TOMORROW AND TOMORROW.........

                              AND ALL THE YESTERDAYS....

                                                                                           Shakespeare: McBeth: Act 5

Hanns F Skoutajan

It was the eve of a new year and I was sitting by myself on a beach on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. I had decided not to go to the party at the pool. I could hear the sound of revelry as the celebrators gassed up for the big moment, the ringing of the New Years Bell and the explosion of fire works followed by Auld Lang Syne  sung by a hundred inebriated voices. I have never been much tempted to party on that last night of the year. I prefer to be by myself meditating about the events of the last 12 months. 

So it was that hugging my knees I sat on the sand, my back to the coloured lights, my ears tuned off as much as possible to the carousing, I looked out into the dark night.  I had observed a freighter that had left the port and watched as its lights dimmed and finally disappeared into a new year that was fast approaching. 

I imagined the new year to be like a curtain moving from across the sea toward the land. It would soon sweep over me like the tide that comes rushing in and transport me  into a new calendar page. Onward it would go without pausing until somewhere out in the Pacific it crosses the International Date Line and all the world will be a new day, a new year.  

I keep a journal and each time I crack open the binding of a new book I look at the lines and pages and wonder what news, events and reflections would be recorded thereon. 

These last twelve months have not been easy as I battled metastatic prostate cancer. Soon after New Years Day I found myself hooked to an intravenous  apparatus that dripped “poison” into my system to kill the cancer but much else as well. 

The chemo did a good job knocking down my PSA considerably but it also played havoc with the blood cell production. The chemo was terminated and deemed intolerable to my system. I spent 2 weeks in hospital for blood transfusions and whatever else to restore my health. By the time I left the hospital I hardly had the strength to get up out of a chair. I was put on oxygen and with exercise gradually recovered. I began a new medication ($3,700 a month) that has no side affects but is only covered by healthcare if chemo fails or proves intolerable as in my case. Thank you dear tax payer! It brought my PSA reading to under “1” - quite a relief. My hair grew back, a bit more curly than before. I regained my weight and feel normal again. People comment on my healthy appearance if not my good looks. 

Against this personal background a lot has been happening out in the world, much of it not good. A deadly ebola epidemic caused thousands of deaths in western Africa. In the Middle East war continues to rage against ISIS, Syria, the Kurds and Iraq. Thousands have become refugees in neighbouring countries . In eastern Europe the struggle between Russia and the Ukraine with other nations taking sides recalls the Cold War of the sixties. This time its not communism against capitalism, we are all capitalists now it seems. On the positive side half a century of hostile relations between the USA and Cuba are being “normalized”.  Gas prices have plummeted but that may have dangerous consequences and there is talk of a major recession in the months ahead.

In Ottawa there are plans to construct a memorial to the victims of communism on the Supreme Court lawn. It is being supported by our very right wing government.  Why not a memorial to the victims of fascism, racism, sexism and capitalism. All of them have left a trail of victims in their wake. How about a monument to man’s inhumanity to man. 

In many countries economics is allowed, nay, encouraged to trump environmental concerns. The signs of global warming are readily apparent in aberrant weather behaviour and a continuously rising CO2 rate bodes badly for the future of life on this planet. 

I could go on and so can you for there are many other concerns that flood our minds as the New Year dawns on the face of our globe. John Greenleaf Whittier wrote : “I know not what the future hath of marvel and surprise... “ Sometime it seems best not to but we can’t help but contemplate what lies ahead. 

Thus, my thoughts inevitably turn to the next months and I am reminded that 2015 is an election year, a chance for Canadians to bring back “good government” on behalf of all Canadians. Electioneering including gerrymandering has already begun.

Friends of Public Broadcasting, an organization I support, has been struggling against our government’s intent to weaken and destroy the CBC. They send me a book every year about a notable Canadian. This year it is about Stephen Harper. “Party of One” by Michael Harris who documents the Harper government, or as the author puts it, the one man rule of Stephen Harper, to turn Canada into a corporate welfare state as well as an extraction venue. Harris argues that Harper is more than a master of controlling information; he is a profoundly anti-democratic figure. He illustrates how Harper has made war on every independent source of information in Canada since coming to power. Read it! 

Naomi Klein in her recent book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate  paints a rather bleak picture at times and in the end quotes  Desmond Tutu , “to serve as custodians of creation is not an empty title, it requires that we act, and with all the urgency the dire situation demands.” The world has changed even since the 1980s. Dare we ask what it will be like at the end of 2015 if left unchecked?

My health struggle shall continue but my hope and heart is set for my wonderful granddaughter who in a few months will be eight years of age. I think of her and all her friends who deserve a country and indeed, a world at peace and an environment that is not threatened by human avarice. This is something worth fighting for. Don’t forget this as you face the ballot box.

The curtain sweeps from east to west and a new era is coming. Happy New Year!

Spirit Quest : December 30, 2014 

Previously published stories may be found at skoutajanh.blogspot.com      

CHRISTMAS No. 85

Hanns F Skoutajan

The cartoon of Jesus lost in a middle-eastern bazaar looking for a last minute but appropriate gift for a friend who already has everything, rings a bell for me - but not the Sally Anne chimes at the shopping mall.

Its Christmas again and I take this opportunity to wish you, my readers, health, happiness and hope, now and in the months to come.

This is now my 85th Christmas and as always it is a time of reminiscing as I recall the many other occasions of this celebration.

For the first eight years Christmas was in the comfort and security that every child deserves. I was cared for by loving parents and surrounded by the extended family that always descended on us during the holiday season.

