I just thought we should get real for a change.

And don't get him started on raisin cookies that look like chocolate chip.

graeme,

that sounds like a good title for a book...

*passes the bottle of Blue Nun*

Feels that way, doesn't. 

And a walk in the sunshine doesn't help the same way it used to. 

The refrain I hear is 'I don't bother with that big stuff.  It doesn't affect me, and I'm so busy anyway.'   Well, I think people pull in deeper & deeper to avoid being affected, and hardly realize how small they have made their world.  The resorts are stunning, but don't step outside the walls.  Spas reduce our stress instead of problem-solving. The malls have glittering windows that make you feel luxurious even if you dont' own everything.  Walmart externalizes costs on cheapened frills.  Water costs nothing so we don't protect it.  We take our kids to indoor play parks instead of the forests, and helicopter over them so nothing impacts their world.  Radios play music & 'bad boyfriend poker' rather than discuss issues.  And if they discuss issues, it is in 15 second spurts of one-sided satire.  We give money instead of time, we rail against Hurricanes for washing away our luxuries and ignore Haiti.  We don't vote.

Holey Moley.  Depressing.

Hi graeme,

I recently had the good luck of being invited to my sister's school (she's a teacher) to see David Suzuki speak.  After his compelling 45 minute speech, one of the students asked the question "Do you still have hope?"

David Suzuki answered by acknowledging that many of his colleages are saying "it's too late" or expressing cynicism that change will happen in time.  But Dr. Suzuki instead told the story of the last few years of sockeye salmon runs in BC.  In 2009, there was such a huge decline in numbers, that Suzuki said to himself and his wife "Well, that's it.  They're not coming back from this."

In 2010, miraculously even, BC saw the largest sockeye salmon run since 1913.  Dr. Suzuki's point?  "Nature can still surprise us with its resiliency."  Who even knows how much it can take and come back from?

The story was such a story of hope, and a reason to keep fighting, that it stuck with me. 

As for humans... well, I have a degree in Archaeology, and studied many a civilization in my University years.  One of the great lessons I learned from it is that humans are unexpectedly and surprisingly adaptable.  Reality is a grounding power, keeping us from floating above what can actually be done, but never let it stop us from dreaming of greater things or from attempting the impossible.  Never give up hope because it doesn't seem 'realistic'.

*shudder*

I had this unfortunate experience happen to me on Wednesday.  The whole office heard my cries of disappointment and disgust.

Hi Faerenach!!  Long time no chat!

Yes.... there is that.  I guess the issue is how big or how small your perspective is, and we know sometimes it gets stuck on one level.  Or it can change with every story.  For example, we can look at our family, or our city or our world.  We can pay more for fair trade coffee or donate the extra cash to the food bank.  We can hold placards for days over pipelines while wearing sweatshop clothing.  We can vote for a prime minister who keeps our ship steered on a good economic course (apparently) and still watch job losses couple with fewer social supports.  I'm in a glass half empty space today, that's for sure.  Some would say that means more room for vodka.  ;) 

Hi Birthstone!  I'm so rarely on here, but I do love WonderCafe dearly.

Indeed, it is impossible to do everything 'right'.  But that shouldn't stop us from recognising that we ARE wearing sweatshop clothing, or that we can afford the expense of fair trade coffee because our investments and pensions are partially in resource extraction projects (possibly in the very same countries the coffee comes from).  It's a constant battle between the sobering reality of 'awareness' and the uplifting hope and dream that we are personally able to make change happen.

People will persist even though empires may collapse.  Unfortunately, in the process many will suffer and die.  When I read about conditions in other times and places, I feel awe at the tenacity of people in persisting through terrible conditions.  In my first pastoral charge I was able to visit people who moved to Saskatchewan from Eastern Europe and elsehwer in the 30's.  Life was incredibly hard for them: cold in the winter and mosuitoes in the summer; logging in the wnter to financially support their farming, muddy roads; using the rail to go between communities when the roads were impassable.  And they ended up living quite comfortable lives.  When we lived on the farm, our house was about the size of a living room in many homes today with wood heat, kerosene lamps, and water in the barrel by the door hauled from a well 1/4 mile away. And my brother and I had a blast.

Our current political leadership is taking a path I see as headed to calamity on many levels.  My task is to equip others with the self-confidence and problem-solving skills that will help them and the rest of us survive as best possible whatever may come.  The most important skill is looking at what we have instead of what we have lost, and imagining how to use that.

everything has an expiration date

Well, I did want to be provocative. But it wasn't a counsel of despair. It's just a matter of seeing where the real problems are - and then to decide what to do about them.

It is a reality that there is an American empire. and, in fact, it was been a constantly expanding empire since the American Revolution. In the 19th century, it expanded to include most of Latin America, then reached out to Hawaii and The Phillippines. By 1945, it was on the verge of becoming a world empire - all controlled by American big business.

It's not a criticism of americans to say that. Most of them had nothing to do with it. They were whipped into fervour and hatred and fear, especially by news media from the 1890s on. The American empire was created by geography which gave the US an almost unattackable country, vast resources. With those, business leaders quite deliberately  planned a navy that would extend American power around the world. An American admiral of the turn of the century wrote a book about it.

That's why it took the US so long to enter both world wars. It didn't enter until it saw the opportunity had come to extend its power. By 1945, it seemed on the edge of achieving the dream of world economic dominance through military power. The business leadership thinks that's still possible. That's why have so many official wars going on - and so very many more unofficial ones.

