Dear Friend and Reader:

I AM BACK .....WITH A VENGEANCE!

Many moons have passed since I last accosted you with my Spirit Quest.

Some of you have enquired whether I have dropped your address from the

roster of my correspondents. Others have suggested that I have decamped

to a warmer clime, not a bad suggestion for this winter. Neither is the

reason for my truancy, rather, I confess that I have been dealing with a

health issue that has deprived me of some of my writing energy and ideas.

Nine years ago on a sunny spring day I stood by the banks of the Ottawa

River and observed the water running over the stones. It was very soothing

and pleasant, however, there was something else sitting on my mind. In an

hour or so I would have to present myself at the hospital to hear the result

of the urologist’s investigation of my prostate gland.

“ We have discovered cancer cells on both sides of the gland.” It wasn’t

quite the blow that I had imagined, there seemed no indication that the

cancer had spread beyond the gland itself. I was recommended to an

oncologist for further investigation and treatment.

Nevertheless, as I left the office I was conscious that I was hosting an inner

battle. Over the next months and years I would always be aware of this

malaise. I comforted myself that I had no pains or discomforts, that my

symptoms were all statistical.

Since then I have undergone radiation and hormone therapy and more

lately with a rising PSA rate had to undertake what I had vowed to myself I

would never accept: chemotherapy. It was in reaction to this invasive

therapy that I recently spent two weeks in hospital. The therapy had worked

wonders, my PSA had come tumbling down to below the normal level but

there was a price to be paid. My immunology had suffered. My white blood

cell count had dropped dramatically and I felt unwell. Cancer in all its forms

is the body attacking itself. My natural defences had in fact turned against

me.

The McMurtrys are a well known Toronto family. Among the four sons is

Robert a medical researcher and John a professor of philosophy at the

University of Guelph. Some years ago when their mother came down with a

form of cancer these sons spent much time thinking about her condition

and the nature of her disease.

Robert with his clinical knowledge was of course concentrating on the

human body and its vagaries but John became aware that what held true

for the physical body had parallels for the body politic. In other words there

was much evidence that the very forces that ought to assure a just and

equitable society had a way of being turned against itself. He compared the

behaviour of corporations in the economy to the conduct of biological

cancer cells. He tells about it in a book called “The Cancer Stage of

Capitalism.” Ed Finn, editor of the CCPA Monitor recently wrote the

following about it:

“To invade and multiply in the human body, a cancer virus has to overcome

the body’s natural defences. A strong immune system has a good chance

of beating back the virus invaders, but someone with an immune system

weakened by poor nutrition and environmental carcinogens can’t stop the

cancer from spreading .

The unchecked cancer doesn’t win, of course . This is battle in which both

sides ultimately lose, because soon after the cancer kills the host, it also

dies. But that’s the only way it can function.

Its the same with corporations . Their CEOs are also programmed to

maximize profits, which means spreading and growing by any means - by

cutting jobs, battering unions , evading taxes , corrupting politicians ,

exploiting sweatshop labour , clearcutting forests , pillaging natural

resources, increasing poverty and contaminating the environment.

The corporate cancer is doing what comes naturally to all cancers : it is

growing; it is feeding on its hosts.”

Austerity, privatization,, cut backs in social programs, education and health

care have been very much in vogue as a means of restoring an economy to

profitability by means of structural adjustments, which have done great

damage to economies. They affect the non wealthy class while enhancing

the status of the rich and corporations whose incomes have vaulted beyond

recognition. The public is assured that its the only way

Our own country is a case in point where the petroleum industry with

promises of jobs and wealth have released a cancer that has all but

destroyed the ecology of northern Alberta. No warnings have been

sufficient to deter further extraction and shipments of petro products. Like a

cancer it spreads exponentially bringing about climate change.

Our government who ought to be in the forefront of protecting our country

and its natural resources are way out ahead in propagating more assault

on the natural environment. Few are allowed to stand in its way that are not

denounced as foreign interference.

Cancer is writ large not only on the bodies of our aboriginal people who live

in close proximity to the tar pits and the rivers polluted by them. Seeing the

photoography of Edward Burtynsky is a shattering exeperience.

Can cancer in all its forms be beaten? The motto of the Canadian Cancer

Society assures that it can and indeed there are many cancer survivors, but

the disease in all its various forms is almost of epidemic proportions.

Similarly the corporate attack on the body politic is devastating particularly

to the middle and lower classes and indeed the economic heath of nations.

