, but selectively.  On public transit, yes, and inside any store that seems even a little bit busy.  I am not doing this to protect myself, by the way.

I did have chats today with a couple of random strangers, both men around my age, and both with underlying health problems, making it all the more necessary for them to take precautions.  This left me feeling more grateful and appreciative for my own robust good health, but I don't want to be stupid, and for this reason I will of course continue with the protocols of safe distancing, hand hygiene, and as necessary, wearing a face mask.  I will conclude with part of an email to a friend today|

So, there are always opportunities for learning humility, eh?  i say this because I have to stop myself from losing patience with a lot of people, especially on public transit, when they don't wear masks where safe distancing is difficult or impossible.  They really need to make masks mandatory on public transit here in Vancouver, they haven't so far, and people are getting nervous and grumpy, so maybe soon.  We have done really well in flattening the curve, but it can just take a handful of careless individuals to send it all down the toilet again.  

But I am still optimistic.  Maybe not for the short term, but long term yes.  You see, I believe that humans are hardwired to survive and to thrive, especially in times of adversity.  This is rather difficult for people of our generation to swallow, because this generation is really untested, and maybe we can be thankful that nothing worse than this pandemic, which is already bad enough, has overtaken us for now.  But we will get through it.  Previous generations and epochs have seen and got through much worse, and without the benefit of social media, technology and advanced medicine.  Still, it will be so nice when this is all over and behind us, eh?

What's Next? 26

It is no surprise that everyone is talking about systemic racism and black lives matter right now (hmmm...when I was editing this post, at first it read as "black lives normal"...a Freudian slip, perhaps?) right now.  We are living in a pandemic and the climate of fear and anxiety is such that people have to find some way to channel their emotions.  This isn't to underestimate the huge injustices that people of colour have to endure.  But it is my understanding that when we are already being influenced by fear and heightened emotions that this is also going to spill into other areas.  It's inevitable.

It is difficult to maintain any objectivity that isn't somehow going to seem artificial, like striking a pose.  Better, I think, to just keep my head down and work at the things that matter to me most.  I prefer to relate to people underneath their skin, which is exactly how I want to be approached.  For me this is easy.  I have been nurtured on anti racism since I made a decisive break from my horrible bigoted family when I was fourteen, and in many ways, as I have often found about other matters, I am going to find myself well ahead of the vast majority that only now is beginning to wake up to the ugly reality of systemic racism and social injustice. 

It isn't that I don't need to educate myself.  I always try to keep my ear close to the ground.  I am also in neither a position of privilege or influence.  Even though I am white, I am also poor and living in social housing.  No one is going to take seriously anything that I might happen to say or write.  For me, it is all in my attitudes, my words, my behaviour, and how I treat and interact with others.  That is all I can do, and if that is not good enough for some people, then they are just going to have to get over it.  A lot of us are already doing the best that we can and that has to be accepted and respected if we are to move forward in this. 

Patience and kindness and respect from all sides is more important now than ever before.  I think, especially, we need to remember that we do not really know one another, not even those who are closest to us, and certainly not even ourselves.  We always have to be prepared for surprise, sometimes for disappointment, but to try to treat every interaction as an opportunity to learn. 

We especially have to be prepared to be faced by our own hypocrisy, especially when we are bound to take strong, emotional, and impassioned positions.  Seeing ourselves as hypocrites can make for a most embarrassing and formidable experience of being publicly naked.  Sometimes, in order to truly grow, that is going to be inevitable.  Bring your own figleaf, Gentle Reader...

What's Next? 25

We are waiting for the world to end.  We are waiting for the world to begin.  The pandemic is getting worse around the world with notable exceptions, Canada being one of them.  My province, BC, appears to be doing particularly well, and Washington state just over the border is reeling just like so many other American states  under another spike in Covid 19 cases.

But now it is summer, and nature goes on, as usual, blissfully unaware of our exalted human existence.  This earth has been around, they say, for around five billion years.  Homo sapiens, more or less in our present form, but previously taller and probably healthier and better looking, only arrived on the scene at around 200,000 years ago.  The earth has already seen the dinosaurs all come and go, and several ice ages later...

I have heard some people refer to this pandemic as an existential threat to humanity.  Ha!  If only!  a less than two percent morbidity rate ain't gonna wipe us out.  Not now, not ever.  True, a lot of people are getting sick, and the deaths are troubling.  but at the very worst, some of us are just going to have to put our plans on hold, and maybe even leave them on hold for some time to come. 

Of course we are going to get through it.  We are genetically, and divinely, programmed to survive, to overcome, and to thrive.  We tend to be at our best in times of adversity, and it is adversity that transforms us into better and stronger people.   Yes, it can also harm and damage us, but the role of the strong is to serve, protect and look after the weak and vulnerable.  We have, during these times of ease, made ourselves very soft and very useless.  It is time now to toughen up and become adults.   We, or should I say, our forebears, have all been through worse than this.   Should this even toughen some of us a little and teach us some humility and kindness then it won't all have happened in vain. 

What's Next? 24

One thing that is very certain during this uncertain era is the uncertainty of almost everything.   I was seated in a cafe this morning, enjoying a comfy chair by the door when a customer waiting for his order decided to stand near me, well within the two metre limit.  He was in fact standing over me with a little less that one metre distance between us.   He smiled at me and seemed to be complementing the art piece I am currently working on.  I didn't want to tell him to move back and give us our two metres, for our mutual safety and benefit in this blighted pandemic, because I don't want to come across as mean or bossy.  But this was not a safe distance, so, smiling, I got up and moved to the other chair, mentioning to this person that this is nothing at all personal, but we do need to maintain two metres distance.  I thought I was being polite.  I also thought he needed to know why I was moving, for his own future reference.

A bit later, the same gentleman was on his way out the door, and I wished him a good day.  He gave me a look that was anything but friendly.  I haven't mentioned by the way that this person is black.  I thought I would save that detail for the end, so as not to allow anyone to have a prejudiced view of what was occurring.  Of course, I am left wondering if, during this time of understandably heightened and hyper racial sensitivity, that that individual might have racialized our encounter, since I happen to be white.

Now, I am not going to say here that I am not a racist, since it isn't enough to say simply that we are not racists.  Neither am I going to say that I am anti-racist, though I happen to be firmly, profoundly and aggressively against racism in all its forms, but also I simply do not like slogans, so for this reason I am loath to labelling myself or others.  I will say that I have worked hard against all kinds of racism since I was at least fourteen years old, especially given that I had to begin by struggling against my own parents' racist attitudes.

What does strike me is the absolute importance of kindness, especially during this time of heightened sensitivity.  I would also like to add  here that none of us is ever always going to get it right.  We can only do our best, then forgive ourselves and each other when we don't get it right, because we're not going to get it right.  Then learn from it and move on till the next time we stumble.  And, Gentle Reader, we are going to stumble.  It's in the contract.  But that should never prevent us from getting up again, and offering pardon and mercy to ourselves and one another, and then try again...and again...and again...

What's Next? 23

How little we humans really matter, Gentle Reader!   And, oh, our huge self importance!  What are we really, but a hyper intelligent bipedal ape with scant body hair, and we have essentially so overtaken every ecosystem on the planet in order to exploit every single living organism to our personal benefit, as to have all but hijacked this entire earth and its entire biosphere.  We are holding the rest of nature hostage through our greed and self-importance.  I say the rest of nature because despite our superior arrogance we are every bit as much a part of nature as are moss, bedbugs, mice and earthworms, only we are also somewhat nastier.  Every time we take a shit, Gentle Reader, we are reminded of this rather humbling fact.  We are born, much the same way as other mammalian species are conceived and born, and then we die and our bodies dissolve into the same mother earth, just like every other organism. 

