Your Hate Does Not Benefit You

"We saw in the North American free-trade agreement renegotiation and the imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs that the U.S. leader had no patience for facts and enjoyed bullying his allies more than confronting his country’s adversaries, while his acolytes sought to replace the postwar order with a Washington-centred hub-and-spokes system." Paul Heinbecker, Globe and Mail.

I'm not convinced that free trade was good for me or for the workers in factories, but the US President is not on our side either.  He doesn't even seem to be on the American people's side. As for our Prime Minister he seems to be more onside with business than with the citizens even though he made promises and was elected on a campaign to honour the land and sea on which we depend.

What has been lost is a respectable conversation between interests for the sake of the greater good of all.  From somewhere there is the financing of hateful threats to those who have been marginalized, including those who are concerned about climate change.

Meaningful dialogue has been taken out of our domaine and funnelled into the boots and trucks of angry people who have chosen hate as a way out.

A way out of what? A level gaze at all the competing interests who want to take more and give less? 

A way out of owning how our ancestors and nations were complicit in the exploitation of smaller nations, how they colluded in barbaric practices for the sake of dominion over the most land. Not to civilize it but to enslave the people and pollute the land for profit.

In this way, we too have been polluted -- not just broken hearted but corrupted. Ideologies we submit to are often evil because of how they effectively confuse and alienate us from our own mental health.

The best example of this is white supremacy -- and no I am not talking about all the people  who are not brown skinned. I am talking about the movement itself, funded by interests who wish to remain anonymous.  What exactly does white supremacy stand for?

Reading between the lines it stands for hegemony over those who have moved away from the masculine ideology that demands sacrifice on battle fields, absolute obedience in the corporate board room and support for enslavement. I am also talking about the feminine ideology that props up the command that their men must always be strong and never vulnerable, promotes the feminine body as a host for the next generation but not a complete being. The corruption of Christianity for the sake of power-over the people through unexamined obedience.

Some may claim that Christianity was corrupt from the beginning when the teachings of a young rabbi became the foundation of a new religion. Some may claim that religion by its very nature is corrupt as it indoctrinates the innocent for the sake of controlling the masses.

I am saying that corruption is so embedded in our civilization and collective memory, that we need to examine our lives and beliefs enough to figure out the thoughts and values we hold and the way we support the idea of control. Controlling nature, our children, our seniors, our selves.

What is the best use of my power? To hear the voices of others, to support community, to heal my own injuries and to love life. Once I feel compelled to dominate or conquer something I must interrogate that need and ask who benefits?

The Begat of Gratitude

To those who gave birth to my ancestors

who told me stories of the world

who showed me how to love it.

To all those who by accident and brief encounter

brought me to some truth I did not want to know.

To those who, not knowing my name

helped when I needed help

and who received mine when they needed it.

To those who by commitment of their will

have learned to write, sing, dance or paint

the message we most need to learn.

To all those who have the courage to put their skill

on the public stage to serve

as doctor, lawyer, minister, teacher, publisher,

scientist or social worker.

To those whose names I may never learn

who clean the office, drive the bus, do the laundry

pick the fruit and stack the shelves.

To those who have listened to another 

when they needed to be heard.

To all who embrace their vulnerability

and who enter into compassion.

For you are the names and the faces

of my gratitude.

(from Infinite Power, Ekstasis 2016)

Your Voice

Your voice is the temperature gauge

using the mercury of all you have seen and heard

of those who have harmed and saved you

an alchemical mix including your history

back to the first walk across the land

the first hut built of dry grass

your eyes wide as the saucers

that hadn't yet been invented

and the memory of a deep voice

directing you out of despair

calming the scream in your bowel

just as you were ready to split yourself open

in rage for all the times we let you down

when you were counting on us

to reach in for your bloodied arm

pull you up out of the pit

that had no steps or rocks to climb

and when we stop to think about it

we know we keep listening for the monster's roar

shuddering across the valley from mountains

too far and too high to climb

while your voice is so small and so close

we could begin to learn by listening

what could be done by someone

someone, anyone who hears

who has a hand to lift you up

and an arm to put around you

whenever your voice is ready

to ask for help.