Finn concludes : “Some environmentalists envision our planet as a giant

living organism . They call her Gaia, and they lament all the wounds

inflicted on her seas, forests, ecosystems and diverse living creatures.

They are still confident that Gaia will survive the corporate cancer

onslaught but fear that many of its life forms - including humankind itself -

will not. The battle for survival is on!

Hanns F Skoutajan

SPIRIT QUEST : March 29, 2014

WHAT IF?

Hanns F Skoutajan

In my imagination I see them, a long line of horse-drawn wagons stretching beyond the hills across the prairie much like their predecessors many years ago. But these were not ordinary settlers but second time refugees. Only months earlier they had escaped from the Nazi take-over of their native Sudetenland ( the German speaking part of Czechoslovakia), now they were once more on the run, hoping to make it to the US border before the vanguard of Hitler’s forces reached them.

Unlike other settlers these were not farmers, most of them were labour union officials, leaders of the Red Guard , a paramilitary organization set up to protect the Social Democrats against the Henlein thugs (Nazis under the influence of Der Fuehrer next door prior to the Munich Agreement of 1938). It would be at least two weeks before the wagon train reached the US border. Crossing would be no problem unlike today. It was after all the world’s longest undefended border. Later there might be some objections to their presence, they were after all socialists, not communist, a distinction the Americans found hard to define. 

Hitler hated them with a passion as they had stood against his incursion. Several thousand managed to get away to Britain while other got caught behind the lines and ended up in concentration camps of Dachau , Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Teresienstadt (Terezin). A goodly percentage of them were Jews, albeit non- practicing, who were in even more danger. Many British rallied to rescue them but now they too were helpless. 

This scenario came to me as I read the book Dominion by C J Sansom, a British writer historian, who published a “what if?” historical essay - what if in May of 1940 Britain had surrendered to Hitler? Would the German forces have quickly rushed across the Atlantic to seize the “bread basket” and

“lebensraum” for Volk and Fuehrer, and would they have remembered their Sudeten foes? The Sudetens certainly were not going to take any chances. 

In this story “the Canadian born Lord Beaverbrook is the pro-German prime minister replacing Chamberlain, ready to condone the continuing erosion of civil liberties and the spectacle of Britain’s Jews being rounded up and deported.  (In fact Beaverbrook became a member of Churchill’s wartime cabinet.) A huge painting of Hitler now hangs in the entrance hall of the hallowed National Portrait Gallery. Meanwhile an ageing Churchill is in the shadows, the leader of an underground resistance group,” so writes Sansom.

The action goes back to that day in 1940 when the discredited prime minister Neville Chamberlain steps down. Lord Halifax, Chamberlain’s right hand man and a Brit who was a Nazi admirer was in line to succeed him but failed. Sansom writes that “I was always struck how close it came to Churchill not getting the premiership.” He had many enemies both among his own party, the Conservatives and of course the opposition parties, Liberals and Labour. There were lots of fascist sympathizers in the UK such as Enoch Powell and Edward VII. 

Canada as well had its pro Nazis. Prime Minister Mackenzie King had called Hitler an “honourable man” only months before the war broke out. Many Canadian farms were settled by Germans in the thirties. I recall a bruhaha that broke out on the platform of the Saskatoon CN station when our train stopped there. Members of the German Bund, a rabidly pro Hitler group arrived to confront us. Only the departure whistle of the train prevented a riot. Canadian National Colonization obviously had little knowledge of what our political persuation was when they appointed Boscher and Kastendick as settlement supervisors. When war broke out they and many others were interned in camps. I cringed when I read Sansom’s fictional scenario.

Democracy is a frail plant indeed, like a chain, it is only as strong as its weakest link. The government's proposed overhaul of the Elections Act includes elements that constitute an affront to democracy, according to Canada's Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand.

In an interview airing Saturday on CBC Radio's The House, Mayrand said, "My reading of the act is that I can no longer speak about democracy in this country. I'm not aware of any electoral bodies around the world who cannot talk about democracy," Mayrand told host Evan Solomon. 

Others, David MacDonald, former minister of communication in the Joe Clarke cabinet, denied that Canada could any longer be called a democracy but had become an oligarchy.