Then suddenly in the fall of 1938 it all ended and we became refugees from the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia. It is fair to say that that catastrophe shaped my life and influenced all my thinking.

We were fortunate to find asylum in a so-called refugee camp in Scotland that was nothing like the vast tent cities today in Turkey and elsewhere that provide bare shelter for the thousands displaced by war and political turmoil. Some await settlement to Canada and reunion with relatives while our government dawdles.

Refugees in those days were relatively scarce and our Scottish hosts welcomed us into their homes, their churches and on Christmas turned our mansion, Dollarbeg, into a festive gathering place. I received many gifts of English books and clothes and had my first taste of Christmas fruit cake. Nevertheless there were tears in my mother’s eyes as she remembered her family “back home.”

Christmas 1939, the first wartime Christmas , was as different from the last as night is from day. We had crossed the ocean and become settlers and occupied a log cabin in northern Saskatchewan. It had none of the amenities that we had been used to. However, we were not alone. Once again we were surrounded by our fellow refugees become farmers and on the Holy Night we gathered and exchanged what little we had as tokens of our solidarity and friendship. It is fair to say that all gifts were handmade.

Doubtless the Christmas of 1941 was the most lonely ever. Many of our neighbours including my father had gone east to make a new and better life in the growing war industry or join the forces against our common enemy. On Christmas eve mother and I were totally alone with the box of chocolates that father had sent us from Toronto. Our dogs and cats kept us warm and gave us comfort. 

Then once again the scene changed. In the spring we joined my father and took up  residence in a small but comfortable wartime house in eastern Ontario. On Christmas we were visited by some of our “new relatives”, people with whom we had shared the hardships of flight and farming. Our little house was crammed to the rafters and laughter and song erupted everywhere but there was also melancholy as we remembered our former home across the ocean. When they departed I felt bereft.

The wartime house at 31 Haig Street in Batawa, 100 miles east of Toronto in the beautiful Trent valley was now my home until I started my ministry in Halifax with a wonderful spouse (and copy editor) and began a family of our own. That family will be together this Christmas enhanced by 7 year old  Sophia.

Much cherished, of course, are the memories of celebrating Christmas by candlelight with the six different congregations over the forty years of my ministry. 

The past year was marked by some health problems as you who read my blogs will know. As one who has enjoyed good health throughout my life it has certainly made me conscious of “the shortness and uncertainty of life.” It has emphasized the need to use and enjoy what has been given to us.  After chemo, surgery and radiation I am doing very well indeed.  Will there be a Number 86? Who knows.  

The world in which I have found my happy lot is in continuous turmoil . As mentioned earlier thousands have been displaced. The biblical story of the flight of the holy family to Egypt has taken on a new relevance. The cartoon of Jesus with which I began my story is poignant in its absurdity inasmuch as the vast majority of humankind are never without need. Rather than inundating each other with useless or redundant gimmicks we need to make donations in each others’ names to organizations such as Doctors Without Borders  who have gone where few have dared to care and help the sick , think Ebola; or Amnesty International who have striven to intercede for and to liberate those incarcerated by cruel dictatorships. And there are many more and not all are so far afield who deal with the victims of an affluent society.

Christmas needs to be a time for prayers however you articulate them as we petition for peace  between people of different faiths, cultures and ideologies, but also peace with this much maligned environment  which we share with humankind and all creatures.

There is no dearth for gifts to give and no end to needs throughout the world.

May your home be blessed  with love and hope.

Spirit Quest  Christmas 2014

Previous writings by Hanns can be found at skoutajanh.blogspot.com

               

A NEW DAY DAWNED

Hanns F Skoutajan

I have rendered up my pound of flesh. Well, my tumor wasn’t quite a pound, some ounces, perhaps.

A few days ago in the early hours they rolled me on a gurney into an operating room and laid me on a narrow table under the big lights. Shortly afterward my light went off. I slumbered peacefully while the surgical crew cut and clipped and whatever else they do, then sewed me up again. Two hours later I experienced a new dawn in another hall lined with beds like mine containing others like me who were coming out of their dreamless night that had protected us from pain. I became conscious of some soreness about my chest. Someone informed me that all had gone well and I was now without a tumor. I relaxed and thus reassured drifted off to sleep again.

Eventually my bed was pushed down endless corridors, around numerous corners and doorways, into elevators and out, a gentle and strong hand on the tiller as they hummed a little tune. I am pleased to say that all this was accomplished without discomfort. My conveyance/bed found a place beside a window in a much curtained room. In time a tray of food was pushed under my chin and I did eat.

Family arrived, comforted and cheered me with news from beyond my new world. I rested that night while listening to the groans, rumbles and snores from my three roommates. Every time it seemed that I was about to crash Florence Nightingale, male and female, arrived and gently prodded me to take my vital signs. I thanked God for the bed pan.

Once more day dawned and I watched snow flakes gently falling fine and white beyond my window. More trays and carts arrived and technicians with needles and questions.

The hospital chaplain, a personal friend, also popped in . He told me about his daughter who had moved up from south of the border because it was found unaffordable to get sick down in the home of the of the brave and the land of the fee where nothing is free. There in a hospital everything is tallied from bandaid to artificial hip joint while all that awaited me was my parking fee.

How fortunate we are in this country to have Medicare and how foolish of those who believe that privatization is the better way to go. For the wealthy and those with a generous insurance coverage private medical services may be better, sooner and accommodation more luxurious. But even they have auditors watching their account and cutting all vestiges of fat. Its best not have a preexisting medical condition if you are shopping for insurance coverage. 