We bend ourselves all out of shape over this current covid 19 pandemic but the rest of nature still soldiers on, just naturalizing away.  How dare they?  Treating us important and oh so very superior humans as if we don't even exist, or that our existence should matter to them so little.  Do they have any idea whom they are talking to.  Except for one salient little detail.  The rest of nature doesn't talk to us at all.  It is as if they have more important things to do. Spring has just morphed into summer, on schedule as always, and apparently oblivious to the fear and anxiety that we are all living under.  One of those human things, you know.  Doesn't really matter that much, or not all that much, anyway.

And with or without us, summer is going to transition into fall.  The days will grow short and cool and in many regions the dying leaves will burst into vivid hues of red, orange and yellow.   Then comes winter, when nature falls asleep, weary and tired from her great work of producing and regenerating new life for yet another cycle.  We will also survive and get through this.  We always do.  We humans are wired and designed to survive and to thrive in adversity.  We always have and we always will.  Not everyone is going to survive, and eventually we all end up dying.  it's written in the contract.  But we have been through ice ages, famines, droughts, wars and, yes, pandemics.  We have gone on to thrive as one of the most successful of all species in the history of our dear Mother Earth, putting us in the same category as rats and cockroaches for species viability.

At least most of us are starting to understand that we do not rule or dominate this earth. It is this earth that rules and dominates us.  If we have any superior position on this planet it is as servants and stewards of other living things, to neither exploit, nor harm but to protect and foster friendship.  This we have failed miserably at, and it is going to take this pandemic, and who knows whatever other future horrors to really kick our ass into shape.  We can only pray that by that time it will not be too late.  All for now, ducks!

But we re also an incredibly self-centred and self-obsessed organism, thinking mostly in terms of what am I going to get out of this, what's in it for me, and am I going to get out of here alive?  Well, a few of us are not.  I could be one of those few.  I am after all older and near the category of those who tend to have the worst possible outcome with the virus.  Does this frighten me?  A bit.  I would be lying if I said otherwise.  But not a lot,.  I do get anxious at times, but then I try tol remember that there are many around me who are having it far worse than I am.  If not sick and dying themselves, they have family and loved ones who might have already died from it, opr they are frontline health workers, or they are living with other multiple issues tht make them so much more vulnerable and so much more frightened and scared.

What's Next? 22

I think one of our next steps is to put paid to our cynicism.  This doesn't mean the end of irony, by the way, and even though a lot of people tend to confuse the two, cynicism and irony are two very different sorts of constructs.  Just ask Uncle Google:

Irony: When something that you particularly don't expect (for any reason) happens.

Sarcasm: Saying one thing, and actually meaning the opposite, in a mean way.

Cynicism: Insulting someone in a very painful, rude way.  Also, having absolutely no positive feelings towards something (being cynical).

Today on the radio I heard a high school student say, "I know it sounds cheesy, but we're all in this together."  So, my question is, why would anyone think that should sound cheesy?  It's actually quite basic and true.  We are all in this together.  I think it's sad that something so true and so beautiful would take on the dimension of cliché, but this says something about just how jaded everyone is these days.  And if we are going to really start to move forward then we really have to regain our sensitivity.  I don't mean just the popular outrage against racism, etc., and it is good that there is such outrage, but towards everything and anything that makes our lives a little more beautiful and meaningful than a bunch of smug, intelligent organisms that are hellbent on destroying their own biosphere.

So, let's doff the cynicism, now, shall we, duckies?  We are all in this together.  Now can all you duckies all say "Quack" in unison?   No, I didn't say "Quack in unison", but to say "Quack!" in unison.  Pay attention to the inverted little commas.  And the exclamation mark I have just added for poetic emphasis.  Now say it again.  "Quack".  Now again, louder, "Quack!"  Now say it with real passion, one, two three, "QUACK!"

There darlings, now didn't that feel good!

Now, in unison, I want you all to say "We're all in this together."  take the smirk off your face.  Only those who have earned the right are permitted to sound ironic.  Let's say it again, shall we?  "We're all in this together."  now, a bit louder, with feeling, "We're all in this together!"  And now, while looking at one another, "We're all in this together.!

Now, doesn't that make you feel good!

Let's try the same now, singing, "Kumbaya."

Get that smirk off your face, Gentle Reader!

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What's Next? 21

Gentle Reader, here is an excerpt from an email I just sent to a new friend.  Time alone will tell if, upon reading this, this person will want to continue being my friend, but I am prepared to make certain sacrifices for matters that are important to me, and this is one of them.  All for now, ducks!

 I found myself eavesdropping on your conversation with one of your customers, and I thought I would offer you my two bits worth.  I believe you were talking about a safe injection site at Saint Paul's Hospital and that you had signed a petition against it.  You mentioned too that you came across someone shooting up in your doorway when you came into work this morning.  You also mentioned that there are other such services available elsewhere in Vancouver and that if people living with addictions choose to, then they can use those places instead and that it is their own personal choice.

Now, before I address these matters, I think there is something you need to know about me.  I work with people with co-occurring disorders, which is to say, people who suffer from mental health issues as well as addictions.  I have worked in this field for many years, and I am trusting that you will be open to my input.  First of all

, because of the pandemic, it is much more difficult for substance users to access the scant services that are now available, because of safe distancing and related concerns.   Add to this mix the lack of safe affordable housing and other essential services of support and treatment (I did say, I work in the field, so you can trust me when I say that there is nowhere near enough funding or support available for our people), then you might understand why people living with addictions, homelessness and mental health issues are going to be showing up elsewhere in the city.  For that matter, they were already in the West End before you were, so you might as well accept them.

It is also quite possible that one reason that person was shooting up in your doorway was because of the lack of available services.  Safe injection sites save peoples lives, help provide them with a sense of connection and community, and eventually help them on the road to treatment and recovery.  This is not simply my opinion.  I happen to know this!

As far as personal choice is concerned, most of them are already coping with mental health, homelessness and addiction issues.  For the most part they come from backgrounds of horrendous neglect, abuse and mistreatment.  They are nowhere near to a place where they are able to make the kinds of choices that you and I would like them to make, or feel ourselves capable of making.

What's Next? 20

I really feel that something new is about to open up.  For many of us, yes, but also for me.  I can't identify it, only that I have to keep practicing the lessons that I have been learning since when I was in Colombia last February.  The main thing is staying open and vulnerable and completely honest towards God and towards other people.  And out of that authenticity and integrity to really walk in love towards others. 

Not always easy, but necessary.  Oh, so necessary.  Sometimes I will go through an entire day feeling absolutely nothing that resembles love towards anyone.  It is during those times that, with the help of the light of the Holy Spirit, that I try to identify thoughts and attitudes (and they are many) that are not loving.  For example, when I automatically start judging a smoker as a self-centred loser, or a cyclist or skateboarder on the sidewalk as a selfish bit of DNA.

Increasingly, I find myself intentionally asking why about others, and what, and how.  It is that essential line from the Prayer of St. Francis, to not be understood so much as to understand.  This is so difficult because we are naturally self-centred and narcissistic, though not entirely so.  It is a matter of summoning the love, or even the faintest whisper of the hope of love that resides in us still.  This is often hard work, but nothing that is worth having can be obtained cheaply.

I am thinking for example of the man reading a book while standing in line on the sidewalk just outside the window and right next to where I was seated on the other side of the window inside a cafe.  He was waiting in line to get into the shop next door, and was standing less than one metre away from me, divided only by the open window between us.  Then I realized what an exercise in  futility it would be to remind him that we are in a pandemic right now.  So, I moved to a table in the back.  He did give me a friendly smile when he caught me looking at him, and probably is a very decent sort, if rather dense and ignorant. 

But really, Gentle Reader, I don't know, and I have no way of knowing anything at all about that gentleman's life.  So, to avoid conflict, I simply got out of the way.  It can be a huge challenge at times staying safe in this pandemic, since it is from ignorant and oblivious people that the virus can spread most easily.  But treating them like the enemy is not the way of love, neither is living in a state of fear and anxious dread of the virus.  So, I simply keep praying and keep opening myself to the Holy Spirit and to the divine teaching if only to keep from falling into fear, hate and neurotic anxious resentment of others.  Better than nothing, I guess.