The End of Humanity?

Rick Salutin wrote a thoughtful piece in the Toronto Star about Americans who still support the NRA after the shooting in Florida which killed 17 students.

The title read "Gun Enthusiasts Would Rather Lose Their Kids Than Their Guns".

The title is, of course, overreach. Who would ever think this in a country that holds the richest, most political and economic power in the world?

I think the problem is addiction not reason. Those whose self interests are bound in the status quo cling to it like heroin.  

Think of how a mind might sober up to realize they prefer guns to children? Other children maybe but not ours.

Most power systems are based on the problems of the other. It's other people's children who have a different religion or different colour skin that we scrutinize and judge. Ours we will excuse and defend no matter what they do.

Our children grow into adults who learn to be increasingly aggressive in business and politics.

On a different but related issue the CBC news reported that Rachel Notley won the war against BC by banning BC wines.  Further scrutiny will tell you the oil companies that already rule global economic policies won and small local business lost. Rachel Notley like so many politicians can win by promoting the interests of the biggest bullies, while leaders who defend justice are attacked, ridiculed and tossed out.

CBC has been under tremendous criticism by broadcasting the stories of the underdogs - those who are threatened simply because of who they are - women, gay, Muslim, first nations.  Now the hourly news broadcasts the values of big lobbies by ridiculing people for things that don't matter - such as the clothes Justin Trudeau wore in India with headlines that say his visit was a fiasco.  That's a judgement call.  That sounds more like Fox News than CBC. But its a testament to our eroding social values just like the charge that Americans love their guns more than their children.

Lobbies funded by big corporations say small businesses cannot afford $15 an hour minimum wage, cannot afford to provide affordable housing. What you see in these charges really is throwing humanity under the bus.  Oil pipelines and bitumen will destroy the local economies of fishing, tourism and entertainment while making Kinder Morgan even more powerful than it is.

Democracy cannot survive while fake news and contempt for life pollutes the fragile society. Justice for all cannot survive when oligarchs rule like demi gods and kings. When power is centralized we all become prisoners who must suck it up or be prepared to die.

Why is my example so extreme? Because our values slip away while we are not looking. How many people have found themselves giving up their values for the sake of keeping their jobs? How many who rise to the top become psychopaths because the pain of weighing their interests against the greater good cripples them. How many gang members learn that in order to survive you must serve the alpha male no matter how cruel his demands.

The best soldiers are fine people who were trained to kill and who came home broken because their nature was destroyed. Nations that rise to the top train their people to be brutal by brutalizing the most vulnerable in their society. They look strong and fearless but their GDP rises at the cost of their people.

What is called great is really that power to intimidate, to demand absolute obedience from their citizens. Now huge wealth is created by making workers slaves, but punishing those who think and who stand up to the bosses. At all costs, even our children, we are ordered to bow down to power.

We are becoming a world in which literature, culture, health and happiness are swallowed into slogans. Nestle is run by a CEO who believes water is not a human right. Large corporate interests believe human sensibilities get in the way of their control. They secretly fund think tanks and movements to shut down civil society. Hitler's fascism was a religion of killing and nihilism. The NRA is the department of everlasting fear.

What will happen to literature, music, philosophy, family and love, if this planet becomes a fascist corporation? What will happen to humanity if there is no other example of how to be in this world? 

Deliverology and the road to Hell

Andrew Nikiforuk delivered another insightful article on the Tyee, November 28. Now I confess I haven't read much about Deliverology  but I am familiar with narratives that organize reality into fragments of manageability.

Michael Barber is apparently the author of this 'technology' which began in the UK.

Writes Nikiforuk "Barber argues there are “five paradigms of system reform: trust and altruism; hierarchy and targets; choice and competition; devolution and transparency; privatization.”"