I am home now. My family run errands to the pharmacy, where one of my medicines that costs $ 3 thousand plus a month but is covered and sets me back a mere $2.00 a shot. Thank you dear tax payer!  

Yes, I feel sore and encumbered by my bandaging, but that will change and my normal agility and energy will return and allow me to revisit the coffee shop to share my misery and good fortune with my friends.

In the meantime, I am grateful to all who have attended to my needs, the cleaning crew, the waiters that brought my meals, the porters who have moved me about,  the technicians who have perforated me with needles and questions, clerks that kept the records, the nurses and doctors and indeed the whole institution as well as the people of this wonderful country who believe that public is best. 

Don’t let us lose this system, rather let us improve it, keep it humane and not a business venture.

Thanks Everybody.

Spirit Quest  December 5, 2014 

       

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

Hanns F Skoutajan

Love and belonging are undoubtedly the two most important elements that make

life worth living. It is also the title of a documentary film about L’Arche and the

important role that Jean Vanier played in it.

Recently I had occasion to view Love and Belonging at the National Gallery of

Canada in Ottawa. Made by Norflicks Productions and produced by the late

Richard Nielson and narrated by Peter Flemington, it is a beautiful film about the

home for developmentally handicapped people in France.

Jean Vanier, born on September 20, 1928, is a Canadian Catholic philosopher

turned theologian and humanitarian. He is the son of Major General Georges

Vanier, the 19th Governor General of Canada and his wife Pauline Vanier. I am

often reminded of him inasmuch as I live close to the community that bears his

name in the eastern part of the capital city.

After the war Jean visited Paris where his father was Canadian ambassador. He

and his mother went to assist the survivors of concentration camps. Seeing the

emaciated victims, their faces twisted with fear and anguish, was a profoundly

moving encounter for him which he has never forgotten.

He later gave in to a strong inner spiritual calling to do “something else”. Through

a friendship with a priest, named Father Thomas Phillippe, he became aware of

the plight of thousands of men and women institutionalized with developmental

disabilities. He established L’Arche at Trosly-Breul as a community for people

with disabilities and to live with them and those who cared for them.

This was a community where love and a sense of belonging was the hallmark.

The idea caught on and L’Arche communities sprang up in over 80 countries

throughout the world including several here in Canada. As I write I am tempted to

use the word “institution” which is precisely what they are not. Jean Vanier

himself makes his home in the original community in France. The film gives a

beautiful picture of life there and is a great tribute to Jean Vanier and his friends.

There is much hugging and holding as well as laughter and music in this portrait

of a home where caregivers and residents find a sense of being valued in a world

that tends to ignore and reject those who don’t fit the norm. The community is

transformative in that it changes loneliness into joy and hope.

The concepts of love and belonging are needed beyond L’Arche. It is necessary

not only for those with disabilities. There is nothing more devastating in life than

having the feeling that nobody cares and that you are an outcast. Many of these

are found in prisons and what used to be called “bedlams.”

Jails are thought to be places of punishment where the aberrant are “given what

they deserve.” Our present government has instituted minimum sentences (the

sentencee cannot do less time than stipulated by law) and constrains judges

from taking into consideration the history and circumstances of those who have

come before them. They believe that punishment is to fit the crime rather than

the criminal. They are then locked away to set periods of confinement, even

isolation, during which little happens to change them. Upon release they often

leave their cells to live in society under suspicion and with little means to cope

except to return to their old ways and former companions in crime. As a

consequence recidivism increases. While victims of crime and their wounds are

important considerations it is the perpetrator who is a victim as well.

While I was pastor in Kingston living only a few blocks from the stone fortress on

the shores of Lake Ontario, now thankfully a museum no longer housing

prisoners, my wife Marlene served with the Elizabeth Fry Society in the nearby

Prison for Women. She visited and got to know some of the inmates as human

beings rather than numbers. We welcomed some of them on prerelease

programs to come and help in our home. She has a stash of stories about these

people and their lives locked away from family and friends except for brief

visitations. Love and belonging were missing ingredients in their lives.

Marlene attended the first international conference of prison abolition held in

Toronto in 1983. The prison abolition movement is a movement that seeks to

reduce or eliminate the prison system and replace them with more humane and

effective systems that concentrate on rehabilitation of offenders rather than

punishment. It recognizes that our present systems are enormously expensive.

The need for love and belonging is very powerful in our lives whether locked up

in jails or disfunctional bodies. Home is meant to be more than a roof over ones

head, a bed to rest upon and food to nurture the physical body. A true home is a

place where we have a sense of being cared about, where we know we belong.

As the poem has it: Home is where the heart is.

In my ministry I usually concluded worship with a challenge:

Go into the world with a daring and a tender love,

The world is waiting for you,

Go in peace!

He took those words literally. To live lovingly and peacefully is what he and his

friends practiced at L’Arche. As I viewed the film I could not help but be reminded

that there is a great need for such places but it is equally necessary to practice

these dynamics in all of society.

L’Arche meaning Ark, which in the bible was the rescue vessel for all humans

and creatures. It stands for the need to rescue with love and a sense of

belonging not only the handicapped but all humankind wherever.

Spirit Quest Nov. 21, 2014

Feel free to use or to share this essay with others.

More stories may be found at skoutajanh.blogspot.com.

WAITING

Hanns F Skoutajan

“Life is on a wire. Everything else is waiting.” Nik Wallenda, the dare devil tight rope walker who had crossed the Niagara gorge on a wire, quoted his grandfather, Karl, who had been less lucky than he. Karl died in a fall in Puerto Rico in 1978 at age 73. On Sunday evening, November 2, Nik proceeded out on a wire stretched high over the Chicago River between three skyscrapers, this time without any safety harness or net. The broadcasters of the event had instituted a 10 second time delay to spare viewers from having to witness a tragic end to the space walk. 