What's Next? 19

It is sad and so telling that there still remains very little political will to do anything about housing the homeless in my city.  Why else this paralysis?  What would be a simpler solution to our housing problems than simply making housing affordable to everybody?  Why is it too big an ask that all rental accommodations should not be allowed to charge any more than thirty percent of the renters' income for housing, no matter their earning category?  If it wasn't for the greed of the property developers  and landlords, and if it wasn't for the spinelessness of our elected officials.    Is it really too much to ask?

I am finding public transit a challenge these days.  It is being in a confined place with people who don't always know when to safely distance.  Yesterday, I found myself fighting a panic attack shortly after I got on the bus.  Then when I was sleeping I had a nightmare of some young male passenger punching me when I asked him for two metres of safe distancing, and the young female bus driver was just too busy periodically sucking face with her boyfriend while driving the bus to appear very interested in my plight.  Then, today on the Skytrain, I fought another mild panic attack.

Fortunately these things do not affect my breathing.  But I know where this is coming from.  I am not immune to the ambient fear and anxiety that is afflicting us all.  But I also trust that because I am a positive person, and that I reach out to others in love and care, that this will keep me from succumbing to this anxiety.  I will not be protected from feeling any of it.  This is how we develop empathy and compassion.  And I am going to continue using public transit every single day if I have to, because I want to suffer with others and to help them overcome through my own overcoming, because that is the way of Christ.

So is housing the homeless.  We have so much work to do, Gentle Reader.

What´s Next? 18

It seems that we are all living in a rather uneasy state of limbo right now.  We are having a near cessation of cases of covid, here in BC, and there have been no recorded deaths in more than a week now.  This does not make us any more comfortable.  A friend just mentioned that a lot of people are out buying covid puppies.  They are getting dogs to help them cope with the anxiety, and there is the possibility that the animal shelters will soon be overflowing with unwanted pets.  This is so like human consumer nature.  Reach for the first comfort.  Doesn't matter if it's on four legs or if it can be poured from a bottle.  We are all so fragile.  We want to be respected and talked to like adults, but so few of us seem prepared to actually be adults.  Pathetic.  Many of us have not matured beyond indignant five year olds screaming "You're not the boss of me!"

In the meantime, homelessness festers, the homeless fester on the doorsteps of the festering NIMBY's who don't want them in their gentrifying neighbourhoods, but are just going to have to put up and shut up because they helped create the problem and there was homelessness in their lovely edgy downtown neighbourhoods long before they bought into living there.  And I don't see any of them lifting so much as a professionally  manicured finger to help the vulnerable people who end up shitting on their doorsteps because of the lack of public toilets in this city.  Well, we all have to go sometime, eh?

And I also have sympathy for NIMBY's.  I live next door to a building full of hard to house tenants.  It is owned and managed by the city of Vancouver, and many of the tenants have been homeless.  Yes, some of them are annoying, they play their music too loud, and they are messy, but I would rather suffer through the inconvenience and discomfort than see them turned back out onto the street.

Many are hoping this pandemic will make us more compassionate.  I hope so.  We badly need housing solutions, but for that to happen we also need broad public support and political will.   If it is so easy to build condo towers to house the well-incomed, why is it rocket science to build affordable housing for all those who need it, to create a ministry of BC Housing writ large, where no one has to pay more than thirty percent of their income for housing no matter where they happen to be living?

Fifty years of neoliberal economics and politics has created a very ugly fallout.  Will it take more than a pandemic to put this in reverse?  Time will tell.

What's Next? 17

Sometimes, when we are getting ready to make a new start, it can be helpful to go back to where we previously began.  I tried that this morning.  not intentionally, mind you.  None of this is consciously intentional.  I think this is just more the way we get led as we more and more entrust our lives, wellbeing and future to the Infinite.  I left the apartment for a longer than usual walk at around 8:30 this morning, then did something I don't usually do.  I stopped for coffee.  Not in just any friendly neighbourhood coffee shop, but in a rather special place.  This cafe, on Davie Street in Vancouver's West End, is particularly significant to me and for one particular reason.  I was the first artist to do a show there some twenty-six years ago in 1994.  They had been open for just less than a year.  The owners were a pleasant couple, and they were interested in art.  But at first they did not want local artists exhibiting on their walls, claiming that they had neither the time or energy.   So, I worked on them, and for almost a year wore them down and wore them down.  They saw photos of my work and seemed duly impressed.  Then, one day, they caved.  Yes, please be our first artist, they said, and I could only graciously accept their kind invitation.

The rest is, as they say, history, Gentle Reader.  Within a week I got a phone call from a young woman who wanted to represent me as my agent.  It also turned out that she was the girlfriend of the young artist whom, just one year earlier, had quite firmly kicked my butt about getting started with painting seriously.  My new agent quickly connected me to an architect, who bought one large painting and commissioned three more, all of them parrot compositions, to adorn the walls of a new hotel he had designed.  I got quickly to work.

Just two months before that time I had been reading in the Globe and Mail an article about the Monteverde cloud forest in Cost Rica.  I felt strangely compelled to go visit that place.  There was one little obstacle, however.  No money.  Now, I didn't merely feel compelled to visit Monteverde.  I felt distinctly called by God to go there.  But I didn't have the funds.  So, I said, Lord, if this truly is your will, then you will also open up the funding for getting me there and you will provide everything that I need.  Four paintings later, I was visiting a travel agency, where I purchased a plane ticket for my first trip to Costa Rica. 

Before I went there I had a dream.  I was visiting a restaurant with lots of beautiful dark wood panelling.   The waiter said I was too early for dinner, but I could stay for coffee, if I wanted.  When I arrived in Monteverde, I went for dinner in a restaurant.  It was the place I saw in my dream.  And the waiter that I saw in my dream was there serving me.   In the same dream I saw a door with the number 8.  That was my room number in the bed and breakfast where I stayed during that trip.   I knew already that God had spoken to me in that dream.  This would be the first of many future visits.  Not ready for dinner, or the main event, but that would come later.

I did feel strangely and powerfully connected to Monteverde.  There was one little problem, though.  I didn't speak Spanish.  I had no way of actually interacting with and befriending any of the local people, and I felt very strongly that that was why I was being called there.

Three years later, a stranger, a gentle man of a certain age, on the sidewalk handed me a Spanish dictionary.  He knew absolutely nothing about me.  I started encountering him randomly several times.  Then one day I stopped and asked him why he wanted me to have the dictionary.  He replied that he believed that God wanted him to give it to me.  I never saw him again.  Interesting that just a couple of weeks before I was asking God for guidance about learning Spanish. 

After that, the proverbial shit really began to hit the fan.  I had no way of returning to Costa Rica.  There was no money, and I was really struggling with some major issues of trauma.  I ended up homeless for almost a year, just getting by couch surfing and selling and working on my art and cleaning homes for income.  As soon as I landed in a shared apartment in 1999, I got to work on seriously learning Spanish.  Suddenly, one door after another was opening for me, and I was able to attend free (almost free, one dollar a pop Spanish classes, network with native speakers, and obtain all kinds of educational material, making myself proficient in Spanish grammar and language fluency within a couple of years, with a rapidly growing vocabulary.

Other doors began to open.  Through a series of random encounters on the bus, the housing advocate for the city of Vancouver helped me get into affordable housing, and then some vocational doors swung wide open for me helping me get back in the work force.   I soon had a bank balance, obtained a passport, and in 2008, or fourteen years later, returned to Costa Rica.  I have since been visiting countries in Latin America, Mexico, Colombia and Costa Rica, every year.

I have made friends in those countries, principally in Colombia and Costa Rica, and these friendships all seem like they are going to be long term.  I am welcome back, and I will be going back, probably many times, at least for the foreseeable future.   My Spanish has also reached a very high level of fluency.

