HANNS’ BLOG

HAVE A HEART!

Hanns F Skoutajan

“A man’s heart can be judged by how he treats animals.” So wrote

Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) who is probably better known and less well

understood for his Categorical Imperative. His magnum opus, A Crtique of

Pure Reason is a major stumbling block for most students of philosophy.

The above statement is a pleasant break from his deep philosophical

writings. Nevertheless what he says about man’s relationship to the animal

world raises difficult moral questions for us humans.

The animal kingdom is under severe stress. In a recent study by Dr. Mark

Urban of the University of Connecticut, he points out that earth is on a

course to lose biodiversity, virtually by degrees - literally - as climate

change exacts an inexorable toll on the species around the globe.

The warming of the planet, primarily because of fossil fuel emissions is

having a powerful negative impact on the growing number of plants and

animals. One in six species will ultimately be at risk of extinction within the

foreseeable future.

We may love our pets, especially the canine species. Now that the warm

weather has come my coffee shop has once again moved onto the patio. It

is interesting to watch the patrons arrive with dogs of every size and

description, all pure bred of course. The animals are tethered while their

master/ mistress goes inside to fetch their steaming cuppa. Occasionally

they share a snack with their pet to their delight. The dogs hardly take their

eyes off the door, and occasionally give a bark when there is too a long

delay in their return. They are audibly elated when their “friends” return.

The relationship between man and beast is often visibly intimate.

However our pets, particularly dogs, are only a small fraction of the animal

kingdom, many of whom do not enjoy the warm relationship described

above.

Think of the polar bear, a fearsome animal even on the streets of Churchill

in northern Manitoba, which is threatened . The disappearing ice cover on

the Bay makes the hunting for seals, their chief source of sustenance,

precarious. Man’s incursion into the wilderness to mine, forest and farm

has seriously interfered with the herding and breeding terrain of moose and

elk. Whales and dolphins are very much at risk. Fish and birds find water

contaminated. Huge numbers of them have died. In Africa elephant herds

are diminishing at the hands of ivory poachers. And so are many other

creatures of the jungles, to say nothing of the fate of the honey bee and the

monarch butterfly.

Seen from that perspective one cannot help but wonder about Kant’s

statement that how we deal with animals reveals the human heart. Are we

a hard hearted lot who put their own wealth and comfort ahead of the

environment and their population?

It is not so long ago that nature thrived, even in my own lifetime. But in

recent decades man’s appetite has become voracious for the world’s

resources. Our incursion into nature has reached exponential proportions.

Kant who lived his whole life in the city of Koenigsberg in East Prussia,

could hardly comprehend the world of today. He would be appalled at what

is revealed about the human heart by way of our treatment of the animal

world.

His Categorical Imperative bears some resemblance to the Golden Rule:

“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Can we include a

deep concern for our fellow creatures as inhabitants of the globe? Have we

the heart to think globally, indeed, to see ourselves as part of the animal

kingdom? Have we the heart to share all of creation?

Spirit Quest, May 1, 2015

HANNS’ BLOG

PUTTING YOUR TEETH IN IT

Hanns F Skoutajan

My son Stephen is an excellent mimic. Not only is he able to reproduce the sound of animals like the roar of an  elephant which he experienced during his years in Africa, but the voices of people. He is also able to reproduce the sound of machines, and to my chagrin the distinctive whine of the dentist’s drill. Facing some extensive dental work his mimicry can send chills down my spine. Nor am I alone in  experiencing this phobia.

My aversion to the dentist goes back a long way . When I was in grade one  in my first school in Czechoslovakia our whole class early in the year was marched off downtown to the dental clinic where the condition and needs of our teeth were attended to. I did not enjoy this visit. I overheard one of my classmates describe the sounds of my encounter with that of an ox on a spit - a bit of an exaggeration to be sure, but protest I undoubtedly did.