Ed Finn,editor of the Monitor, the official organ of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives writes (Feb. 14 2014) “Its not only the Harper government that is servile to the big corporations and billionaires. To varying degrees, all governments are. Canadian provinces may occasionally defy their corporate overlords on some social issues, but basically they all see their primary role keeping Big Business happy. That means keeping business taxes low, keeping regulations weak , keeping social program spending down, keeping pollution control measures minimal  and keeping unions on a tight legislative leash.”

Lately charitable organizations have been threatened with costly audits should they be found critical of government. The command from on high is “do good deeds and keep your mouth shut about the forces that cause the problems.”

As for Canadians in general, in an article in The Walrus TimothyTaylor writes that “Most of us say that we favour higher taxes, but in the privacy of the voting booth we will all do the same thing we did the last time: vote for the government we think will cost us the least.” 

Sansom writes, “ If the squeeze had been put on us long enough and hard enough by a German government that dominated Europe, I think that Britain would have caved in, as it does in the book.” Fortunately a man of iron will came to the leadership calling Brits “to fight on the beaches,” demanding “blood sweat and tears,” all of which they offered in loads during those years when the German Luftwaffe reduced Manchester and Birmingham, Coventry and London to rubble, when the war’s end was anything but a foregone conclusion. Hitler was occupying Europe from Norway’s Nordkappe to the Sahara, from the English Channel to the Pripet Marshes just short of Moscow. 

Our Sudeten settlers did not have to migrate a second time but many of the men left the farms to join the Canadian forces to fight their arch enemy. Others like my father worked a 60 hour week to produce the guns and planes that eventually turned the tide.

“What if?” is not an idle question. A year from now Canada will be involved in a hard battle for political supremacy in the House of Commons. What if Harper’s Conservatives gain another majority by fair or foul means and the Canadian government is given the green light to continue with even more speed to privatize, to infringe on our human rights and allow the corporations to lay waste to our land as is happening in Northern Alberta.  None of it is beyond the realm of the possible

What if? I cringe!

SQ 12/ 02/ 2014

                     BOXES ON THE HILLSIDE

                                      Hanns F Skoutajan

“Little boxes on the hillside ... and they all look just the same,” was one of Pete Seeger’s songs wherewith he spoofed the suburbs that were growing like mushrooms at the periphery of most cities and towns in America and Canada following WW II. I remember first hearing it and got a big laugh out of it. 

But on second thought I recalled having once lived in one of those “little boxes.” Indeed it was my home for almost ten years. The suburbs that Seeger sings about are post war while I lived in wartime housing from ‘42 - ’52, that looked much the same.

The Bata Shoe Company where my father was employed as a quality control engineer, established a village to house the workers.  It was located six miles north of the city of Trenton, Ontario in the beautiful valley of the Trent River,  There were hills all around that reminded the Czech employees of their homeland. They had escaped the Nazi take-over of Czechoslovakia.  I know that my own parents felt that way.

Batawa, as the village was named after the world famous shoe enterprise, was quite an anomaly. On a Sunday afternoon quite a number of cars brought curious people to see this unusual sight - a village of small houses that seemed to have sprung out of he ground.  Most communities in Canada had developed slowly over the years and were comprised of a variety of styles, or no style at all. Batawa was “little boxes” of a variety of colours, a planned village.

Today, the “little boxes” are all gone, replaced by much more modern homes such as we see in most suburbs. These wartime prefabs can still be seen in other places, for instance in Ottawa at Kirkwood just south of Carling Avenue.  The owners have often added to them on the back and on the sides.

I vividly recall the day that we moved in. After fleeing from our comfortable apartment house in Czechoslovakia, we lived in a variety of accommodation which included a castle in Scotland, a log shack in northern Saskatchewan and in a couple of rooms in a small house in downtown Toronto. For the first time in my life I had a room to myself. What a luxury! Those Little Boxes on the hillside weren’t all that bad.

The late Pete Seeger accompanied on his banjo, was a musical prophet, performing songs critical of the Vietnam War and indeed all war. “When will we ever learn?” His grandfather protested the US entry into World War I. He campaigned for justice and human rights and took with him thousands of fans and will be well remembered. I shall certainly replay those vinyl platters that I bought years ago.

He was, of course, brought before the House Unamerican Activities Committee and denounced by Senator McCarthy as a communist. Indeed in his student days at Harvard University he had joined with student rebels some of whom were communist. 

His songs were audacious but not rabel rousing. He was first and foremost an American. To the CBC goes the credit when he was banned from most major US networks for giving him a platform from which he could reach many of the citizens south if the border but also in Canada where they had immigrated to avoid the draft.