Today when I was in this café I was working on a drawing and people began reaching out in interest.  I mentioned that I was the first artist that showed here.  Now it feels as though something new is about to be set in motion.  Curiouser, and curiouser. 

What's Next? 16

I have had this conversation twice today, with two different people.  It's about how much my life has slowed since this pandemic.  I imagine this to be true for almost everyone.  Even though I am still able to work, it is from home, the hours are flexible, and I often multitask household and creative projects with my professional duties.  Plus, this gives me ample time to go outside for long, quiet and solitary walks, as well as communicate with various and sundry dear friends of mine.

I am almost sure that a lot of us are asking what took us so long to learn to slow down.  This is fine for me, since I am soon facing retirement, so this is like the gradual unwinding that I was anticipating, plus, I still get full wages.  It isn't going to be easy for a lot of others, who still have decades of work ahead of them.   For me, even if my employers go on showing their true colours and keep stripping away my income, I will still have enough in savings to keep me afloat and to finance yet another trip down to Colombia and Costa Rica. 

It is anyone's guess when the travel bans will be lifted, but I know that I'm returning, just as I am certain that much of my future is tied to those two countries and the close friendships I have made there with some really good people.

I am feeling truly blessed in so many ways now.  I have friends, and daily Spanish conversation with some of them.   I am well provided for in every sense of the word.   The future is a big wide door that is already beginning to open to me.  Each day is but a new small step forward, bringing me closer.   Amid the fear and anxiety around this pandemic I feel curiously filled with joy and laughter.

This is, Gentle Reader, but a beautiful madness.

What's Next? 15

I heard something interesting in an educational video about trauma that I saw today.  Basically, people are not going to remember you for what you said or what you did but how you made them feel  when they were around you.  This was spoken in the context of how to improve the way we deliver care and services to people who are living with mental health concerns.  This also has a broader and more general application.

First, a word about schadenfreude and me.  The definition of schadenfreude is pleasure derived from someone else's suffering.  Not very nice, actually.  I remember watching TV some twenty-one years ago, or so, with my racist father.  There was a news report showing some people in South Korea falling as a balcony collapsed.  My father said that it looked almost funny.  I replied, I'm sure it isn't for them.  We'll say he wasn't terribly pleased with his darling son.

I find it only too easy to be like my father sometimes, but I try to carefully select my target.  I punch up.  People of other races are never in my cross hairs, neither are the poor or disabled nor anyone who is vulnerable.  I prefer to pick on the wealthy, the powerful, the influential.  My most recent target was the archbishop of the diocese of the Anglican Church where I happen to live and her lovely lawyer.  I still generally do not have compunctions of conscience about getting such idiots upset or angry.  They often deserve it.  Especially when their arrogance blinds them to the humanity and essential worth of people they consider to be less than them. 

I admit that I sometimes enjoy stirring the pot.  Okay, a bit oftener than merely sometimes.  I like creating drama.  It makes life less boring.  I don't necessary enjoy conflict, especially when it backfires on me.   I have to admit that I also have little compassion for the privileged, especially when they are whining over their first world problems. 

This doesn't mean that I love them less.  I often think of Jesus confronting the pharisees, making scorched earth of them for being such psychopathic bastards and moral cowards and hypocrites.  Rather like Anglican archbishops, I would imagine (so sue me, Melissa!)  His words, and his tone, were anything but kind. 

But I have to believe that he was kicking their ass also because he loved them.  He wanted them to do better, knew they could do better, and it was the cry of his love raging against their stubborn and obtuse arrogance.  If he merely hated them he probably would have just left them alone.

I do wonder what kind of role that activism is going to be playing in my future.  I am certainly no longer interested in participating in public demonstrations.  I cannot endorse the kind of black and white thinking that gets propagated.   But I am neither content to simply sit back and quietly rot my way into a festering retirement.  i don't know what I am going to do yet, but do something I must and I will eventually figure it out.  I always do, and I always will.  Time will tell, Gentle Reader, time alone is going to tell.

What's Next? 14

There are conversations that I simply refuse to participate in right now, Gentle Reader.  During this pandemic, emotions are already heightened, people are frightened and during times of crisis and uncertainty, reason and common sense always are the first things to get tossed in the landfill.  I am not going to mention any examples here either, because right now I am a bit of a coward.  I am sick of conflict and there are people who are just waiting for some excuse to self-escalate and I am simply refusing to go there with them, regardless of how tempting it can be.  I have come to realize that sometimes I can be like a cat playing with a mouse when it comes to other people, and even if that does serve its purpose at times (picking on politicians, obtuse journalists and power hungry bosses, I always like to punch above my weight, you know!), it can also become nothing but gratuitous sadism, and not everyone is going to share with me in my sense of play.  Especially when they are the ones being played with, and especially if they are also, with good reason, feeling fragile.

Right now, it is kindness that really matters, not being right.  I have already made that mistake, and one individual got very upset with me, and no matter what I tried to do to put out the fire, it was too late, and now I just try to be kind, and trust that if anyone needs correction or feedback, that it will happen anyway, without my kind ministrations.

I am trying to start each day with the thought of how many people can I bless today.  Sometimes it is difficult, because not everyone is going to be on the same page.  People are going to be too distracted, or too self-absorbed or simply too wounded and damaged to be anything but difficult and those are the ones that particularly need tenderness and understanding, tempting as it can be to simply kick their sorry ass as hard as I can.  But there have also been times when I have been that kind of person.  For example, when I first learned that my mother had lung cancer, and that her prognosis was going to be very poor.  For three days I wandered around in a daze of grief, worry and anguish, and who only knows what an absolute pain other people must have found me, especially not knowing what I was going through at the time. 

Well, the person being a self-absorbed pain on the sidewalk in front of me might just be going through the same thing, or maybe something even worse.  I have no way of knowing.  But if ever there has been a time when kindness gentleness and mercy are important, then this is it.  I am not going to be marching in any demonstrations, and I am not going to get into useless debates with others about who is right or about which lives matter.  I am going to stay quiet, keep my mouth shut and prayerfully discern what would be the kindest and most helpful words to proceed from my mouth.  Otherwise, I will say nothing, Gentle Reader.

Ta-ta for now.

What´s Next? 13

First, one of my many pet peeves, Gentle Reader. This regards people who don't seem to realise that we are in a pandemic.  Now they could be just plain dumb or uninformed, or young, or old, or stupid, or selfish, or self-absorbed, or simply innocently distracted.  Who only knows?  But it is a nuisance trying to maintain a safe distance from some of these idiots.  I don't mean while outside, where the naturally circulating fresh air makes transmission less likely, but in stores and restaurants and coffee shops and suchlike.

Sometimes I speak up, but usually I just try to remain vigilant myself.  I often put on a mask, but it doesn't protect me, just the often unaware people around me.  The other day I saw inside a popular bakery-cafe one older woman coughing into her hand instead of her elbow, and who only knows what she was going to touch after, for anyone else to pick up her lovely germs.  Then there was another woman, middle aged, groping and touching her face in a mode that seemed almost autoerotic.
Today in a small grocery store I had to constantly swerve around one customer who didn't seem to know where he was or what he was doing, then in a cafe there was this fellow running his probably not very clean hand along the self serving area to illustrate a point to his companion.

I could go on, but I won't.  For me, what a lot of this touches on is how unprepared a lot of us still seem to be to responsibly deal with this state of emergency we are all living in.  And of how equally unprepared most of us will be as we eventually emerge out of this pandemic.  Right now, many are relearning the words to  Kumbaya.  But it has to be also acknowledged that we are a generation irreparably corrupted by the greed, cynicism, materialism, narcissism and pathological self-interest that has been ruling this world over this half century.  Everything from the Me Generation to rampant neoliberalism and voracious and unbridled global capitalism and international corporatism have been almost like an unconstituted conspiracy to undermine and destroy and otherwise disembowel us of  every single redeeming trait of our highest humanity.

