About Humanity

"A chosen people is the opposite of a master race, first, because it is not a race but a covenant; second because it exists to serve God, not to master others. A master race worships itself, a chosen people worships something beyond itself. A master race believes it has rights; a chosen people knows only that it has responsibilities." Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Not in God's Name, Schocken, New York. 2015.

As someone who does not identify as a chosen people or part of a master race, I ruminate about how to respond to the world, particularly that part of the world I cannot endorse. So I am comforted by the people who have taken on ministry and who feel responsible enough to care for community.

How do I act on a feeling of responsibility without assuming that I know what other people should do, or what we should do? It's very easy to slip into a political preaching that suggests I know, or that my being a good example means that others should follow it. Or worse yet, create a new ideology, which, if successful and influential, would uncover unintended consequences.

The eternal problem for me is, when does the power I have to take responsibility for the world and to act on it - become a power that oppresses another?

Many people who are privileged enough to have the time to think on this have offered good ideas on how we can survive the turmoil of violence and fear. Humanity has a voice. It doesn't have to be a single voice, and clearly it isn't, but I look for the cause of the causes of our problems. Perhaps the original cry for help before we engage in diversions that take us away from our brothers and sisters.

On good days I remember there are no solutions, which does not excuse me from struggling with the questions. I am part of an interdependent web of existence which is a gift and a burden.

Four-Day Literary Festival Feature The Best In BC Writers

NANAIMO - The Federation of British Columbia Writers

is hosting a four-day spring festival in Nanaimo 

April 27-30 

that will bring Giller Prize nominees and top BC writing talent to the city. 

The theme of the festival is “The Stories That Find Us” 

a diverse exploration of what compels writers 

 to write what they write and tell what they tell.

🌱🌱🌱

The festival’s affordable schedule includes a wide range of fun events that will appeal to writers of all abilities and genres. From master classes to workshops, evenings of gala entertainment, a day-long poetry retreat, indigenous story-telling and drumming, a Saturday publishing fair, blue pencil sessions with authors, scheduled writer hangouts, sidewalk games that include an intriguing poetry “treasure hunt” -- the list goes on.

Scheduled writers:

poet, novelist and Giller Prize nominee Steven Price

two-time Giller Prize nominee Kathy Page

Canada Reads finalist and 2011/12 MacEwan Book of the Year winner Angie Abdou

novelist Jennifer Manuel (whose novel The Heaviness of Things That Float 

has been shortlisted for the 2017 BC Book Awards’ Ethel Wilson Prize for Fiction)

mystery novelist and twice Arthur Ellis Award nominee Rachel McMillen

award-winning poet and Victoria Book Award nominee Carla Funk 

~ and more

Victoria Poet Laureate Yvonne Blomer and 2015 Victoria Book Prize winner Julie Paul will be reading new work in “If I Tell You This” ~ an evening program that juxtaposes their mode of storytelling with that of Nanaimo master storytellers Margaret Murphy and Rachel Muller.

Free “Living Room” sessions scheduled in comfortable venues every day will provide opportunities for writers to join a circle and read a short (three-minute) poem or prose excerpt. “Write Ins” are opportunities for writers to hang out, network ~ write together then go for a cup of coffee ~ and form new friendships with writers from all over BC.

Blue Pencil sessions with experienced BC authors and poets will offer opportunities for writers to get valuable feedback on a couple of pages from a work in progress. The two-hour meet and greet on Friday afternoon will be a networking extravaganza.

And all these activities are taking place in venues within a block of one another -- and within a block of the waterfront -- in downtown Nanaimo. Writers can find the complete schedule (and register) at the FBCW website (bcwriters.ca). Some hotel discounts are available.

The Federation of British Columbia Writers is a provincial non-profit organization with more than 700 members that provides support and services to BC writers (members and non members), organizes workshops and events and produces a quarterly magazine, WordWorks (accessible in libraries and online). Read it or register for FBCW membership at bcwriters.ca.

Media wishing to schedule an interview with one of the artists or organizers can contact Ann Graham Walker at anngrahamwalker@gmail.com.  

🌈

                                                  

Beyond Politics of Anger - Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

"Hope is not optimism. It begins with a candid acknowledgment on all sides of how bad things actually are." So says Rabbi Jonathan Sacks after the election of Trump.

Sometimes I feel I am drowning in the weight of hopelessness, a global system that has thrown humanity under the economic bus. But we need a prophetic voice that looks beyond this moment to a future we can invest in.

Jonathan Sacks provides a wisdom that brings us to where we are now and reminds us of a way through."We need a new economics of capitalism with a human face."

This is the crux of leadership - to not choose contempt for humanity, to not sink into a worship of power that has been extracted from humanity, to not strip the tears, pain and flesh off the world and lock up the gold.

"We have seen bankers and corporate executives behaving outrageously, awarding themselves vast payments while the human cost has been borne by those who can afford it least. We have heard free-market economics invoked as a mantra in total oblivion to the pain and loss that come with the global economy. We have acted as if markets can function without morals, international corporations without social responsibility, and economic systems without regard to their effect on the people left stranded by the shifting tide. We who are grandparents know only too well that life is harder for our children than it was for us, and for our grandchildren it will be harder still." (Jonathan Sacks)

Amen.

Local Wisdom, Local Poets, March 23

🖋 Literacy Central Vancouver Island 🖋

are hosting an evening

“Celebrating 8 Local Authors”

Readings and discussions on

Thursday, March 23rd

5:00pm – 7:00pm Choose your authors at:

5:00pm
 Barrie Farrell, Carol Matthews, Guy Dauncey, 
Naomi Wakan

6:00pm

 Peter McMullan, Brian Harvey, Lynda Archer, 
Debbie Marshall

Downtown Nanaimo 19 Commercial Street

$5.00 admission – appies and juice provided

Come and support our fabulous local writers!

Global Chalice Lighting

English

We light this chalice in union with those who are suffering because of their belief, of poverty, sickness, unemployment, persecution, exile, prison; for the absent, those who are dying, to those who are burdened by work. May love, joy and peace reign in the world and may freedom and tolerance be our virtues.

by Uwayisaba Clement from the Rwanda Unitarian Church

Kinyarwanda

Ducanye uru rumuri twifatanije n’abantu bose bababaye kubera bazira ukwemera kwabo, kubera ubukene, kubera indwara, kubera uburwayi, kubura akazi, gutotezwa, ubuhunzi no kuba imfungwa. Bababajwe no kubura ababo, abari mu bihe bya nyuma n’abandi baremerewe n’akazi; Urukundo, ibyishimo n’amahoro biganze mu isi yose, kwishyira ukizana n’ubworoherane biturange. 

                                                                                                                        

French

Nous allumons ce calice en union avec ceux et celles qui souffrent  a cause de leur croyance, de la pauvreté, maladie, chômage, persécution, exil, prison;  pour les absents, les agonisants, ceux et celle qui sont accablés par le travail; Puisse l’amour, la joie et la paix regner dans le monde et que la liberte et la tolerance soient nos vertus. 

Swahili

Tunawasha hii taa kwa kungana na wale wanaoteseka kutokana na imani yao, umasikini, maradhi, ukosefu wa ajira, mateso, huamishoni na walio gerezani; kwa wasiokuwepo, wlio hali maututi,waliolemewa na kazi; Ebu upendo, fraha na amani zitawale duniani na uhuru, uvumilivu ziwe madili yetu.

All Souls Unitarian Church Solidarity Sing - Washington, DC