He lived a long and productive life and had many friends in the musical field such as Odetta, the well-known black singer and Woodie Gurthrie among them. In his death at the age of 94 he will be much celebrated. It is fervently hoped that his spirit , like that of John Brown, will march on. It is much needed at a time when the corporate world has taken over the United States as well as Canada. We need to experience a rebirth of democracy to replace the oligarchic systems that have taken over. 

Yes, I lived in one of those little boxes but what I remember best of all is the sense of community that existed in our little village on the banks of the Trent. There is now a new community there. Of the old structures only the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic church built in 1941 remains. The five story factory, which was once a war plant producing shell casings, gun mounts and aircraft arts and later on shoes and boots, stands idle. Sonja Bata, the widow of the late Thomas Bata, has dreamed boldly and, as the first Batawa once was, it is again in the forefront of being a unique community.

         

The Batawa Ski Hill has attracted much attention plus the many exciting community initiatives such as environmental care and just plain fun for the residents is very much apparent. It keeps true to its motto: Batawa - beautiful by nature and design.

They are no longer “little boxes on the hillside” but a modern community that Seeger could well have sung about.

Spirit Quest 30/ 01/ 2014

More writings can be found at MYQUEST.

   

REP BY POP

Hanns F Skoutajan

I received my first lessons in civics in that little red school house (36 pupils, 8 grades, one teacher, one room with potbellied stove in the centre) in the wilds of Saskatchewan north of the prairies. 

As was the practice with most schools in the province the teacher set up a branch of the Junior Red Cross. This organization was not to teach how to roll bandages or to administer a variety of minor medical procedures but to raise a few funds and to teach the students the rudiments of parliamentary procedures. Thus at the age of 11 or so I had some sense of how a meeting is to be conducted, to pass motions and, yes, even to amend them. So why is it that most Canadians are still blissfuly ignorant about rules of order insisting that motions be passed before amended rather than the other way round?  

At this point I need to emphasize that the Canadian parliamentary system is not run by the American Robert’s Rules of Order but by Bourniot, and there is a difference. The latter rules of order are the authoritative manual of parliamentary procedure originally published in 1884 .

As university chaplain I often visited the meetings of other ethnic organizations on campus. Attending a meeting of students from Latin America I was impressed by the fact that few had any understanding of parliamentary procedure and indeed, all business seemed to be accomplished by “coups d’etat.”  Undoubtedly that is what they had experienced back home where they did not have a Junior Red Cross.  

Canadians elect their government by the antiquated “first past the post” system of elections, still in effect in the UK, Australia and India, and to some extent in the US where it is complicated by the votes of the Electoral College.

Having just returned from his “love in” with Netanyahu Prime Minister Harper is undoubtedly aware that Israel from its very inception 75 years ago has had a system of proportional representation and thus has never had what Harper has so much coveted, a majority government which can run rough shod over all those other political parties and their opinions. 

There are, of course, many different kinds of proportional representation. Roughly stated it means that when 30% of votes are cast for a particular party that party receives that same percentage of seats in the House.

All political leaders long for a majority to institute their unwatered-down agenda, the platform on which they campaigned in the elections. In a minority government there has to be compromise. Parliament has to become a place where members debate the issues rather than grandstand and call each other names and in the end get what the “ruling” party wants.

The recent death of John Matheson, best known as the inventor of the Maple Leaf Flag, reminded me of an incident which I witnessed when he was a member of parliament. One day my spouse and I sat in the visitors gallery of the House. It was on that momentous occasion that the infamous name “Gerda Munsinger” was voiced from across the aisle and pandemonium broke out. 

The Munsinger Affair was Canada’s first national political sex scandal. It focused on Gerda Munsinger, an alleged East German prostitute and Soviet spy living in Ottawa who allegedly had slept with a number of cabinet ministers in John Diefenbaker’s government and thus was political dynamite when called to mind in what seemed like a cat-call from the ranks of the opposition.

Later on our way home I saw the lone figure of John Matheson looking very crestfallen on the steps of parliament. I knew him somewhat from our mutual association with Queen’s University. As I approached him I noted that tears were coursing down his cheek. He was devastated by the spectacle in the House and called the episode a “travesty of democracy.”

In many ways what we see in the Commons these days, especially in Question Period, is but a “travesty” of which Canadians can be ashamed.