This is how the economy is placed in the centre of life. For many decades I was impressed with new ideas and technologies, seeking ways in which we could all agree to do the right thing. But no matter how smart we are or how squeaky the newspeak - things get worse, not better.

I have never managed to be altruistic enough to change the world - why is that? Because I packaged the world as a whole living construct with one design, one nature and one purpose. But one in which I and my loved ones would be okay.

That is to say, I was willing to sign on to a movement as long as my self interest was protected. The nightmare is - coming to terms with my own fearful ego. Holding back on what is good because I don't trust that it would work.

Systems development separated me from the authority of life and its power. We are fake managers. I keep talking to myself about how to save the world as though I was a separate entity, as though I was above that which I spoke of.

This is how good intentions become crippled and shady and how dangerous narrators internalize their demise. They are not in control of the universe because none of us are. But rather than come home to that family it is easier to seek scapegoats to blame.

What we really need is enough nutritious food, health services, and homes. We need parents who have time to love and nurture their children. We need friends who will listen to us and share good advice. We need to honour the organic wheel of life with kindness and inclusion. We don't need experts to deliver that. 

The Purpose of Human Life

The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others. 

Albert Schweitzer. Brainyquote.com

Sacred Masculine and Sacred Feminine

“Human strengths such as willpower, compassion, and the seeking of freedom are kept alive when people are inspired by love and there is a blending of feminine and masculine qualities. Those who live deeply in love with the fullness of life are capable of fighting for what they care for with all that they have.” Arkan Lushwala, The Time of the Black Jaguar.

Where is the sacred masculine in the economy? Where is the sacred feminine in the neoliberal market? Where is the blending of willpower, compassion and the respect for life, human and all other, on the stock market or GDP? Where is the trail to our future?

Saints Among Us

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is a saint who prescribes self-compassion. Yes there are saints living among us today. There are people who are compassionate and who have made compassion part of their daily to-do list. They are not run off their feet trying to fix everything but are listening and seeing the sentient beings around them.

When they see things that are not right they think about how they can open the door to make it easier for us to care for those who suffer. The saints are working in medicine, healing, communications and community groups. They are journalists in war torn countries. They are advocates for those who are in prison because they protest oil pipelines to keep their water clean for drinking. They are lawyers who will defend those who have no money to pay for legal services.

Saints today are not perfect and not interested in being perfect or even the notion of perfection. They are tuned into the currency of moments and minutes for the greater good.

The Unconscious Bias

Walking around the Farmer's Market on a summer morning I passed two craftswomen engaged in conversation.  What word describes the opposite of misogyny? In passing I chimed misanthropy. The second woman said that is the general term for the hatred of humanity. And the question was, what is the term used to express the hatred of men, males. I moved on because I didn't want to get ensnared in this conversation I had heard from others in different times and places.

I anticipated after the two women concluded there was no opposite to misogyny in our language, they felt that a hatred of men coming from women, was not recognized.  The second woman said it's not fair.

There is no opposite of misogyny because a hatred of males has not been a systemic tool. Women became the possession of men, chattels, and the institutions governed by men created a fear and hatred towards the feminine to justify the power men were given over women.

Less than a century ago, women who spoke out in public, who were engaged in challenging the status quo were often beaten, imprisoned and raped. It was mostly women targeted during the witch hunts. It was women who were trained to be submissive and obedient to men. It is women whose character is whacked in courts where rape is the charge. In domestic abuse cases, up to now, women were blamed for violence inflicted upon them. Our society claimed they must have asked for it. A man who beats his partner claims "she pressed my buttons".  Sexuality for a man is conquest, for a woman it is slut shaming. Doesn't every woman know this? How many more examples of men's contempt for women do we need to know? Southern states that try women who have miscarried for murder? The misogynist attacks on Hilary Clinton?

It was my assumption that the women at the market were feeling sympathy for men who were being attacked by the feminist movement. This made my blood boil. But perhaps they were saying its not fair how women are viewed. Perhaps it was the opposite of what I thought.