It's not hopeless. But we can't deal with a situation until we see what it really is.

Iran is not a t hreat to Israel. But that isn't what the fuss is about, anyway.

It's hard for us to see the truth. We have all heard about how the CIA led the American equpped army of Guatemala in a slaughter of a quarter million Guatemalan native peoples. But we don't really react to it. We immediately and sincerely deplored the killing of several thousand innocent americans on 9/11. We know about the Guatemlans but, deep down, we don't care.All our prejudices get in the way. So we see the truth about the world not in US aggression, but in a perceived aggression by moslems (where their is no agression, just a response to centuries of western aggression.)

Would american business leaders kill Americans? Why not? They quite happily have killed Vietnamese, Iraqis, Afghanis and others by the millions. Why would they draw the line at killing americans? Would our business leaders destroy our environment? Why not? They happily do so all over Latin America and Africa.

These are at least arguably truths. But it's very hard to see the truth. And so we waste our time chasing the wrong problems.

As a footnote, we continue to see Quebec as the source of a language problem. I'm not at all sure that's what it is about. That's why treating it as a language problem hasn't worked out.

Graeme: I see pretty much what you see … but also the breakdown of food security in Canada (that's already debilitating the poor and working poor) reaching deep into the middle class; I see Canada's justice system already failing from within — the horrendous treatment of Ashley Smith is the tip of a very ugly iceberg. Further ahead, I see the collapse of the West and "liberation" eventually coming to North America from outside… very messily and violently. There are too many fractures in "the system", too much self-concern, too much dishonesty, too much greed, too fragile systems of education, health care, food and energy distribution — basic weaknesses. We have been distracted and emptied by our appetites for all the wrong things: for entertainment, bling, "stuff" and ego affirmation… for ephemeralities and crap. We have longed for crap, sought crap, slaved and sacrificed to fill our lives with crap and, surprise, surprise, we are innundated with crap. When we open our eyes and see it for what it is, we should find it easier to let go of.

But I also see the innumerable deepening crises generating new values among a growing number of good people, and with the re-kindling of deeper values, new hope. We can all, like a snake or lizard, slough off our old skins… and survive as happily as our core selves and spirituality allow and provide for. My deepest and most persistent emotions continue to be joy and gratitude: we are surrounded by beauty and abundance. Grace is as uncorruptible as ever. Goodness is as good as it ever has been. Love is as transforming as it always has been. Truth is as inviolable as ever. These forces still favour the good, the kind, the unfettered and the honest.

So I feel tremendous hope. I see light on the far side of chaos. It is the empire that is collapsing, not the human soul or its capacities.

Our old social "skins" are rupturing and new, better selves can undoubtedly emerge. 

(The text reads: 

"WE see a bee, a butterfly, a beetle, a wasp, a fly… it's taking nectar from a flower… it is also spreading the flower's pollen.



We are witness to a relationship that has been going on, as you see it today, for 100 million years or more. And, in sustaining itself, the insect (or whatever pollinator we're looking at) is also sustaining the vigor of the plant. In fact, through its ancestors, it’s helped not only the evolution of that plant but also made possible the diversities of beauty and abundance we see, smell and taste among flowering plants and their fruit… and in substances like beeswax and honey. Few of the fruit or vegetables we eat would have formed without a pollinator. Moreover, all of these good things have long existed as sources of human inspiration.



Of course, it can all be explained scientifically. But, when we look for "meaning" rather than “explanation”, we see that the "whole" is far greater than the sum of its parts. Everything is benefitting. HERE are organisms we seldom give two thoughts to, far less feel obligated to as our evolutionary elders or teachers yet, in sustaining themselves, they benefit us all and, apart from the odd wasp or bee sting, harm no other creature.



We have fallen into a dangerous place where, in sustaining ourselves, we damage our planet, including the flowers and their pollinators. We impoverish, dupe and damage each other and each others’ cultures: we surround ourselves with "collateral damage" … perhaps we’d do well to open more humbly to the teachings of beauty and abundance that surround us?"

It's hard to add to that - but there is also the refusal of the powerful in the west to permit legitimage difference of opinion. Democracy is already extince in the US, close to it in New Brunswick, at least. When that happens, the only way to make change is by violence - and violence can leave us with a cure that's worse than the sickness.

graeme

wonderful words, MikePaterson :3

Again, I fear that you're right, Graeme. It won't surprise me to see predator drone strikes against "terrorist" cells in the U.S. and Canada: right now clearways are being established for "surveillance" drones through the commercial airlanes over North America.

But it is crucial, I think, to hold fast to what is good and beautiful and abundant, even as the empire collapses… there's not going to be a lot among the ruins to celebrate, but there will be dawns and sunsets, starry skies and wildflowers, winds that are sweet on the skin, rivers that dance and people in love. These sorts of things have survived a hell of a lot of hell and I am glad to the quick of my soul that they do endure and that we can at any time lay ourselves open to them.

"there will never be a Palestinian nation. There isn't enough land even for the people who live there."

Far too obvious.  There has to be something wrong with this statement.

Cabada has four seasons. (There must be something wrong with this statement.)

No, Graeme, You're thinking of Canada, surely. Cabada has seven or eight.

you're right. We're now in maritime fall that feels like a miserable, maritime spring.

Dont reminsd me. Inanna. I'm 85 ----

And feared being old until I did  so  become....and having the best time in my life.

I vote: Best post on this thread: Chansen.