I do not mean to suggest that any system of proportional representation will solve all problems, sexual or otherwise, but it does mean that parliamentarians and particularly their leaders must be cognizant and respectful of the opinion of other members and their parties. Gone should be such aberrations as the so-called omnibus bills which, like Skylar’s pipe bomb, contain many “goodies” that can wreak mischief by bypassing parliamentary scrutiny and sanction. Gone also should be the government’s heavy handed rule by the Prime Minister’s Office. 

My fervent hope is that Prime Minister Harper will have been so impressed by Israel’s democracy, a fact which he reiterated on many occasions in the Knesset and elsewhere, that he will have become an advocate of their system of governance. I look forward to his standing in the House and announcing boldly that “it is crystal clear” our great nation is lagging far behind the political system of Israel, and that at the next election Canadian voters will be truly represented by a system of proportional representation, and to hell with majority rule. (ha!)

I shall not hold my breath until that time. I nevertheless hope that Canadians will find a new and better way of being represented in government soon. I believe that it will resolve many if not all of our problems of governance and make us a more truly democratic nation.

Spirit Quest  22/01/2014

Other writings can be found at MYQUEST

NB: Change of address  fj735@ncf.ca

          

LOVE - LIFE WITH BOOKS

Hanns F Skoutajan

I love bookstores and of course their contents. Bookstores are for me more than places of business. Their shelf-lined walls contain collections of ideas, thoughts, and fantasies. They are in fact places rich in culture. Is it any wonder then that upon hearing of the possible demise of Books On Beechwood  in Ottawa’s New Edinburgh neighbourhood a year ago, I along with many others were crestfallen - and equally elated when three Samaritans emerged to take over the store, and by the look of things made it successful.

My home in Czechoslovakia prior to World War II contained many books. My parents were avid readers. All this treasure was lost when we became refugees. Later in Canada we were settled in a remote area of the country where books were not considered a necessity. Better a cord of wood than a box of literature. My wonderful public school teacher, Verna Brown, took the time after lunch hour to read to the class. It was a time cherished by all and we sat in wrapped attention as she related to us the tale of Black Beauty and other fiction.

At Christmas each child was given a 75 cent credit for a Christmas gifts which were then distributed at the Christmas concert. The money for this venture was raised at the annual community bean supper.  On that first Christmas I ordered a copy of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, a book which my mother  had read to me  in its German translation “back home.” Now I would be able to read it in the original.

When arriving back in civilization, I soon made my way to the corner of Yonge and Queen Streets to the home of the T. Eaton Company who had a substantial book section in their store.

“ ...And long I used to stand and look at things I could not buy.” I do remember a version of literature called Big Little Books that were affordable for my small means. 

I did join the local Public Library and carried home a number of volumes but I wanted to own them, to be able to underline or write comments in the margin. Avarice lurked in my veins.

My parents also began to invest by joining the Book of the Month Club and the Literary Guild. No family celebration went without gifts of books. Our shelves were once again festooned in colourful dust jackets.

Upon arriving at Queen’s University in the fall of 1950 I soon got to know Bob Miller, then the study secretary of the Student Christian Movement. Bob toured the universities hauling boxes of books that he believed were needed to be read by students beyond their required subjects of study. They consisted of theology, philosophy, and the social sciences and more which were used by our study groups.

Later Bob established the SCM Book Room at Rochdale College and later still his own Bob Miller Book Room on Bloor Street West in downtown Toronto, still operative today. These were places I often frequented and where I left a good deal of cash.

Christians have been called People of the Book. Really it ought to be in the plural for the Bible is a collection of books, a veritable library of poetry, history, law and the record of the beginning of the Jewish and Christian faith. But the People of the Way, as they were popularly called in the early days of the church, produced an extensive literature of their own by theologians such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. My own book shelves contain books by Doug Hall, Paul Tillich, Hans Küng and Karen Armstrong, to name just a few. My spouse, also a voracious reader, and I have many works of fiction by Canadian authors such as the Margrets, Lawrence  and Atwood as well as translations from other languages such as the writings of Saramago.

Thus we are utterly delighted that our granddaughter Sophia, who will soon be seven years of age, is well on the way to becoming an avid reader. Guess what will be in some of her birthday gifts.

Yes, I love books and bookstores, particularly the independents, owned and managed by a book lover such Perfect Books on Ottawa’s Elgin Street. He is always good for some advice on reading material.