Yes there are women who hate men but it's not supported and justified by our social system.  Hate hurts us all on a personal community level, but when hate is used to support the violence towards a whole group of people it becomes a weapon, and weapons we can't see are devastating.

Had I inquired I might have pounced in judgement based on my assumptions.  Emotions operate first. Also I was not invited to participate in the conversation. Had they been shouting then their opinions would be open for comment, the volume entering and changing the environment.

But it's times like this when I feel there is a need for conversations about civil society and social justice, and a movement for adult education. Questions such as when do expressions of hate become a crime? When should the public intervene? In what ways are we implicated when misogyny, racism and homophobia are expressed?

Review - Refugees Welcome: poems in a time of crisis

Refugees Welcome – poems in a time of crisis. Edited by Oliver Jones. Eyewear: 20/20 special edition (2015) www.eyewearpublishing.com.

“We like the idea of the South. / Until it knocks on our door.” (Rishi Dastidar) This is the first stanza of the first poem in this small and powerful anthology.

Poems take risks, make generalizations, in order to get to the defining element of psycho/social reality. Politics assumes it speaks on behalf of the nation it claims to serve. But who does it really serve? That is the question for the poem.

Who is served when we take in refugees or immigrants? While we tend to think of them as the other, the other knows we are the privileged, who can, in the comfort of our living rooms or office debate the issue as though it is an abstract, rather than life or death.

Thomas McColl imagines the dreams of those who have nothing else to claim … “eyelids turned into wings … above and across the barbed wire”. The vulnerability of life without walls and insurance policies is captured in Kate Noakes observation between “Black black rocks / oily with dawn / an early lamb”, reminding us how fragile our bodies are when most of us work so hard to surround ourselves with symbols of security. But refugees, war, prejudice and corporate power enter the village like “A limp rag doll, washed up on the kitchen table” (Angela T. Carr).

Sophia-Louise Hyde asks us to mind the gap between “#indifferent” and “#hope”. Devices like social media almost parenthesize civilization as we live it from day to day. Media says if it bleeds it leads but the instrument doesn’t weep, and we do even though we try not to admit it.

“Our humanity diminished” writes Adele Fraser, where “the sea, cold, unconscious, welcomed where we did not.” Civilization is much more than the economy, it is about being human and living from a human consciousness. The poet reminds us that we are entering into madness when we fail to remember who we are. Metaphor is a short cut to do that. “There is a place where the wing tears.” writes Margo Berdeshevsky. Civilization has enabled us to fly and to believe it is our individual egos that created that.

Much of corporate media feeds into the myth that we are superior because of what we have and to leave out the part of how we arrived here. George Symonds closes his poem with “Papers, papers, everywhere / And not a word believed.” So if our own creations are no longer believed what is left? Compassion?

Sally Flint confesses to have “held children who died when taken / by illness who no medic could save. / But someone could have helped” Aylen Kurdi, the 3 year old toddler found washed up by the tide.

It’s not enough to know that the instruments of power have destroyed civilizations many times before. We need to ask how those instruments work to make us less human, to oppress the spirit for the glorification of power over life. We need to see our own children in the ones who have been sacrificed for constructed goals. We need to stop making excuses for ourselves. While preaching closes the mind and the book, the image persists.

In this book there are forty pages of images that will waft into your mind and heart, to consider the link between the value of your life, and where that value comes from.

Other poets in this book are Zena Hashem Beck, Andrew Oldham, Ellen Davies, Antony Owen, Jim C Mackintosh, Rosemary Appleton, Emma Lee, Monica Corish, Janet Vickers, Kathleen Bell, Frank Dullaghan, and Colleen Sensier.

Enter Into Compassion

There are two doors. The one on the left has the sign TWTWW. The one on the right says Compassion.

The left door stands for The Way The World Works.  If you enter that you will find it’s crowded with people arguing.  They are researchers who have done their homework. Their papers are annotated with long bibliographies to support their theories. They are passionately arguing about the reasons and the causes of the world’s problems. Each invested in their own particular view because they have so much proof to back up their argument. Yet they can’t get everyone to agree.