A year before our sudden departure from our homeland mother unbeknownst of our fate had all the necessary dental work done, fillings and a bridge  with gold inlay. It was done so well that it  virtually lasted her a lifetime. Our town had a state of the art clinic that included all facets of dentistry. Her visits were carefully recorded in her diary which I treasure as a family archival possession. 

Little did we know as we departed that this blessed land that would receive us was a backwater as far as dentistry was concerned. Undoubtedly conditions were better in the cities but out in the sticks of northern Saskatchewan it was primitive to non existent.

My first dentist was our neighbour who had come to Canada with us. She extracted several of my teeth with a pair of pliers for the price of one egg, same as a haircut.

Dentistry has come a long way. One of the members of my Toronto congregation was the highly esteemed Dr. Roy Ellis who established the first dental clinic north of the Arctic Circle . The dental school on the Toronto University campus , Ellis Hall was named after him.

When our congregation sponsored a family of eleven people from Laos a member of our congregation, also a dentist, undertook to repair the teeth of our refugees gratis. It was a great deal of work as you can appreciate but he considered it as his Christian duty. 

It is my firm belief that dental care, pivotal as it is to good general health, ought to be part of medicare as it was in my homeland. However, the chances of that happening  seem slight inasmuch as Medicare is itself under attack and may not survive the move to privatization, abetted by the Fraser Institute and other right wing institutions. Canadians ought to be vigilant of the wonderful medical services that are available to us. They ought to be expanded to included pharmacare and dentistry.  Your health ought not to be dependent on the size of your pocket book.

We are fortunate in our home to have the service of charming woman from the Philippines. Maria (not her real name) is an exceptionally hard and diligent worker who combines her duties here with that of maid service at a hotel. She has little spare time or cash.

She has a teenage daughter back home whom she is trying to sponsor and bring to Canada where she would receive a better education and  hope for a good job. She thus has to scrounge all available funds which includes the neglect of her dental work. Undoubtedly it will have negative repercussions down the road. 

I may not look forward to my oncoming bout with the dentist . My private insurance will cover part of the cost . Why should it be less important than oncology or cardiology which is undertaken with no financial questions asked?

The people of this land need to be vigilant. We have too precious a heritage to take it for granted .

HANNS’ BLOG

SPRING TO LIFE 

“Hope springs eternal” So wrote Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744).

In the cycle of the seasons of the year, Spring is the time of hope. It is the promise of new growth and life. 

On the evening of my 86th birthday, Marlene, my spouse and I, enjoyed a delicious meal at Le Cafe at the National Arts Centre here in Ottawa. The view of the Rideau Canal was still obstructed by mounds of ice and snow , no longer white but dirty grey. Following that we adjourned to Southam Hall for a concert that featured Beethoven’s 6th symphony, the Pastorale. He wrote about this composition that, “it is no picture but something in which the emotions are aroused by the pleasure of the country.” It is preeminently  a symphony of hope.

The musical themes of this, one of his most popular works, are familiar, even whistleable. Did I hear someone in the staircase at the end of the performance rehearse those tunes?

For the Ottawa crowd who have just emerged from a hard, cold winter it spoke of a hope for a new season in the wings. The streets are still fringed with dirty ice and snow  but the surface of the roads are mostly bare. Potholes abound. A few days of balmy weather have wakened the anticipation of spring. 

But than back again to the old reality. On Friday the Thirteenth wet snow covered the streets. Old Man Winter seemed only half beaten. He still had a few ounces of strength in him. 

As a child my parents read to me a book that anthropomorphized the seasons of the year such as the aforementioned Old Man Winter with his shaggy grey beard confronted by a young damsel full of life and joy, the embodiment of spring, dancing rings around the aged embodiment of bleak winter.