We hear much these days that bookstores are an endangered species with readers turning to e- books, Kindle, Amazon and Chapters. They have doubtless made significant inroads into the book business. On the other hand Ottawa’s International Writers Festival brings writers from all over the world to our town to present and discuss their writings. Volumes move fast from the sales tables at each of these events. 

Books are a mystery, those strange symbols on white sheets reveal life and thought in all its aspects and forms. This ”print”  leaps off the page into the open mind and brings understanding, excitement and joy to the hearts and minds of readers.

I love books and those that write them and sell them as well as their readers.

SQ 16/01/2014

Other writings can be found at MYQUEST

FRIGID, EH!

Hanns F Skoutajan  

“But, baby it’s cold outside,” is the oft repeated refrain of this winter song. The lover tries to persuade the beloved to stay a little longer since its cold outside - sentiments we are very much able to appreciate. Yes, its been frigid outside, unfortunately that word is not very musical, “cold” will have to do.

The song was written by Frank Loesser in 1944 for his wife and became an instant Christmas favourite. But in fact it is a winter song which is especially appropriate for this cold season.

Each time I walk into this brick wall of cold air, now known as the  “polar vortex,”  I am reminded of my first winter in Canada. It was 1939 - 40 and we were ensconced in our wretched log cabin in the wilds north of North Battleford, Saskatchewan, fifteen miles from the nearest village. 

On that first frigid morning we discovered that every drop of water in the house had become solid including the contents of the potty. Father scurried about setting a roaring fire in our potbellied stove that turned the pipes red hot and raised fears that we would burn down the place. 

Next was to rush out to the barn to feed the two cows and the team of horses. They 

welcomed us with moos and whinnies. To our surprise we found that their bodies had  made their accommodation more comfortable than our own quarters. Then it was back to the cabin with  pails of warm milk donated by the cows. Most of the rest of the day was spent indoors except for a brief workout with the axe at the chopping block. 

We had no idea how cold it was. Only when we visited the general store did we discover that the temperature differential between celsius and fahrenheit made no difference. “Wind chill” hadn’t been heard of then.

“Baby, it was cold outside,” but we were well equipped with warm hats, coats, combination underwear and felt boots etc.

Most memorable of those three years in the True North was the winter that my mother and I spent alone, father having gone east to be retrained to get a more compatible job in the growing war industry, and certainly better living accommodation. Mother and I were left with disposing of our livestock and other goods. 

We headed for the sack as early as possible accompanied by our dogs and cats into whose fur we were able to stick our toes. They didn’t seem to mind the occasional twitch. We slept well after telling each other bedtime stories which we made up each night.

It was one of those very cold days in mid February when our neighbour hauled us and  our remaining possessions to the train station on our week long trek to  Toronto.

These day it is not unusual to hear someone opine that we could use some “global warming” right now. Statistics tell us that indeed the climate has changed under the influence of ever growing Co2 accumulation bringing not just periods of cold but generally unseasonal weather. Think of the floods of Calgary and High River as well as the Elbe breaching its banks at Dresden, Germany,  the hurricanes that have devastated areas of the mid west, the typhoons that have churned the seas and sent high waves ashore. And we are warned that there is worse to come. When my son visited Florida at Christmas and heard people complaining about the cold from the north he just told them it was all part of free trade.

We have an inordinate confidence that science and technology can solve all problems, but our profligate ways have given evil times a head start that is  hard to beat. There are no quick fixes to our climate problems. Economics trumps everything else, so it seems. Sustainable development is even questionable at our stage. A whole change in lifestyle of the residents of this planet earth is in order.

In this my first blog of the year 2014 I ought to be a bit more optimistic about the future. And indeed there is much to be optimistic about. My hope rests with the coming generation. My son, an elementary school teacher who has developed new methods of teaching that involves what is called “the greening of schools” finds the “kids” really turned  on to learning about nature and its preservation, and so are their parents. In the 

publication, “ A Natural  Curiosity” for which he writes, holds out the following hope:

“As ecologist and scholar David Orr emphasizes, our ability to restore planet Earth rests primarily on the decisions we make about education. The kind of education which has given us  the “skills, aptitudes, and attitudes necessary to industrialize the earth” is no longer practical given the state of our vulnerable natural world. Resource depletion, loss of species, and climate change threaten the sustainability of the planet.  Orr suggests that we need a fundamental shift in the way we think and behave, a shift made possible  by a fundamentally different approach to teaching and learning: Education that nurtures children’s innate curiosity about the natural world, that fosters their understanding  of the interconnectedness of all living and non-living things, and instills in them an abiding sense of care and responsibility for the well-being of their communities and planet Earth.”  