We all want a new world.  Many are talking about making a new world.  But we are forgetting one salient principal.  First, in order to have a new world, we have to be prepared to work long and hard at making a  new world  And in order to equip us for so daunting and monumental  task, we also have to start becoming new people:  less selfish, less individualistic, less self-focussed, less greedy, kinder, more loving, more communitarian, more generous.  Nothing is going to change, Gentle Reader, until we do, and this means you and I.  I like the word repentance, which is to say, turning away from the selfish and destructive path we are on and taking on a new identity, of people with loving hearts and ready to put our hand to the great task that awaits us.

What's Next?12

Today, I had coffee and a walk in the rain with an old friend.  I mentioned to him how as part of my strategy for coping with the pandemic, I decided that I would reach out to and support others.  I thought this through carefully while I was in Costa Rica.  I knew that I was not afraid of getting the virus, though certainly I was going to run that risk at times, and it certainly wasn't something that I would want to have to deal with.   But I wasn't, and still am not, afraid of getting sick.  And I am not afraid of dying, much as I enjoy this life.  But my future is in God and for this reason I feel safe, no matter what happens.  I was afraid of the fear itself.  I was afraid of soaking up the ambient fear and anxiety and terror that I knew people would be living with, because we live in an age of heightened fear and anxiety, not to mention that so few of my generation are morally or otherwise equipped to cope well with adversity.  We are soft, spoiled, entitled and pathetic.

That was when, through prayer, I came up with the brilliant idea of reaching out and supporting others as my way of shielding myself from being afraid.  To quote the writer of the first letter of John in the New Testament, there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear. 

While on my way home the love of Jesus became my rallying cry. I think this has been successful.  I am making a point of staying in close contact with others.  In a couple of cases the contact is daily.     We are, of course, supporting one another, and so it should be.

None of us is complete in ourselves, or by ourselves.  That isn't how God made us.   We only truly become truly ourselves when we are connecting to and reaching out in love to others.  This has nothing to do with codependency.  This has everything to do with fighting the ethos of selfishness and narcissism that has us in its grip and acknowledging that we are not the centre of the universe.

I have sometimes noted while walking outside how absolutely solitary someone appears to be when they are either smoking a cigarette or focussed on their precious little smart phones.  Then I heard something interesting on the radio this morning.  I believe it was a doctor stating that addiction is the opposite to human connection.  This so makes sense.  We are made to connect.  If you believe, like me, that God is love, and that we are all and each made in the image of God, then love must somehow be what moves and informs us and our actions.  Otherwise, isolation, darkness and destruction.

This isn't to say that we don't need solitude, which is quite a different state from isolation or loneliness.  And certainly we need to live our lives in a state of balance so that we can adequately take care of ourselves while also caring for others.  And neither should we forget how many people isolate because they have been so badly hurt by others, or because they are not cared for and must live and die unnoticed by others.  I think this is why it behooves us to reach all the more aggressively beyond this isolation to touch other people's lives.  We need one another.   And we really need to relearn community.  All for today, darlings!

What's Next? 11

I remember when I was often reading Dostoevsky's most famous novel, the Brothers Karamazov.  But first a word on how I became acquainted with that legendary tome of nineteenth century Russia.  I was a lad of eighteen, just recently resigned from my job as a leather cutter, and now I had a little time to kill.  I would wander around the city, despite the chill November weather, and more often than not would find myself seated at the long communal table of the Naam, Vancouver's premier and oldest vegetarian restaurant (I think they are fifty-three years old this year).  I used to frequently saunter by there in the afternoon, just after the lunch rush, and I would comfortably set myself up with a cup of herbal tea (they had a huge list of concoctions to choose from on the menu) and pet the friendly cat that lived there or engage an equally friendly stranger in a conversation (though I did take care to not try to pet any of them!)

I first learned of this place, the Naam, from my friend Colleen (or, Big Bird), a radical left survivor from the heady days of Berkeley in the late sixties who became an equally radical Jesus Freak.  I was sixteen then, and I used to hang out at her house and made a lot of interesting new friends there.   I never went into the Naam, however, until the following summer.  I had a new friend, Garry, who lived at Wreck Beach (he was naked when I first met him.  He liked my singing and wanted me to stop and chat a bit with him) and we became very close.  I was seventeen and he would have been around twenty-three.  A very beautiful, gentle artist, but not the sort of person either of my parents would approve of!  Garry worked at the Naam, so I soon began to visit him there.  I remember when he made me a whole wheat chapati stuffed with tahini and honey.  I felt like I'd died and gone to heaven!

When I returned to Vancouver, following finishing grade twelve on Vancouver Island, I became a habitué at the Naam, soaking up the peaceful vibes and enjoying random encounters there with some  very interesting strangers.  One such individual was seated across from me and reading what looked like a very thick paperback novel.  I asked him about it and he said it was the Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky.  We got into a very interesting conversation, I wrote down the title and author and bought myself a copy just days later.

Reading this book took me to a number of interesting places, but I would particularly fixate on the youngest of the three brothers, Alyosha, who was a very devout young Christian, and his mentor, the priest Father Zossima.   It was the final discourses of Father Zossima that continually held my attention.

What I particularly and singly remember of his discourses was his teaching about hell and love.  he said that hell is the place where one is completely unable to love.  Those words have stayed with me all my life, Gentle Reader.  Those words are like a burning coal from the alter of heaven that has been slowly working its way into the deepest parts of my being.

When I was in Colombia back in February, that was when, I would say, that those words really began to bear fruit in my life.  This absolute consuming fire of love has me in its flame now, and I am love's servant, and now I am love's slave.

This is not a romantic love, but something deeper, stronger and infinitely more powerful, which means that this is the very force of the Creator and this has opened me in new ways to the beauty that surrounds me and to the people and creatures that surround me.  I really believe that we are not ever going to be complete as human beings unless we joyously abandon ourselves to that very fire of love which is God, and the very heart and soul of Jesus Christ.  And this is my new beginning, my darlings and this is indeed what is next!

What's Next? 10

I remember a friend of mine mentioning recently in an email about how important it is for him to be himself, and to not be his not self, or whatever it was he was trying to say to me.   And I can't say that I got exactly what he was on about but I think I have a rough idea.  And that got me thinking.  I have long been credited as a person who is not ashamed of or afraid of being himself.  Well, fair enough, I suppose.  But I have also been thinking lately of how unimportant that concept of self, individual self, being oneself, is to me.  I never really think in terms of myself.  I'm not ure that I ever have.  that this is me, this is not me.  That was me in 1975, but it certainly wasn't me in 1982 but it could again be me next year sometime.  This could be me, maybe not,  but, really, I don't know.  And you know something else, Gentle Reader?  I really don't care.


I don't really think of myself much.  There isn't really that much to me outside of the usual smoke and mirrors we all tend to carry with us.  Sure, some people might find me interesting, and I suppose to an old bad-ass like me, that is kind of flattering, but I think that I would rather think about God, instead of me.  I would rather think about other people, instead of me.  I would rather think about nature, instead of me.  I would rather think about beauty.  I would rather think about art.  And rather than just think of these things, to simply enjoy and celebrate them.  So then, who am I, or what am I?  Well, who are you?  What are you?  Who are we?  What are we?  My self is not really all that very important.  Maybe if I were a narcissist, and then certainly to my own precious self, my precious self would be...well..., incalculably precious.  But I find narcissists both pathetic and lethal  And wearing to be around.  And self-adulation is simply not a socially safe or desirable practice to indulge in.  It could make you go blind.  And it's bad for our skin. 

There are things, of course, that we do need to know about ourselves: our emotional makeup, our intelligence, our physical capacities, the state of our health, mental as well as physical, our spirituality. the influences of our family, whether the gene pool that helped form us needs to be chlorinated or not.  Our vulnerabilities, how we react under stress, how we relate to others, what kind of people set us off.