“Everything else is waiting,” so repeated Nik. Waiting is not always a pleasant experience but it is one that each of us have been subject to in our lifetime.

I have a recent experience of such waiting. I had been slated for surgery. Adorned in a less than fetching hospital gown, pale blue, I reclined on a gurney waiting for my summons to the operating room. I expected a delay. I waited for some five hours only to be told that due to a glitch at the OR my surgery would have to be rescheduled.  Part of me was elated but there was also disappointment. I had hoped to be over the ordeal as soon as possible.

I had not fortified myself with reading material or even pen and paper that I might write another blog while waiting. However, I am gifted, or cursed, with a rife imagination and a vivid memory. Whenever I am subjected to waiting one of the events I often recall is the most intensive wait I have ever experienced. It was on November 3, 1938 when I was nine years of age. 

Mother and I had gotten caught in the Sudetenland, the German speaking part of Czechoslovakia, which had been ceded to Germany by the infamous Munich Agreement of September 1938. We were now attempting to rejoin my father in Prague where we were to depart for Britain and safety. But a well guarded boundary separated us.

Mother and I took the train to the nearest border town. We had no travel documents. Any efforts to secure them would have exposed us as seeking to flee. Mother sat me down in the station waiting room. She warned me not to speak to anyone while she went off to another city across the Elbe River.      

“I don’t know how long I shall be but I SHALL BE BACK.” she told me with a quiet authority in her voice. With that she left while I cooled my heels for at least three hours though at the time it seemed much longer. Finally she reappeared with travel documents in hand -  a 24 hour pass to go to retrieve our bedding in Prague, supposedly. The documents had been obtained surreptitiously through the intervention of Nazi relatives for whom blood was more important than ideology. You may read more about this in the chapter  “Refugees”  in my book Uprooted and Transplanted. The book also contains a reprint of the travel document which I very much treasure.

During this lengthy time of waiting I was sustained by her promise that she would be back. I have no recollection of what occupied my mind until she finally reappeared. She hailed a cab and we managed to cross the border and to escape Hitler’s police. The incident often comes to mind when I am forced to wait as I did a few days ago.

Waiting is not always a tense and unpleasant experience. I think of Wordsworth’s poem.  

“Oft when on my couch I lie,” not a hospital gurney,

“in vacant or in pensive mood,” daydreaming perhaps,

“they,” the daffodils, “flash upon that inward eye,” optics of the mind,

“which is the bliss of solitude.”  how blessed indeed!

Being alone without organized thoughts allows us to flash back and bask in memories of happy times, places we have visited and friends in whose company we have enjoyed them. 

The late Henri Nouwen, a Dutch priest living in Canada, who was very much involved in the establishment of Day Break, a home for physically and mentally handicapped people, was a deeply spiritual person. He wrote a book called The Spirituality of Waiting in which he encourages us “ to make life a time of active ‘waitfulness.‘“ He advises his readers to live and to wait expectantly as I did at that railway station. 

Waiting is not to be a time of emptiness, a waste of time as some suggest, but a time of listening patiently, attending to the movement of the spirit. 

Many have given up on the church and religion. They nevertheless avow that they are spiritual. They confess that they believe that there is something powerful deep within their psyches. Many books have been published on the subject. People attend seminars and study groups that teach spiritual exercises to help them enhance their consciousness of the spirit within. I suppose one might call this the practice of creative waiting.

Few of us live like Nik Wallenda and his family, “on a wire.” Most of us prefer to wait and enjoy the rich memories of the past and to contemplate a better world than the one that we presently behold. Subsequently some are involved in building it often at great risk. Others condemn waiting as wasteful and wishful thinking but it is doubtless better than despair. It may even encourage us to go out on a wire, to live daringly and creatively for peace, justice and the integrity of creation. Nelson Mandela’s long incarceration was not in vain. He waited creatively and upon release was prepared to work for the liberation of his people. 

Nouwen dreamed that the many unfortunate people with a variety of disabilities need to be cared for and lovingly sheltered, not locked away from public gaze. However, these very people have something to impart to us.

The planners of a large church gathering invited Nouwen as their keynote speaker. He agreed on one condition that he be allowed to bring with him some of “his friends” from Day Break. With them he presented a kind of a drama that awoke in all of us a new sense of the meaning of life.

Rollo May, the well known New York psycho-analyst wrote about  Being rather than Becoming. It is to live in the now and to listen for the voice and the movement of the spirit that is not “out there”  but “deep within.” It may be a crying out for hope and meaning but it needs to be given time to mature. 

In Psalm 130 of the Jewish-Christian scriptures we read, “ I waited patiently for the Lord and he listened to me and heard my cry.” It is a theme common to all faiths. Therefore wait patiently even courageously. 

Spirit Quest November 14, 2014 

Feel free to use or to share this essay with others.

More stories may be found at skoutajanh.blogspot.com.

  

THE FOLKS BACK HOME WERE OK

Hanns F Skoutajan

When I saw pictures of Canada’s CF18s flying in formation from Cold Lake,

Alberta , eastward to Kuwait to join in the Middle East quagmire I was reminded

of the many who have left our shores to fight abroad. They all did so assured

that the folks back home were OK.

The only time that the sovereign soil of Canada was violated was 202 years ago.