As I reflect on this past season I recall that not only were the days short and frigid ( though I must admit quite sunny) but the news from the world and our own country had a negative feel about it. War in the Ukraine, Iraq, Syria and Libya, the rise of ISIL and their atrocities have cast an icy coating over life, even if those countries have never seen a flake of snow. (Except for the Ukraine someone will undoubtedly remind me)

Us humans cannot live without a sense of hope as Pope intimates. It dares to move us beyond pessimism and fear. It beckons us to confront what stands in the way of a new world and to recognize the possible ; “to accentuate the positive” as the old swing ballad had it.

Beethoven loved nature . He commented that, “my bad hearing, (he was going deaf) does not trouble me . In the woods there is enchantment which expresses all things.”

On the wall of our living room hangs an original painting that I inherited from my inlaws . When we visited them when they were still in their home in Charlottetown, I coveted the painting of the Sugar Shack in New England by Georgie Read Barton, a Maritime artist. Smoke and steam issue from the chimney. A team of horses haul logs to the fire to boil the sap. Sugaring time presages life to come as the sap surges up from the Maple roots. The very smell of syrup can be perceived in the painting. 

As Pope wrote, Hope springs eternal and the young maiden portrayed as spring in my children’s story dances around the withering old man. Spring will prevail.

Hope also makes me feel that the forces of nature will overcome our greedy selves that have been so destructive of the environment. I am aware that such optimism may seem unrealistic. It would be easier to yield to despair or even to join the other, the exploitative side. But that is not the way of hope. 

Thus let me dream that some day the tar ponds of northern Alberta will dry up, that healthy fish and other wildlife will find their home, that our Aboriginal people will reinherit their lost lands, way of life and spirituality, that cities will become truly international communities and that we will celebrate our differences. 

Dream on, you will say, and dream we must . Without dreams the future is in doubt. But to dream is not enough, hope must be put to work.

I believe that the human heart is hard wired for hope. I trust that peace and justice will prevail even as spring will follow winter.

Don’t believe me? Then at least join me in my hope. It makes life worth living.  Thus:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never is, but always to be blessed:

The soul, uneasy and confined from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

– Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man

Hanns F Skoutajan,

Spirit Quest

15/03/20015

Other “Quests” may be found at skoutajanh.blogspot.com

THE GOOD AND THE GOODS

..... “A factory manufacturing good rather than goods,”.... was a childhood fantasy  of Vaclav Havel, the first president of post Velvet Revolution (1989) Czchoslovakia. His biographer Michael Zantovsky  in Havel: A Life wrote that Vaclav grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. In other words his family was not short of goods even during the depression  when Vaclav was a small child and later during the Nazi occupation when he was an early teen.

Young Vaclav saw that things were wrong and he wanted to repair them. This fix demanded more than “things and stuff.” Throughout his life as a writer, particularly playwright, a dissident that frequently landed in the jails of the communist government, his wish was to make his country, Czechoslovakia, if not the whole world, a “good” or at least a better place to live. 

In 1989 he walked out of the infamous Pankrac prison in Prague straight to the presidential residence. His author and long time friend and associate says he was honoured to carry Vaclav’s total possessions in a string bag. 

According to our materialistic thinking good and goods are often equated. Society and customers according to Margaret Thatcher are one and the same thing, indeed she is well known for stating that there is no such thing as society there are only consumers. Goods are good, she believed, and the more you can amass the better. 

When the people share the goods of the nation, when its citizens are well and creatively employed and when the basic needs of the people are met by publicly financed plans such as health care and education and the welfare of its seniors and children is assured then truly that society is good, 

The early Czechoslovakia that emerged from the Austria Hungary Empire after WW1 was such a country. It wasn’t perfect especially in the thirties when the world was gripped in a depression. 

On my birthday I like to remind friends that I was born under a form of medicare. My birth, my subsequent health care including dental care, and my schooling was entirely covered. What a shock when we came to Canada in 1939 and found that one went to a doctor only if you could afford it. Often times of course medical practitioners especially out in the country were very generous and frequently accepted pay in kind, a dozen eggs, a side of beef or a cord of wood to compensate for services rendered.