The right door marked Compassion is eerily quiet. There are 2 rows of beds, most of them filled with people who seem to be near death. As you walk quietly through this room you realize it is a sterilized palliative care ward with white sheets and walls, and no sign of nursing staff. 

You decide to walk through the aisle. You see a woman, thin and pale. She is someone you love and she doesn’t know you are there. You softly say hello and there is no response. You say her name and she turns to you and smiles. You ask her if she remembers you and her eyes close as if to return to sleep.  You tell her you are here to help. You list all the therapies available that might cure her of the disease she is dying from. 

You are beginning to feel a panic rise from your stomach as you wonder if there was anyone there to help her or whether they gave up too soon.  Then a nurse appears and reminds you that this is a hospice. You feel your voice rising to a higher pitch as you interrogate. The friend you love who is dying turns away from you at this point. You are losing her. So you pull up a chair and sit quietly by her bed. Listen to her breathe for awhile, then you begin to sing very quietly:

            May I be filled with loving kindness, may I be well.

            May I be peaceful and at ease, may I be whole.

Then your friend slowly turns toward you, opens her eyes, and manages a feint smile.

            May you be filled with loving kindness, may you be well.

            May you be peaceful and at ease, may you be whole.

Slowly she moves her arm over her body towards the side of the bed where you sit.  You take her hand very gently and you sing

            May we be filled with loving kindness, may we be well.

            May we be peaceful and at ease, may we be whole.

All the muscles in her face relax as she sinks into her last exhalation. You weep silently and eventually leave.

Your heart is heavy and full of sorrow but you feel at peace because you were able to be with her as she left your world. You don’t know why she turned away when you offered to help or why she turned toward you when you sat quietly beside her. You don’t know what advised you to do that but it was clear then that was the right thing to do. Was it your imagination when you felt something was guiding you.  Was it you singing or was it someone else? What made you visit at that time?

There are no answers to your questions. You have no knowledge other than an intuitive pull. All you know is that you were there and you felt honoured to be there.

There have been many times when I was afraid to feel compassion, to express sympathy. Somehow it felt more like an intrusion into another's pain, to satisfy myself that I did something rather than nothing. Would I, through my own ignorance say something that was really harmful or hurtful?

What is compassion anyway? 

My introduction came through child birth. The nervous system reflecting away from myself and into life within and then around me. The first time I held a newborn infant I saw the shape of  responsibility to feel compassion, to keep this creature safe so he will survive.  How would I know how to do that?

  

After this infant opened his eyes and smiled, the realization that I was not the centre of the universe was a whole body awakening. It was a new entry into life, an unaffected being who came through me, revealing a deeper meaning as I rocked him in my arms. His fragile body said forget all that you think you know.

The pregnant body invaded the self-centred ego and reverberated back to the world. I think this is an apt metaphor for all men and women regardless of whether they have children or not, who see their life as being a conduit to new life whether it is a legal document, a piece of art, or a new community.

Wherever our task becomes one of caring for the other, the other becomes part of us. We suspend the judgement and learn to look into another’s eyes and see there what we see rather than what we have been told to see.

All of these eyes have different stories that can merge into a single narrative.  But being available to “thou” is a grounding alternative to “I” as Martin Buber pointed out in his book where “you” become half of what “I” am.  It is a shared responsibility where I neither feel I am to blame if you are not happy, or triumphant if you are. 

The world is with me and not about me, I can be open to what you think and feel and hope for without being an accomplice. I can help you find what you need by getting out of your way, by asking you how I can help.

To simply be with you, to listen and to feel what I feel as I hear your narrative. 

The stories you tell are embedded with layers of suffering and hope. This is how I enter into compassion.  To be with you – your achievements, your moments of disappointment, your grief.

Compassion doesn’t demand style or expertise – it demands presence. Compassion doesn’t ask for advice. It doesn’t ask for a fix. It’s asks for a witness, a friend, a person who hears and sees.