We also need to have values, know what they are and why we have them.  Also if we are open to examining or challenging our values, or our reasons for having them.  Do we believe what we believe in because that's what our moms and dads believed in, or is it a social and cultural construct that we simply absorbed with our mothers' milk, or are those things that we truly and sincerely believe in, and if so, why?

But this is all structuring and scaffolding, and none of it touches on the whole unfathomable mystery of who we really are.   I had this interesting conversation with one of my friends in Colombia about why I a reluctant to put a lot of energy into marketing and promoting my art.  I have had quite a  few setbacks with arrogant, unreliable and sometimes completely untrustworthy brokers when showing my paintings in public places, and going online with my art is something so huge and complicated and vast and complex that I simply get sweaty and nervous just thinking about it.  I nearly fell back on my other friend's excuse, that I simply would be being not me for me to engage too eagerly into marketing my art.  But since my conversation with my Colombian friend I hae been having to question and challenge that particular version of me that I have come to believe in s true. 

The human self is way more fluid and changeable than many would care to believe.  But I really like the Dalai Lama's take on the human self, which is that we only really truly become our true selves when we are in the act of compassion and having love and care for one another.

What's Next? 9

We can only work with what we already have at our fingertips.  And sometimes we do need to make better use of our opportunities.  I was just showing a new friend some photos of some of my paintings, some of which he appeared to be very interested in.  So, playfully, I would tell him if they were still available, and that I might also do a commission if he'd like.  Now, it is not my intention to push my art on him, or on anyone.  I was simply playing with him, in a way.  But then I confided to him after that I used to be generally this brazen when it came to promoting my paintings, because that's how sales and commissions were usually generated.  So, I am crediting my friend today, by letting me practice on him, for helping me get restarted with promoting my art.  There isn't really a lot for me to work with here, but it's all I have right now.  I am going to carry my little photo portfolio of my paintings with me everywhere I go, from now on, and if anyone expresses interest, I will whip it out of my knapsack for them to look at.  And then we'll go from there, Gentle Reader...

I like much this idea, this concept of working with and using what we already have in our reach.  Having come up with absolutely zero success in promoting my art through the internet, and really much preferring person to person contact, I am going to use the tools that I have already available, and see if there are new and different ways of using them.  This is really how I am trying to manage my life in the restricted circumstances we are all sharing in right now.  There is always something positive we can focus on, put our hand to.  There is always something to enjoy, cherish and value and celebrate.  There are always things about our own character and our very imperfect human nature for us to re-examine.  There are myriad opportunities to learn and grow. 

Here where I live in Candela Place, there are always opportunities for being a better neighbour, even if that would mean being a bit friendlier, kinder, and less judgmental of the people around me, and of expressing more gratitude and appreciation to the people who work here.  In my work, I can continue developing this delicate balance between acceptance and assertiveness, because not all the conditions that I work with are particularly fair or just and sometimes I simply have to confront or voice my concerns to others.  Meanwhile, I shall continue to do my level best to deliver quality care and service to my clients, particularly celebrating them as the beautiful people that they are, and likewise towards my coworkers.  But there are variables, and as I just mentioned here, sometimes assertiveness must trump mere niceness when I want to be truly kind to others. 

This also means being a good, and where possible, a better friend to the people with whom I am in regular contact.  It also means being kind and attentive to the strangers around me, even if it simply means trying not to judge or criticize others for behaving like idiots.  Sometimes it also means assertively addressing their behaviour, but also with enough discernment and common sense and tact to know when this would not be helpful.

It can mean so many things, but the first step is to stay close to God, to expose ourselves to the light of the higher truth and to live bathed in the light of the higher love.  Not easy, perhaps.  But neither impossible.  Today begins our training for future change, and perhaps this could also empower us to help change our future.

What's Next? 8

This is not going to make me popular during this current outbreak of Black Lives Matter, but it has to be said.  This will also highlight just why I really am not interested in participating in any of the protests or demonstrations that have come flowing out of the murder of George Floyd.  First of all, I am in complete agreement with the protesters, and I also support an end to discrimination, brutality and prejudice against people of colour, and for the full inclusion of everyone in society who is marginalized for whatever reason.  And I also look forward to the complete dismantling of White Privilege.  Even if I don't believe the postmodernist nonsense that says that being born Caucasian automatically endues one with that privilege.  You have to be already part of the affluent middle class in order to qualify for said privilege, and all the students getting brainwashed by postmodernist drivel in our universities all happen to come from well-off homes, hence their tendency to believe that everyone who looks like them is going to automatically share in their privilege.  I was born white and for a whole laundry list of reasons I have not benefited from any of this privilege.  But I have never known middle class privilege.  On the other hand, even if I was American, I would never in a million years vote for President Dump.

However, there is one reason why I am not participating in the protests, and this is the same reason why I no longer attend protest demonstrations.  It is the lack of nuance.  Everyone has to think exactly the same way and everyone has to say exactly the same thing, and woe betide anyone who strays even one  single nanometre from the dogma of the day.  Yes, black lives matter.  So do Asian lives, South Asian lives, aboriginal lives, queer lives, disabled lives, your life and my life.  Sloganeering breeds black and white thinking.  I am not going to subject myself to that.  I am not drinking the Kool Aid. 

Today I had a brief altercation with a young man of colour.  He was riding his skateboard on the sidewalk from just behind me and came within centimetres of running me over.  So I said to him, thanks for the warning, you nearly ran me over.  His well-bred response?  Telling me to shut up.  I replied that telling me to shut up isn't going to change anything.  Then he displayed to me his lovely middle finger.  I said, neither is lifting to me your finger going to make anything better.  We all have to treat each other with respect.  And then he disappeared into the local liquor store.

Now, I have had several experiences of being victimized by angry black men: when I was robbed at knife point by one in Amsterdam, when two black visitors from Seattle pulled the bandana off my head because they thought I had no right to wear it, by the fellow who swore aggressively at me for holding my breath on the sidewalk so I didn't have to inhale his cigarette smoke. by the black yuppie who came back to threaten me when I mentioned politely that he was monopolizing the sidewalk when he decided to go jogging with his kid in a mammoth size stroller and also walking his large dog.  And now this incident today.

I refuse to politicize any of those encounters.  I have also had difficulties with violent, aggressive and complete dumbass white people, if you must know.  But what I read into these situations, is that regardless of the politics and the history of political oppression and social inequality and police brutality there still remains one simple thing.  Regardless of our skin colour, we are all equally capable of being angels, or complete assholes, and I would like to add here that the good, kind and loving black people I have known far outnumber the douchebags I have just mentioned here.

But I have chosen to go colour blind, at least as far as race is concerned.  And my one message to all of us here is this: we have to begin treating one another with kindness and respect.  No excuses.  No rationalizations.  We all need to do this.  We all need to be this.

All our lives matter, Gentle Reader.  If you want to lynch me for writing this then I will happily provide you with the rope.

All for now, duckies!

What's Next? 7

I can't think of what's next, Gentle Reader, only what's now.  My neighbourhood is as irritating as ever, but this happens when you live in a depressed area of downtown, as I do.  I live in the Downtown South of Vancouver  which has long been a needy neighbourhood, full of drugs, poverty, survival sex work, and more recently homelessness.   It is not a bad as the Downtown Eastside, nowhere near, but still troubled enough.

More recently, just as homelessness was on the ascent in my city, and public compassion was hitting a historical low, they also began building luxury condo towers in this area.  Yes.  Gentrification.  There has been growing and ongoing conflict in my neighbourhood between haves and have-nots.  The moneyed newcomers and the impoverished indigents.  Well-off condo owners don't like to see homelessness or open drug use and drug dealing so close to their front door.  I don't like it either.  However, the people who sleep on sidewalks and openly use were here a lot longer than they were.  They did not buy into this neighbourhood blindfolded.  And when I hear yet another news item about one of the posh newcomers circulating petitions against an emergency homeless shelter down the street, I simply hum or even sing right out loud Cry Me A River.