The early Czech system could be a model for our own country where the amassing of goods is given priority over social needs. In early times the good was provided by charitable institutions and to some degree still is. When I attend the cancer clinic I am made aware of the many who have made generous donations for its establishment and I am grateful. 

When I entered the ministry in the fifties churches were very much involved in charitable activities, delivering Christmas baskets to the poor, collecting and distributing used clothes and in many ways they still do.  The church manse was often visited by the down and outs for help.

As I peruse my old sermons I recognize that I did not so much evangelize to fill the pews with new converts  but rather emphasized the responsibility of Christians to be a force for good, to work for justice and peace. This didn’t necessarily fill the pews I admit. I was no hell-fire and damnation preacher.

I found much support for that in the message of more liberal and progressive denominations such as the United Church of Canada.

Havel did not die a Catholic rather he is best described as a non-denominational believer. Nevertheless his funeral took place in the cathedral in Prague attended by the Roman Cathollc hierarchy of the country. 

Havel was from his childhood dedicated  to building a good society. His main emphasis was on human rights and social justice. I hope we can keep that in mind in this election year when the emphasis seems to be on economics, goods that is, even at the price of ecology , and on security at the cost of freedom and justice. In that contest the truly Good is often 

overlooked.

Hanns F Skoutajan

Spirit Quest March 6, 2015

THE PIPER’S TUNE

Hanns F Skoutajan

It was in the summer of 1970 that my family and I journeyed to Germany to visit my relatives for the first time. Of course it was also an occasion to do some of the touristy things of which there are plenty. Thus it was that on one week end we visited the charming medieval town of Hamelin famous as the setting of the story of the Pied Piper who had cleansed the town of its infestation of rats. Then when the town fathers refused to pay the piper he played a different tune that attracted all the children of the community and led them into a mountain never to be seen again - a rather rough ending but not unfamiliar in German literature even children’s stories.

Each Sunday the burgers of the town reenact the world famous story. Thousands descend upon this community to witness the event. The town square which becomes the stage is crowded by visitors from all over Europe and beyond.

My family and I squeezed into this crowd. We managed to get our son and daughter into the front row where they watched bug-eyed as children of their own age masqueraded as rats scurried about doing all sorts of mischief, chased furiously by housewives with brooms while their husbands discussed the dilemma in council .

As I watched a thought came to mind and I turned to my wife to tell her that I had the feeling that friends of ours from Canada were present. She corroborated my feelings, but when the show was over and the spectators were dissipating down the narrow alleys to their tour buses or other vehicles we did not catch a glimpse of our friends although Jack, the father was a rather tall man with a large head of black hair. 

Months later when we encountered them again “back home” we checked our notebooks and lo and behold our two families had been in Hamelin at the same time watching the same reenactment of the famous story. Unusual? Well perhaps not given the huge audience that had gathered for the play. 

The event came vividly to mind a few days ago when I received word that our friend Jack, only a couple of years younger than I, had passed away.

We had kept in touch over the years and were saddened by his departure from this life.

The Pied Piper of Hamelin is of course an old morality play. But unlike most such stories which deal with individual responsibility this one is directed at corporate sin. It shows the town fathers’  unwillingness to live up to their fiscal responsibility. They broke their deal with their employee, the piper who had done them such a good service. Their malfeasance had an extremely  tragic ending. Their most precious possessions, their progeny, the future of the community, was taken away.

I have often thought about our investment in the future. In my last blog 

“ Birthdays”  I wrote about this future generation, particularly my own grandchild.  I am greatly upset when our leaders, politicians and corporate elite forget about the human investment in favour of bank and stock markets. When the “crash” comes as it did in 2008 the bail out did little for ‘the least of these”, the children of “Hamelin.” while banks and their managers escaped prosecution and indeed prospered.