When we enter into compassion we simply have to be there, to get beneath the labels and intellectual constructs. To look into the face of suffering, the eyes of pain, while there, forget the narrative circling our own lives. Forget the economic forecasts, the daily news, and all that we pride ourselves on knowing. Compassion allows us to let down all the flags, all the defenses. It allows us to look into another person’s face and see a unique and indescribable beauty. It allows us a break from that inner critic that keeps feeding back a report on how we are doing.

The folks in the TWTWW room are important. They musn’t stop their research, the annotated bibliographies, their argumentation. Their compassion is invested in a better future for all, but the palliative care ward, the small song, the reaching hand is needed to provide the strength and support to endure.

I close with the words of a young Anne Frank (The Diary of Anne Frank in Day by Day, ed. Chaim Stern (Beacon Press) hiding in an annex from the Nazis.

I can feel the suffering of millions
and yet, if I look up into the heavens,
I think it will all come right,
and that this cruelty too will end,
and that peace and tranquility will return again.
In the meantime,
I must uphold my ideals,
for perhaps the time will come
when I shall be able to carry them out.

Crises in Power

Uroborus

When organizations, institutions, nations and global corporations have destroyed the means of democratic power that comes of thoughtful, intelligent cooperation among people, "Power" becomes a dirty word, and humanity appears only to be little more than vermin.

Murray Dobbins has illustrated in his post "The Tyrant's Poison Pill: the suppression of civil society" the way violence harms whole societies. But also, I suspect this mass violence permanently damages our capacity to survive by creating a new species incapable of nurturing life.

We live in a time of global, political, social and religious dysfunction. The age of pathology where  structure demands its members compete for power in the arena of zero sum games.  Politicians, CEO's, corporate representatives must, by default, divest themselves of anything civil and decent in order to play the game - where egos are isolated, alone, enemies among enemies, looking over their shoulder, in mistrust.

We are trained to believe we are successful when we are losing our way, going mad. The biggest bullies are not in control because the whole organism known as civil society is decaying.  

At the end of World War II, European civilizations were in the spiral of destruction and nihilism, and courageous people worked together to re-build new worlds through extraordinary effort, and faith in the best of human nature.

America shined like a beacon of hope for many, with its creative energy. But megalomania got hold of it too, and the more wealthy and successful they became, the more violent their foreign policy. Now America is being destroyed by the ideologies that destroyed Europe.

What are the main instruments of this destructive power? Fear, hate, and greed. But these are also natural human emotions that most, if not all, have experienced.

Where is the way out? First to acknowledge the seeds of destruction are within us. Then to see that power as something elevated or superior to life,  is the carrier of delusion in our collective mind.  Power for power's sake fixes nothing and destroys everything. It is the uroborus (the serpent that swallows its tail for the integration and assimilation of the opposite).  In Christianity it is the fallen angel Satan and "our race apart from God".

For me, the first steps towards our way out is to fill up on love and compassion, in order to return to the power that reveres and comes from life.

How is your sic-o-meter?

Is your skin uploading too much information these days? Do you see strange reports on Facebook and Twitter?  Phrases quoted, beliefs expressed, coming from the mouths of those who should know better? Are you wondering what happened to our leaders and our stateswomen?  Do you ask why there is no good news anywhere?

Well you have joined the world as you perceive it.  Your body is now a nervous substrate of all the information you read, see and hear.  Your sic-o-meter is working.

If you feel there is nothing you can do to respond effectively to all this noise, you are not alone.  What I think might be happening to your mind-body receptor (and mine) is the convergence of all those tweets, headlines and status updates. They are pureed into a felt-sense of the world which may feel like you are well-informed.

This puree, already containing your tribal associations, your habits and prejudices, will blend with external information. Rationally you may think that a mud slide in the Kootenays doesn't affect you, or that suicide bombers in Pakistan are not a threat to your loved ones.  You may not even stay awake at night worrying about climate change outside of a heat wave in summer.  You may receive the hourly news with equanimity and calm as though all the bad things just happen to others.