Canada wasn’t all that sovereign at the time but a colony of Britain. On that

occasion, the Anglo-American war, 1812 - 1814, our neighbours to the south

invaded Upper and Lower Canada, as they were then named. For a time they

took York (Muddy York now Toronto). However, in each case what became the

Dominion of Canada remained intact. General Isaac Brock continues to look

down from his high pedestal at a united and intact nation.

Two years ago, the 200th anniversary of that war was celebrated in all the

various venues where fighting had occurred eg. Queenston Heights, Chrysler’s

Farm, Amherstberg and others. Actors in the military uniforms of that time faced

off in friendly combat with the America enemy. Not having been born in Canada

but having been received as an immigrant and refugee from the Nazi scourge in

1939 gives me a keen appreciation of this country, its history and hospitality.

Gwyn Dyer in his recent book: Canada in the Great Power Game, 1914 - 2014

gives an exciting account of our nation and its forces in the global conflicts of our

time. He begins with the role played by Canadian soldiers in the Boer War in

South Africa. Fourteen years later Canada once more answered the call of the

Mother Land to fight in one of the bloodiest conflicts misnamed The Great War.

What was so great about it is hard to discern except its human losses. In that

conflict , especially in the trenches of France and Belgium, Canadians made a

name for themselves and their country at the cost of thousands of lives. Our men

left our shores reasonably confident that the folks back home would be OK.

Twenty years later hostilities resumed and Britain unlike Canada was threatened

from the skies and from across the Channel. Canada came to the aid of Britain

and attacked the enemy on the sands of Africa, up the boot of Italy , across

France and into the German homeland.

That victory was achieved in the company of US tanks, planes and ships. The

USSR created an eastern front at tremendous loss of life, and eventually took

Berlin the capital. Canada was also involved in the battle against the Japanese

who had allied with Germany. That war ended with the detonation of the first

atomic bombs.

It was a tough war and victory was not always certain, especially not in the first 3

years when the Axis ruled from Egypt to North Cape, from the Pyrenees to the

outskirts of Moscow while Japan island hopped across the Pacific and south east

Asia.

Once again our military left to fight in the knowledge that the folks back home

were OK as they produced food, guns, tanks, planes and ships. Not all was quiet

on the home front. My wife who grew up in Prince Edward Island tells of the

blackouts that her father had to supervise. The siren for their small village was

located on the roof of their house and “was very scary.” She also reminded me of

the U boats that penetrated the Northumberland Straits and on one occasion a

torpedo flew over the prow of the ferry boat.

And there is more , in Korea in the 50s Canadian troops took part in the battle

between north and south, a struggle that ended in a stalemate even to our time.

But Canada also became involved in peacekeeping in a variety of venues.

In his history of that bloody century Dyer does not go beyond 2000 AD although

his title claims 2014 as the terminus. Since then Canadians have been involved

most notably in Afghanistan where they held the fort at Kandahar at the price of

life.

As I think about the history of war in which this country has been involved I am

impressed by the fact that the folks back home were OK. I am of course aware

that those folks back home suffered certain privations such as gas and tire

rationing, as well as using ration stamps to purchase sugar, cheese and meat

etc. My first bicycle purchased in 1944 had wooden pedals,and plastic handgrips.

There were few new cars manufactured and none had chrome embellishments.

It behooves us therefore to countenance the possibility that by declaring war as

we have recently done, we might well suffer an attack. In the last year and

particularly the last few days we have been made conscious of our own

vulnerability.

As those jets and soldiers left Canada for Kuwait to be involved in the battle

against ISIS, war is again at a distance. Our involvement shall be from the sky

and in training other troops and for six months only (?) Dare we wonder how long

our long standing inviolability can last? Are the attacks on members of our forces

in the Richelieu Valley of Quebec and in Ottawa at the War Memorial and under

the Peace Tower of a greater significance or are they but the acts of mentally

unstable individuals whose minds have been fired up by wars far away, who long

for some personal martyrdom?

When Jean Chretien, then prime minister, denied Canadian involvement in Iraq,

he made an important statement in favour of peacekeeping. It has been

questioned by our present prime minister who insists that Canada must be

“involved in the heavy lifting” as though peacekeeping was some light weight

stuff. Ask Romeo D’Allaire about that weight equation.

The world’s political situation is complex indeed. Undoubtedly wars cannot be

won from the skies only and certain roles require boots on the ground, yet I

believe in my heart that Canada should avoid being embroiled in endless war.

The time hopefully will come when forces will be required to stand between

enemies and “keep the peace” as we have done In Cyprus and other places on

behalf of the United Nations.

Dyer quotes Tony Burns who after a fifty year career of war fighting ,

peacekeeping and disarmament negotiations said, “the greatest threat to the

survival of democracy is no longer Russia or the Chinese or any other country

professing an anti-democratic ideology ( think ISIS) BUT WAR ITSELF.”

“The foes we might more readily see as ones genuinely worth fighting ... cannot

be fought militarily.” so McKay and Swift in Warrier Nation . “When ‘Flanders

Fields‘ asks us on Remembrance Day, to “take up the quarrel with the foe,” most

Canadians might be forgiven for wondering, “Which foe might that be?’.. The foe

we might more readily see as one genuinely worth fighting - world hunger,

injustice in the Middle East and the global South, planetary climate change,

capitalism itself, cannot be fought militarily. There is more to the idea of the

peaceable kingdom than mythmaking : it chimes with a good part of Canadian’s

past and present sense of reality”

MYQUEST Oct 26, 2014

For past stories : skoutajanh.blogspot.com

ASHES TO ASHES

Hanns F Skoutajan

Cobwebs, pumpkins and tombstones with the letters RIP (rest in peace) adorn

the lawns of our houses. Children and others not so young dressed in scary

costumes roam the streets knocking on the doors of homes begging for goodies.