 Noise is always a problem here, though there are ways of coping, like keeping the window closed, the fan on, and turning on the kitchen fan for white noise, and if that isn't quite enough, then earplugs can also do the trick, as in right now .  Some people are comfortable living with this kind of ambiental racket.  Me, no.  Previous landlords have told me that I have a problem with noise,  I think there are a lot of people like me who don't enjoy being plagued by someone else's thudding bass invading our homes, but we are often stigmatized as whiners and complainers.   People who tell us we have a problem with noise, are the same people are almost always the same kind of people who have trouble with compassion and empathy.  They simply do not have any.

Fortunately, the managers of my apartment building are a lot more supportive and compassionate.  The problem is the building next door, which is full of hard to house and previously homeless folk, many of whom still are using addictive drugs, and others with a whole plethora of issues that make it difficult for them to be good neighbours.  The people who manage this building are also little help.  Though some of their staff have been helpful,  but they also get burned-out after a while, and I can understand why.  Offending tenants aren't always cooperative, and some of them get downright foul-mouthed ornery.  Pity that the staff in the Granville Residence next door allow themselves to be held hostage like that.  Neither can they simply be turfed out for being bad tenants in most cases, because the whole purpose of this kind of facility is to try to keep people off the street.   The people living with these need levels can be exhausting, and after a while all one can do is simply put up with them, cope and there is not much else that can be done.

If the noise does get really bad, especially in the evenings, now I just call the police and the problem usually gets taken care of.  Still, I would rather see those same people housed than homeless.  I don't like having to live near them, but this can't be helped.  Being myself on a low income and without housing options, as well as having my own experience of homelessness, I know that we are in the same boat, and even if I can be a bit of a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) at times, I would still prefer that they keep their housing.  Maybe the current managers could  be all fired and replaced with more reasonable individuals, but that probably is not going to happen.

Now what does this all have to do with getting ready for my next step?  I really don't know.  But there is something about what we do to accept or change or modify or cope with our current circumstances that often gets us ready for what ever is coming for us tomorrow.  And this current step is very likely going to be also my next step on this changing and shifting journey I am on.

What's Next? 6

I spent part of today decluttering my apartment.  It wasn't difficult, but now things are cleaner and much better ordered, and somehow this also helps my thinking to be a bit clearer.  Or that's how the theory goes.  My number one question is, what do I do with all my paintings?  I can't force anyone to buy them.  When the archbishop praised my art openly upon seeing some photos I later asked her if the church would be interested in buying some of my art, at least as some sense of compensation for the outrages I have suffered from both her nibs and her ilk.  Suddenly, she didn't like my art any more. 

So, here I am, stuck with a bunch of paintings that no one seems to want.  They do make nice decor, even if they're my own work.  I have enough documented photos of my work in order to contact some of the art galleries, but galleries generally are not interested in self-taught artists.  You need to show them a reasonably impressive pedigree before they will even nibble.  I suppose that I could try to find a café or restaurant that would like to exhibit my work, but that often ends badly.  Work goes missing or gets stolen and no one will accept responsibility for it.  Or they just want the art to decorate their premises in order to attract business, and still insist on taking the work on for free instead of renting it, as they ought, and then add insult onto injury by demanding a commission for anything sold, even if nothing has been agreed on verbally or in writing before.  I don't want to go through this again.

So, in the meantime, I guess I am kind of paralyzed, Gentle Reader.  Unless a door opens, and I have no way of knowing this.  On principal, I am also done with trying to market my art online.  I lack skill and expertise in this area, plus, I am too trusting for my own good.  But especially because I don't like the anonymity of online marketing.  I prefer to meet and speak in person to the ones buying my paintings, not just on video chat but in living flesh.   Neither do I want a financial transaction to be the dominant reason for connecting with others. 

So, I am content to leave everything for now as it is.  I am still waiting, watching and listening for my next step in this new stage of life. 

What's Next? 5

I tried something a bit different this morning.   No, not a new brand of breakfast cereal, but something else.  As I was leaving my apartment this morning I was asking of God two things: that he help me to be the kind of person today that he has created me to be, and that he would also show me what I should do in order to help along the process.  Kind of like a variation on the Serenity Prayer, I would suppose.

I think I'm trying to be more careful to consider others before I react to their bad behaviour, or otherwise criticize, judge and sentence them.  Not easy, I suppose, but there is something empowering about treating others with kindness.  It is like that saying I saw painted on a sidewalk, back in 1971, when I was just fifteen years old, but already morphing rapidly into a young man: "Be generous with your love: it's the only treasure that grows as you give it away."

Funny, isn't it?  So many other boys my age were idolizing and seeking to emulate their favourite sports heroes, movie stars and rock and roll legends.  Me?  I wanted to be a better person.  I wanted to faithfully reflect Christ in my life.  And here I am almost fifty years later, still wanting to reflect Christ in my life, and still pondering those same beautiful words, be generous with your love, because it's the only treasure that grows as you give it away.

This shouldn't be so difficult.  I think that what makes living in real love such a challenge is that we live in an environment that could hardly be called loving, or favourable to love.  With the current miasma and turbulence of greed, competition and selfishness, one has to take on almost a monastic way of life in order to really live as one untouched by the world.  And in many ways, that is exactly how I have come to live.  For me, this is the best response I am yet able to give to God's call on my life.  To live simply, honestly, and without distractions so that I can really stick closer to God.  But to be really close to God, we also have to stay open and connected to those around us, because Christ only really becomes truly present to us when we are actively loving others.

Twenty years later I was in London and thirty-five years old.  Much of London seemed to have an open soundtrack of soul, rhythm and blues, reggae and rap music.  There was one refrain I often heard, sung in a deep baritone, "If you love the life that you live, then you should live your life for love."  Now I could be getting the words wrong, because I am unable to find this on Uncle Google, or possibly I got the lyrics just a little bit wrong, which might have been a little collaboration between the Holy Spirit, my ears and my unconscious to penetrate me with such a valuable message.

And here I am now, reconfronting this mystery, this mystery of love, or rather, it is this mystery of love that is confronting me.  We do not ask the questions, but the questions ask us, Gentle Reader, and we go on living as the question being asked, not until we morph into an answer but until we have become entirely absorbed by the humility of our confessed ignorance.   I no longer even think of asking what love is.  But I simply ask love, and now, I think that love is now beginning to ask me.

Our lives are but question marks on the pages of life.  Sometimes exclamation marks.  Never periods.

What's Next? 4

It is by the grace of the same God that we all get to walk this earth.  A lot of us often forget this.  Or don't want to know it.  But we are all stuck together, with one another, liking it or not.  It is especially for that reason that I find it baffling that race is still an issue for a lot of people.  Shouldn't it be both inevitable and inescapable that we must coexist?  Why do some people cling so dearly to their hatred, like Gollum and his Precious! But coexist we just and coexist we shall even if it kills some of us.  It surely shouldn't have to be so bleak, darlings.  and I do hope that one day we can move beyond mere tolerance to actually coming to love and celebrate the very presence and existence of all of us in our great diversity.  Though it seems that just tolerance can be kind of a short term goal, but we really have to move beyond tolerance, way beyond.

I just had an argument on the phone this morning with a colleague, one of the occupational therapists at one of the mental health teams where I work,  who seems to think that she is my supervisor, and the issue was all about my decision to give up a difficult client whose racist views I found particularly troubling.  So, we argued back and forth, and I trust it has been for both of us a learning curve, but in this climate fraught with tension and racial hate, I really need to protect myself, and I am no longer working with this particular client.

Yes, kindness.  I am reminded.  Even in thirty minute arguments with young occupational therapists that don't really have a lot of life experience.  and kindness towards ignorant mental health clients who seem to  be sunk in racial prejudice and hate.  Kindness has never been so necessary as it is now, right now. We are being schooled through this pandemic, and I think, as a friend mentioned today, that people are now really starting to see how much we need one another.   So, what does this tell me about what my next step is going to be?  First of all, I think it's important to dispense once and for all with this nonsense of individualism and heroism such as was being spouted by Joseph Campbell, among others. 