But our sic-o-meter could be working a lot better if we are able to see the many ways in which we are connected to this world.  If any news story elicits empathy for those who are personally affected, then our sic-o-meter does more than hear and internalize the 'out-there'. It tells us how we can respond, emotionally, intellectually, and physically to the world we live in, so that we are not powerless, not simply sitting in the audience watching a movie.

This doesn't mean taking sides. Or giving all our savings to charity. Or declaring our political opinions with everyone we meet.  The way in which you or I can respond is as a member of this global human family.  It is compassion not judgement, that gives us the power to respond authentically.  Judgement  without empathy is an alienation technique that gives us the fleeting sense of being innocent bystanders.  We are not, we are stakeholders.

The Power of Insight

The fifth of the five spiritual powers is the power of insight. Thich Nhat Hanh maintains that the power of insight "is a sword that cuts painlessly through all kinds of suffering, including fear, despair, anger, and discrimination." He goes on to say that an insight is more than a notion and Hanh's key teaching is the insight of impermanence.

I look for stability through democracy and social justice perhaps because it offers some comfort that others might do unto me as I would do to them.



Because of my attachment to social justice I act according to what I believe is just and fair. I raise my family on ideas of justice and kindness and empathy.   Self-interest to me is contributing to a world guided by laws based on a reverence for life.

But at the moment what I hear and see in the news, in social media, on the internet, on the radio, goes against all the notions of justice, kindness and empathy. I feel outraged not just because I fear something bad will happen to me or my loved ones, but because I believe that when we get rid of that social contract built on the golden rule then all that remains is fear, despair, anger and discrimination.

As I look deeply into this problem I realize that my community is rich with many acts of social justice and kindness. Every day yields signs of  this. One on one, in small business, there are many acts of generosity, signs of care and concern. The violence that fills media is happening to someone else. But this insight does not make me feel better, or powerful.

Hearing about the massacre of women and children in Houla chills my bones even though it is far away from my children and grand-children. Yet impermanence suggests there is nothing to guarantee the safety of my loved ones - that the justice I expect today will not always be here. But impermanence means also that I can't anticipate how we will deal with this horror and how we will respond to it on a global scale.

So as I watch my expectations eroding in the face of impermanence, feeling absolutely powerless to find a response that is likely to hold what I value, all that remains is the civil acts I do here and now.  And these acts demand more than the golden rule - they demand compassion.

The Power of People for a Healthy Community

The bulleted information below is lifted directly from the 2011 Report from People for a Healthy Community, of Gabriola Island, BC, to make note of and to promote how much can be achieved when people come together out of compassion.

While individuals may feel disconnected from the big national and global issues, those who work for healthy communities everywhere are making change where it counts.  For example, People for a Healthy Community in the last year:

• provided more than 4,000 lunches to hungry Gabriolans
• distributed 3,940 bags of food, 25% of which went to feed children on the island
• provided a holiday feast for nearly 125 people  December 25, 2010
• distributed Christmas Bureau vouchers to 98 Gabriola families
• nurtured community gardens that provided fresh, nutritious food for hungry people as well as gardening opportunities for children, seniors, and PHC clients
• expanded storage capabilities of their food bank so that efficient food purchases can be made
• launched a monthly lunch and social event for over 30 seniors in our community
• created a weekly social evening for Youth at Risk
• provided employment and job-skill training for unemployed Gabriolans
• developed a Circle of Care, connecting skilled Gabriolans with people who have multiple needs, while offering support services such as financial training, income tax returns, rent and job-readiness support, haircuts, massage acupuncture, and more.

If you add up provisions in numerical units here you would come up with the number of eight thousand, seven hundred and nineteen (lunches plus bags of food plus holiday dinner, etc.), not including the unknowns such as how many people were helped by mentoring and teaching of skills.

Imagine all the towns and cities in all of the provinces of this country (there are 308 Federal Government ridings in Canada) who may be providing a similar number of needs. You get a picture of social activity that is not often recognized.  Sadly the needs outweigh accomplishments, but we dismiss or overlook them at our peril.