“Trick or Treat” is the password of the night.

October 31 is Halloween, the eve of All Hallows, a time in the Christian calendar

when it has been customary to remember the dead, including “saints , martyrs,

and all faithful departed believers.” However, the traditional focus of All Hallows'

Eve revolves around the theme of using humor and ridicule to confront the power

of death.

A few days ago TV screens all across this wide country allowed people to

experience the funerals of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo and Warrant Officer Martin

Rouleau-Couture, and to witness the tears and respect which these two soldiers

elicited in fellow soldiers, dignitaries, friends and family.

On watching the funeral in Hamilton’s Christ Church Cathedral it recalled for me

the many times that I was called on to preside over this sober event. In my forty

years plus of ministry I have performed this ritual at least a thousand times, on

occasion three times in one week.

They were both large and small events. The largest took place in Kingston when

I was the student minister at a small clapboard church building on the north side

of town. The sanctuary could not contain all the mourners and the cars following

the hearse to the cemetery seemed to stretch the entire length of Princess

Street.

The undertaker, an elderly gentleman, had a very strong conviction that all

oncoming traffic should come to a halt in respect for the deceased. It was his

custom to take matters in his own hands by steering straight for the offending

motorists. There was at least one clergyman in the city who refused to drive with

him.

The undertaker always took a circuitous route through the Cataraqui Cemetery

that allowed him to pass the tomb of Sir. John A MacDonald whom he held in

highest esteem. It also lead him past the grave of his beloved wife. He would

always roll down his window, wave and call “Hi there sweetie!”

The smallest funeral took place in the chapel of the funeral establishment in

Toronto just kitty corner from my church. The director was a good friend of mine,

an elder in my congregation and a staunch Mason who made a valiant effort to

recruit me but with no success. He believed strongly that every funeral should

have the benefit of a clergyman. Thus on one occasion the only attendants were

the hearse driver, an estate lawyer, the mortician and me. All I knew about the

deceased who was not a member of my congregation or resident of the

community, was his gender, birth and date and nature of his decease.

On another unforgettable occasion our cortege had to proceed north to a

memorial garden. As we approached the airport where Highway 427 was under

construction I heard the funeral director let out a gasp. He had taken a wrong

turn and found himself leading the entire train of some forty cars through

“Departures,” how appropriate, and then back to the highway. On arriving at the

cemetery there were few straight faces in spite of the solemnity of the occasion.

I also vividly recall the funeral of four small children who had perished in a fire. In

my mind I still see their white coffins before the pulpit in the church. The entire

community was in shock and grief.

Undoubtedly the most significant funerals were those of my parents, ten years

apart. I conducted them because I felt I knew them best and could not

countenance listening to someone who scarcely knew them and whose narrative

might not be quite accurate. However, there was another reason, perhaps more

significant, speaking about them allowed me to unburden my feelings before our

friends.

From time to time we witness state funerals. Who will not forget seeing the lone

and black clad figure of Olivia Chow following on foot the casket of her late

husband Jack Layton to Roy Thomson Hall.

Funerals are for the living, we have heard it said. Unlike Catholics and some

Anglicans I believe that nothing is being done about the eternal fate of the

departed by these rituals. They do, however, reassure and comfort the bereft.

I recall standing by a graveside. The casket had been only partially lowered and

was suspended by strong cords when a soft breeze wafted across the grounds

causing the casket to gently sway. As I said the words of the committal “ Ashes to

ashes and dust to dust...” I had the thought that a loving Giver of All Life was

rocking the cradle of the beloved. Whether I believe it or not it was a source of

comfort to me that I shared with the bereaved.

Death is both a very private but also public phenomenon. The bereaved need

time to experience and express their feelings and receive comfort. The public

need to acknowledge that the deceased is one of us.

Doubtless the mass funerals are a sign of honour and respect but I cannot help

but wonder about the appropriateness of such huge and elaborate gatherings.

However, I needn’t worry, it won’t be happening for me.

Spirit Quest

Oct 31, 2014

more stories can be found at skoutajanh.blogsot.com

DARKNESS INTO LIGHT

Hanns F Skoutajan

“It was a dark and stormy night” - well, in fact, it wasn’t. The surface of the

Straits of Dover were as calm as a mirror. It’s surface reflected the starry sky

above. On either side of the ship, not too far away, lighthouse beams swiveled,

winking at each other in what seemed a friendly manner.

Of course, I was aware of the stormy history of this body of water that connects

the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, two continents, one might say. Nor was it

just the weather but politics that had often disturbed this sea.

As I stood on the deck taking in this nocturnal splendour I recalled that a little

more than ten years ago this was a no-man’s land, or sea to be more exact. It

was indeed a dark and stormy time. Britain and Nazi occupied Europe had made

this area a “no sail zone.” U boats, like eels, slunk through the murky depth

looking for their prey. Only occasionally refugees and Canadian airmen prisoners

of war, had managed to escape across in darkness to freedom. Then one day the

Channel teemed with ships and landing craft supported overhead by flights of

bombers and fighters invaded the Nazi fortress and eventually subjugated it.

However, now it was September 1956 and all was still. I was returning to

Germany for the first time to study Christian Social Ethics at the University of

Muenster. I was to delve into the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth and

Helmuth Thielliche. I was, of course, also excited to meet my relatives, those

who had managed to survive the war and their subsequent deportation.

This scene from the deck of the good ship Seven Seas has played on my mind

as I watch, read and hear about the turbulence that is engulfing many parts of the

world , particularly the Middle East. It is the home of the three monotheistic

religions who have peace as their theme.