Undoubtedly this sounds all rather simplistic . I don’t have a masters degree in economics as does our prime minister, mine is in divinity, both rather awesome subjects, but I do believe that our first concern as a nation must be about the many pipers that make up this mighty orchestra of ours. Their welfare is of prime importance if we are to function as a society. Nor can we allow one segment to flourish while the others lag far behind as is the case today, it makes for disharmonious music.     

I also wrote about our responsibility toward our environment, as I often do. 

It can only be short changed with dire consequences some of which are manifesting themselves already. 

The story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is a simple story which every child on the town square of Hamelin that day could easily comprehend. Its economics takes no postgraduate degree to understand. My own children certainly did. Its moral thrust is simple, why is it so hard to employ it in the larger sphere and indeed throughout the world? The future of civilization depends on it. 

SQ 23/02/2015      

         

BIRTHDAYS

Hanns F Skoutajan

Eighty-six years ago I stretched and wiggled in the semi dark of my uterine confines.  Only a few more days were left before my emergence into the light. Outside they talked about me. In those days the infant’s gender could only be guessed at unlike today when with x rays and other means the pre-born’s sex and features are revealed.

One day my grandfather placed his hand on my mother’s abdomen to feel the movements underneath. Sadly it would be the closest that he would come to his grandson. He died before my birth. My other grandparent, mother’s father, passed away with tuberculosis decades earlier. Thus I never met any of my grandfathers and therefore am aware of the great privilege  I have had in seeing my granddaughter shortly after  her birth on February 12, 2007 and then to watch her grow and develop talents, wisdom  and an indomitable sense of curiosity, as well as a beautiful head of red hair. You bet we’ll celebrate.

I was born on March 13, 1929 in a city near the border of Germany in what was then Czechoslovakia, a new and wonderful country. I was born under a form of medicare. I didn’t cost a cent but have gotten more expensive since. My birthday was halfway between the two world wars and my family and I managed to avoid the second one in the safe refuge of my new home in Canada. It is my fervent hope that Sophia Elizabeth Skoutajan, my only grandchild, will be as fortunate as I. 

We look out on a much troubled world in which there is no safe haven as Canada afforded me in 1939. Not only are humans in conflict with one another but with the very environment in which we live. We may be so fortunate as to avoid warfare but we share climate changes with the rest of the world . We dare not live with the illusion  that economics can trump ecology, which our PM seems to think, without serious consequences. We cannot say that we have not been warned by a host of scientists and thinkers about the perils of global warming, rising sea levels and destruction of nature that has been taking millennia to build up. But humankind especially the top .1% of the richest and particularly our industries are energy hungry, or is it greedy, and unwilling to leave fossil  fuels in the ground, and develop renewable sources of fuel such as wind and solar energy, or perhaps best to learn to live more frugally.

Jeff Rubin in his prophetic book The End of Growth concludes

“Sustainability isn’t just an abstract notion; it is the governing idea behind the kind of economics we need to foster....  We can still shape the future we want , but only if we are willing to relinquish the past we have known. .. Our challenge is to learn that doing without  is better than always wanting more.”  

For me there is no remote hope, it is all very personal and present. It is so for many others who have been privileged to father/mother new generations on all the continents of this globe.  As we regard our progeny develop, do we not sense a tremendous sense of responsibility. We can’t prejudice their lives and the lives of those to come, not just here in this blessed land  but world-wide.

In the daily press we evidence unrest, disease, hunger, thirst and war. These confrontations cannot be easily contained. The world is so much smaller than it was in 1939 when I boarded a “steam” ship  and spent seven days crossing a mighty ocean that was still very much cleaner than today, and arrive in another continent. The Internet has further shrunk our neighbourhood and shall continue to do so. Our very thoughts are public. There are no secrets any more. 

As I approach this month of  birthdays , mine, my son (Feb. 17), and his daughter, I sense an urge to plead for sanity and a will to live in peace. What is needed is the will. We have all the means to do so? 