This is all about the hero, the young man (or woman) who has to go through a number of life trials, testings and difficulties in order to discover their true calling in life, and then emerge as a heroic figure brandishing the silver sword of truth, or whatever.   But this heroic destiny is every bit s false as it is egoistic, being based and founded on the American construct of the rugged individual that lives apart from the support or nurturing of their community.

But we don't need heroes.  We need one another, and we have to act together.  yes, it is often through enlightened nd empowered and charismatic individuals that we get mobilized, but then it is for us, the collective, to embody the spiritual power and force being manifested by these leaders so that we can really become transformed as community and as individuals.  We otherwise end up being oppressed and held in thrall by despots and demagogues, such as whom were first introduced to us as our heroes of deliverance.

Together we rise, and together we fall.  It isn't that I have a special calling or destiny.  We all do.  Rather, how am I going to take whatever God has given me in order to use it to the common good?   So far my record is pretty dismal.  I have had to leave the Anglican Church, once and for all, and there are no new offers pending from anywhere.  Best I sit this one out for now.  Best that I continue to work well, and work better, with others.

What's Next? 3

The sincere and heartfelt practice of kindness is part of the next step I am needing to take, and this step is so crucial, it is so key, Gentle Reader.  I know that I have sometimes sounded very unkind in parts of this blog.  Perhaps I was being unkind, or maybe simply not being nice.  Some hard truths can only be expressed harshly, or at least loudly, unfortunately.  Otherwise, no one is going to pay attention.  Anyway, if you are expecting me to make any promises about changing the way I write this blog, then please don't hold your breath, because I never know what I am going to be addressing, and sometimes a harsh tone is warranted, but not always, so I will try to be judicious, anyway.

I have had some mild tests today on my kindness.  It started with a mildly prickly email exchange with a friend who likes to hold text debates that include getting sent article links that I neither have time or are interested in reading.   I demurred, stating I did not want to get into a debate, telling him that for me it doesn't really matter who is right.  I have decided to avoid getting into these kinds of conflict that nobody wins, since they are usually fuelled by anxiety and irritability, and sometimes lack of sleep.   And they can also shipwreck friendships.

So, I let it go.  This is not easy for me since I am one of those annoying know-it-alls who must always be right, and this is one character flaw that I would like to address, but through kindness.  So, I am going to stay in touch with my friend, whom I am also trying to support during this pandemic, and simply not engage in anything contentious with him.  I have been thinking lately, how much value is placed on intelligence and cleverness, as though those were themselves supreme virtues.  But it also happened to be clever and intelligent people who gave us the atomic bomb.  Give me Mother Teresa  or Henri Nouwen  https://henrinouwen.org/about/about-henri/his-life/ over Stephen Hawking, any old day. 

I have nothing against science or higher learning.  I have an IQ that places me in the top two percentile, and I was diagnosed as gifted when I was a child.  Notice that I say diagnosed, as though it was a disease or a chronic condition.   Knowledge is all good, but it has to be partnered with love and kindness if it isn't to give birth to great devouring monsters.

There were other challenges to my kindness today.  The young barista from whom I was buying coffee beans today who refused to let me use the washroom because of pandemic protocol.  I resisted the urge to resent and managed to stay polite and kind.  Then I found an open washroom in the park one block away.  Problem solved.

When I got home, there were three or four street people hanging out in the alley below my window and playing incredibly loud music from their ghetto blaster.  I called the police and emphasized that I only wanted them to turn off the music, otherwise, no problem.  They have to be somewhere and they are already vulnerable.

I could go on.  But here is an idea.  Especially while there are increasing racist attacks against people of Asian and African descent during these troubled times, how about this little idea, Gentle Reader?  Let's substitute acts of microaggression with acts of micro kindness.  All it takes is having love in your heart.  Don't simply wait to find that loving feeling.  Be kind anyway.  This will create the love, and as we continue in these little acts of kindness, stumbling at first, but getting better with practice, so we will experience being birthed in our hearts the love, joy and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ.  and you don't even have to be  Christian to qualify!

What's Next? 2

I have a work meeting on Zoom this morning.  I don't know how much longer I will be working at this particular site.  I simply don't like it there, and this is largely because my supervisor and I don't have the easiest relationship.  I think we generally get along okay, but there are some political and philosophical differences that can get a bit wearing over time.  I do plan to leave this site when or before I retire.  Perhaps very soon.  It is hard to say...

Well, we had the meeting, and it went very well.  And my supervisor seems pleasantly different, supportive.  Flexible.  Maybe I'll stick around a bit longer.  Things are changing every month in my workplace, and there is no telling what is going to happen next.

I still don't know...much...of...anything.  All we have right now is...the right now.  This present moment. This divine gift from our divine creator and maker and sustainer.    There is so much awful news in the world. But I still hold that there is good in the world and while we cannot afford to ignore the evil, we must still maintain our focus on the good.

I have no idea what is coming.  None of us do.  We can only wait, and make the best possible use of the present moment.  To ignore the evil that spews out of the mouth of President Dump and to work on caring for one another, being not simply nice, but kind...to open our hearts and our minds.  We are always occupying the seat of the unlearned.  But we don't always know this.  Knowing this more, knowing how little we know, is going to be the fount and source of all our wisdom.

This is the era of new beginnings, Gentle Reader.

What's Next?

I really don't have a clue.  I expect to be travelling again next year, but I am still waiting for this pandemic to end and the international quarantines to lift.  That could take a while, perhaps longer than a year.  Or maybe sooner.  I just did a quick Google search, and it seems that things are already starting to gradually open up.  I expect that air travel is going to be even more onerous an experience from what it became post World Trade Centre bombing and the legendary grasping greed of the airlines to cram as many bodies into economy as possible.  I also think this is a good time to reexamine my motives and my direction with travel.

I have friends in Colombia, Christians, and supportive of my direction in life, and one of them I will likely be staying with in Medellín.   But I still have to ask this question:  What is the higher purpose?  Is there a higher purpose?  I would say that when I stayed with him in Colombia last February, there certainly was a higher purpose and God became very real to both of us.   I was also profoundly affected by the obscene social inequality in that country, with a desire to learn more about the people worst affected, and what part I could possibly play there, if only as one occupying the seat of the unlearned.   I am already beginning to research charitable and social activist groups and organizations in Medellín, and really, Gentle Reader, who only knows?

Right now, there is this business of getting through this damn pandemic.  We really don't know what lies ahead, but I am eternally optimistic, and I really do think that we are going to get through this faster, sooner and better than we are expecting.  And that also we are going to become better people through this ordeal we are sharing all over the world.   And some of us are going to feel pretty embarrassed about how we overreacted to this crisis.  I will share this email I just sent to some of my professional colleagues:

oh yes!  The covid folk dance!  Let me tell you the ways.  Outside is usually okay, since there is little danger of transmission outdoors, and I only wear a face covering (a bandana, it makes me look like a train robber!) if I'm on a crowded sidewalk, or in a store with too many people inside already.  And then there's the dance steps.  Those who safe distance a little bit.  Those that safe distance at all, and the ones who don't even seem to know that we are living in a pandemic.  I try to hold my breath when passing those blissful oblivious folks, (I don't want them to feel bad, you know) and often there are exchanges of humour and good will with others.  Otherwise, I prefer to go out bareface, and I refuse to get anxious or fearful about it.  Then there are the overachievers.  I think you know who I mean.  Solo occupants of cars who still wear masks while driving with the windows up!  Then there were the people in the local corner store today whom I had to remind to step back at least six feet.  They gave me maybe just a little more than one metre, so I smiled and said more please.  Pandemic, I quipped with a cheerful little smile, what pandemic?

Hope you're well through all this, Melissa, and all,  and keep your sense of humour and do not forget to laugh!