Thinking about those beacons of friendship from the opposite shores leaves me

wondering if and when peace will descend on those areas of conflict as it had in

Europe. It seems far from possible at times. What will it take to be accomplished?

I am a pacifist at heart but also very conscious that there are limitations to that

ideology. But I have grave doubts, and I emphasize the word “grave,” about the

efficacy of weapons to bring peace to our world. The recent examples of military

action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have demonstrated the futility of war to

bring peace.

We are not alone in our craving for peace. There are people all over the world

and in every age and of every faith who are harkening to the leadership of people

like Albert Einstein, “Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by

understanding,” and Martin Luther King “Peace is not merely a distant goal which

we seek but a means by which we arrive at the goal.” These and others refused

to give up on peaceful actions to bring about change often by their own sacrifice.

Don’t argue with me, listen to them.

In a few days time people in this country and abroad will gather at war memorials

to pay tribute to the many who had been robbed of their lives in the dreadful

conflicts of the last 100 years. Prayers will be said and hopefully we will also

petition for an end to all hostilities wherever.

Our world is beset by many problems: epidemics, climate change and its impact

on the environment, food and water scarcity, homelessness and much, much

more, all of them exacerbated by warfare. Nations seem only too ready to spend

vast sums on arms and bomb each other into some primal state leaving millions

starving in refugee camps.

Sorry, I have few answers, but I insist that answers must be found if humanity is

to survive on this planet, and if the resources of Earth are to be equitably shared.

We of the affluent West can’t seem very genuine to those who struggle to survive

on $2 a day while we indulge in ever more frivolous ways of spending our money.

Call me naive but I do not believe that wars will cease until the disparities among

the people of the world are alleviated. The front is not just “out there” in the

deserts and mountains far away. It is here among us. It is not enough to pray for

peace as a cessation of bloodshed, we must also pray for the end of poverty and

for the integrity of creation, else it will be “a dark stormy night” not just out there

but right here among us all.

Spirit Quest

22/09/2014

for more MYQUESTS : skoutajanh.blogspot.com

OH FOR A CUPPA!

Hanns F Skoutajan

My mother nursed me for a long time. Then almost overnight I migrated from the breast to the cup - the coffee cup that is. 

I have had a love/hate relationship with this beverage. There are times when I can scarcely tolerate the drink. But after a short abstinence I am back to it again.

I live in an area of Ottawa where there is a plethora of coffee outlets within easy walking distance and have been informed that there are more to come. Our main street is to undergo the construction of several new buildings  - condos, offices with stores on ground level. It seems that each of them will house a coffee outlet. Undoubtedly all of them will do well.

I grew up - the first ten year of my life - in a city in Czechoslovakia in those halcyon days before the war broke out. It was the custom of my mother to take me downtown to the market square to shop. This excursion usually concluded with a visit to the Kafe Falk .

Those familiar with the European culture will appreciate that cafes are very special places serving not only coffee, not in mugs but in cup and saucer, along with a variety of luscious pastries. Kafe Falk was no exception. Mother ordered Kafe mit Schlag, that is coffee with a large dollop of whipped cream on top. The waiter properly attired in a black suit also brought a platter of Viennese pastries from which I was allowed to select one, usually a cream puff or a Sacher Torte.

The Kafe Falk also offered a variety of picture magazines for us to peruse while we enjoyed this respite from our shopping. In the afternoon there was usually a string trio and piano performing beautiful music, making for a very relaxing and addictive atmosphere. Given those circumstances it is surprising that I did not become a fat kid but only a spoiled brat.

All this came to a sudden end when we were forced to flee the invading German army.

We found refuge in Scotland where they only drank tea with scones or biscuits that in no way measured up to what I had been accustomed.

After coming to Canada with the outbreak of war coffee became a rather scarce commodity and unaffordable for us poor settlers. Mother brewed a drink made with barley and chicory roots that bore some vague resemblance to coffee. It was cheap and hot but I acquired no taste for it. Only after the war and migrating east did we revert to drinking real coffee. However, cafes such as I recalled from “back home” were only found in the big city and even there were rather scarce. I missed them greatly.

At college I frequented the student coffee shop which had decent coffee but was also a place for good discussions and a venue for making dates.

I wrote this piece sitting in the bay window of one of my favourite coffee emporia. It too is a place for conversation and I have made many new friends in this pleasant environment.

Most of my drinking companions prefer organic coffee and like to support shops that offer “fair trade” products. Having visited Costa Rica on several occasions I became informed that the best coffee comes from beans grown in the shade. Those plantations are usually small and family run. However, much of the arable land is used for growing large crops of coffee, cash crops that are bought by large American corporations. It is a huge industry of great economic importance for that small and beautiful country.

My son spent two years in Ethiopia which is reputedly the birthplace of coffee. My spouse visited him and was honoured at several coffee ceremonies by local people which take a good deal of time. The beans were ground, roasted and brewed in her presence with flower petals strewn about.  The brew is very strong and rather overwhelming for her who is not a coffee drinker, pity! 

The coffee drinking public in this country has acquired some specialized tastes for drinks such as latte, cappuccino and  espresso etc. Plain java is no longer good enough. Have you ever noticed how much sugar people shovel into their “double double?” It becomes a coffee flavoured syrup.

As I sit and enjoy my cuppa I recall my early experiences with coffee drinking. For me to enjoy my coffee respite there are other factors of importance that impinge, not the least of which is ambiance. It is a total experience, olfactory, the aroma of brewing coffee, comfort of the the venue, the sounds and of course the company of friends. But there are also times when I long for a quiet place to drink where I can indulge my thoughts and memories and write them down. Thus another blog! 