SPIRIT QUEST 1-/02/2015             

    

OUR BATTLES

Hanns F Skoutajan

The obit in the daily paper often begins with the words “.... after a courageous

battle ... surrounded by a loving family ...”

In my forty years of ministry I have often been privy to that struggle and sought to

comfort the loving family that surrounded him/her. I recall walking through many a

hospital or bedroom door to witness that final contest. I have, however, come to

realize that physical death is not a defeat. There is another battle in progress.

Wait, more of that later!

I have been fortunate to have lived a rather healthy life. Only in the last few years

and most intensely in recent months have I acquired a more intimate knowledge

of this battle.

This last year, beginning with February 2014, when I began chemotherapy I have

been made aware of an inner contest, of spirit and body. On the first day of the

year 2015 that battle was underscored when my beloved partner and copy editor

suffered a stroke, a mild one but a stroke nevertheless, that sent me dialing 911.

I will not bother you with the dramatic details of that event. It remains to be said

that she is making a great recovery with only the occasional memory and word

lapse, otherwise she is able to function quite normally. She still knows very well

where a comma should go or be deleted. There are of course the frequent trips

to occupational and speech therapy sessions and other medical consultations.

Undoubtedly the most severe loss was the temporary suspension of her drivers

license. I am now her principal chauffeur, though there are other volunteers.

In this trauma we have been supported by our wonderful family, particularly our

Karla and Stephen , who have attended the many and varied consults at

hospitals and clinics with us. Some time ago when I was losing my hair, now

back in full bloom though a bit curly, my seven year old granddaughter

announced that she was growing her beautiful red hair long in order to have it cut

to make wigs for the victims of chemo. I don’t think I would look good in red , nor

do I need a wig but of course there are many others waiting who do.

In a months time I shall have reached the age of 86 - a number that appears with

alarming frequency in those obit announcements which make me only too aware

that not far down the road - how far I do not care to know, I shall have my own

headline.

To get back to my rather bold statement (paragraph #2) which undoubtedly will

be countered by a number of my “faithless” friends, that beside the physical

battle which we are all destined to lose at some point , there is also an inner

contest in which we need to feel that we are not alone. Many a medical doctor

has affirmed that the state of our spirit has an important determining factor on our

bodies. As in my last blog, I believe not so much in “spiritual healing as the

healing of the spirit” that we may go into warfare fully armed.

Pain of which I have had some experience recently is a very physical and

spiritually debilitating factor. I have not only suffered from

“Weltschmerz” ( Jan. 17 blog) but just plain pain. We are not quite certain of its

origin . It is at that time that the spiritual battle is most decisive as I ponder

whether I should get up and risk more pain or remain prone on couch or bed for

another hour or two?

I firmly believe that I am anchored in that “ground of all being” (Paul Tillich’s

definition of the divinity) , or touched and borne by Jesus’ simple definition of

God as Love. It is this conviction that offers to lift me above the physical battle

and give me a sense that I am not alone.

I know that by the responses to my blog that there is a “great crowd of

witnesses,” that the stands are full of rooters for my team . You are important to

my spiritual welfare even if you don’t believe in “the spirit.” So in the words of the

tele-evangelist as he closes his “harangue for Jesus”, “keep those letters and

cheques coming.” No, I do not need cheques , but appreciate letters, not

condolences but appreciation and support especially when my words have rung

a familiar note.

I introduced my first blog of the year “Weltschmerz” on January 17 with the

words, “My first and hopefully not my last blog.” Some have commented on what

seemed a statement with questionable overtones. Let me assure you that I aim

to remain faithful to that hope and invite you to join me in my, I was going to write

“struggle, but prefer to use the words “life journey” of which, of course, struggle

is an integral part.

Thank you for your prayers, if that is your thing, or the fervent hopes and

thoughts of the many others , all my very dear friends.

Spirit Quest, February 1, 2015