   

We can only hope that our older generation will not throw too many roadblocks to this new form of education. 

Yes, baby, it’s cold outside , but it might get hotter and dryer and wetter and more turbulent unless we heed the signs of our time. A New Year is upon us. Let us use it wisely.

SQ 10/01/2014  

ALL ABOARD!

Hanns F Skoutajan

“Air Canada Flight 251 is in its final boarding process. All passengers should now be on board.” The line-up at the gate had dwindled to a mere trickle as one after the other passengers pass by the check-in desk and enter the passageway to the aircraft.

Then a loud shout could be heard. Racing down the hall trundling their carry-on cases two more passengers wildly waving their boarding passes and passports rush for the gate  - just in the last moment. Behind them the door closes and the flight is ready for departure.

I mentioned to my oncologist that I suspected that I am in my “final boarding process.”

He chuckled but  didn’t want to make any rash predictions about my date of departure. He did, however, remind me that  people of my tender years  are all in their final boarding process. Departure might not be imminent. It isn’t in my case.

As we approach the end of the year there are also speculations about the future. We live in a turbulent world, armed to the teeth, some of them weapons of mass destruction. Wars, as in Syria and South Sudan, are devastating the people and country. There are serious questions as to how we shall feed the billions that are crowding this planet.  How much time have we left  -  has civilization left, - has this planet Earth left?

There are those religious fanatics who take pleasure in end time conjectures, who like to remind everyone of those biblical visions of the end, in the Old Testament in Joel 2 : 10, but also in the New Testament in Matthew 2 : 24 - 29, about the sun being darkened and the moon losing light, the stars falling from heaven being shaken by the last turbulence.  Among them is Harold Camping, a broadcaster in the United States who stirred consternation , ecstasy and complaints to the U.S. Federal Communications  Commission. He predicted twice in 2011 that the end of the world is nigh. But he beat the world to its demise as he died on Dec. 15th in California, of course. He is just one of a host of other prophets of doom. 

Astrophyisicists also speculate about the end  as they do about the beginning, the Big Bang and the Big Crunch and perhaps another Big Bang and “deja vu all over again.” Hans Küng, the noted Tübingen (Germany) theologian, writes in his book, The Beginning of All Things : Science and Religion,  that “in around 5 billion years from now the Andromeda Galaxy  will collide with the Milky Way and billions of stars will be hurled around the universe. At the same time, the sun will swell into a red giant. Then all life  on our Earth will die out.”

5 billion years seems like a lot of time for a final boarding process.  Rather than being obsessed with End Times, biblical or astrophysical, the dwellers on this planet need to be concerned about the quality of life of all its inhabitants.

My oncologist and I discussed what therapies we should take to preserve quality rather than quantity of life. We all love life, I do, and want to have as much of it as possible , but what kind of life?

Thus as we stand at the portal of another year I cannot help but wonder what is to come  not just for my earthly body but for the world that our bodies inhabit.

Unfortunately many of those dwellers of time and space are desperately avaricious. We are determined to mine the earth’s resources ignoring the havoc caused as can be seen at Fort McMurray and surroundings. Quality of life, it seems, is constituted by the bottom line. Living responsibly  and sustainably is trumped by accumulation. We like to forget that we are indeed in a final boarding process.     

For me quality of life has everything to do with my family, just as humankind needs to think about its human family, about living in peace and harmony with one another and with this God-given environment. The final boarding process is not meant to be a time when we hoard up what’s left. Our carry-ons can hold  just so much.

Whether you believe that there is something beyond the boarding gate is not the point. 

Testifying to his faith, Küng, does not believe in the “dying of the light” but entering fully into the light of God’s love. He has wagered his life on that belief  but admits that he is aware of the abiding risk of this wager.  “But I am convinced, “ he affirms, “ that even if I lose this wager in death, I will in all events have lived a better, happier, more meaningful life than if I had not had hope.”

It is with this conviction that we need to approach the departure gate whether that be in the new year or in some time to come.  The final boarding process is nevertheless upon us . Be not afraid. Live lovingly.

Happy New Year!

SQ 27/ 12/ 2013