So I lift my cup to you. Enjoy! Meet me here sometime. I’ll treat you if you don’t mind listening to my tales. 

Spirit Quest 18’10/2014       

H A R V E S T H O M E !

Hanns F Skoutajan

“We plough the fields and scatter,

the good seed o’er the land,

but what comes up we know not,

it’s never what we planned.”

This spoof on the well-known Thanksgiving hymn has more than a grain of truth in it.

Farming entails a gamble. It is hedged by many factors not the least of which is the

weather. A promising crop one day may turn from hope to despair by a night of frost,

rain or as recently in Calgary, a snow storm. A bumper crop also has its nemesis as the

price of the produce plummets at the elevator. Years ago farmers banded together to

form co-ops to market their produce and thus to some extent control the price. Thus the

Wheat Pool of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta came into being. They also set up

a Wheat Board, now scuttled by a pro business, corporation-loving government.

No, farming is not for the faint of heart. Today more and more crop production is in the

hands of large companies who are able to amass huge tracts of land, pay the ever

rising insurance rates and finance expensive farm machinery. The so-called family farm

where all members of the family were involved in its operation is quickly disappearing.

Children doing chores is condemned as exploitative and cheap labour.

My own experience with agriculture was thankfully short although I do not regret one

moment of it. By the time I was 11 years of age I was able to milk cows, harness horses,

drive them and ride bareback. We couldn’t afford a saddle. I was even growing some

muscles from tasks such as cleaning the barn and picking stones from the fields.

My parents and I along with several hundred refugees from the German invasion of our

homeland were settled on very marginal land in north-western Saskatchewan,100 miles

north of North Battleford. Another group of similar size was sent to the Peace River area

near Dawson Creek in British Columbia. We were settled on abandoned homesteads

and soon discovered why they had been abandoned in the depression. However, this

was the condition of our admission to this land of refuge.

Our farms were small, 160 acres, a quarter section. Mixed farming is what they called

it. Father preferred “ mixed-up farming” to better describe our furtive efforts. We started

with two cows, a team of horses, two pigs in high hope of procreation and 25 chicken,

housed in a tumbledown barn. Every four farms were supplied with basic farm

implements, second hand of course and needy of repair always at crucial times.

I recall a real feeling of envy when years later I visited Upper Canada Village near

Morrisburg, Ontario and beheld what our predecessors of the 19th and early 20th

century had to work with.

We lasted barely 3 years. Our final harvest was a disaster. The crop yield was 11

bushels to the acre of wheat. Even more devastating was the presence of wild oats,

little black kernels among the “golden wheat.”

In the turmoil of thrashing, the noise of the tractor and the roar of the thrashing

machine , the coming and going of the wagons from the fields loaded with sheaves, I

saw a boy arrive on a bicycle. He looked around and then came to me and showed me

a letter and asked me whether I knew the man with the funny name. It was a telegram

for my father. After handing it over to him the lad mounted his bike and rode off 15 miles

to the village, the terminal of the rail line, and as far as we were concerned, the end of

civilization.

Father opened the telegram from his friend and former colleague in the field of

journalism who was visiting Toronto from Britain. He urged my father to drop everything

and come to the big city where he had contacts for employment in the growing war

industry.

My father didn’t need much persuasion. The handwriting was on the wall. A few days

later we saw him off on the 4 day rail journey to the capitol of Ontario. The train ticket

used up most of the profits from our harvest. Mother and I continued on the farm

liquidating the live stock and all other possessions. It was the end of our farming

experience. Four months later we joined him in Toronto.

However, there were some success stories. In 2007, while with a film crew visiting the

area of our misadventure, I encountered a farmer who had done quite well.

Our crew stood at the intersection of two roads contemplating a dilapidated shack that

had once upon a time housed one of our immigrant families. Presently a truck churned

its way through the Saskatchewan gumbo, it was spring, and came to a halt. The driver

turned out to be a man who had been part of our group back in 1939. He was my age

and I had known him well. His parents had done reasonably well and remained on the

land while many of our fellow would-be farmers had fled to the city. He bought and

rented land from the new refugees which was, of course, dirt cheap. With much hard

work and luck he made a go of it. He expanded his operation and then turned it over to

his son who was standing with me on this muddy intersection, who had in turn

bequeathed the farm to his two sons. Theirs is now one of the best farm operations in

the district. There are several other success stories.

It is harvest time across this vast land. By the time you read this story “the sheaves will

have been gathered in, hopefully before the winter’s storms begin.” Canadians and

indeed all the people of the world are dependent on the fruits of the land and of the sea.

At a recent church service that I attended the ministers and their lay assistants sought

to demonstrate the biblical reference to bread, “I am the bread of life.” ( John 6 : 35.)

While the service was progressing, the readings, the prayers and hymns, the minister

made bread, mixing the ingredients and preparing the yeast. Members of the

congregation took turns kneading the dough. It was then taken to the church kitchen

and placed in the oven. Next Sunday the bread was shared with all the congregation. It

was a very memorable teaching occasion. The Word became alive and nurturing.

On Thanksgiving Sunday the chancel of churches will be adorned with corn stalks,

pumpkins, squash and other colourful fruit of the land. We will be reminded that our

food comes from the land and the sea, and requires farmers and fishermen involved in

often risky ventures to replenish our tables. 

Thus:

Come ye thankful people, come,

Sing the song of harvest home.

Spirit Quest 10/10/2014