SOLSTICE THOUGHTS ABOUT OTHERS IN THE WORLD

The solstice has come and we’re now headed back into the light. It was hard to take in that realisty during the storm of freezing rain on Saturday night and Sunday. But by today, when the sun came out and we saw blue sky I felt a YES! things are already brighter.

Tomorrow is Christmas; it’s already come in many parts of the world. I’ve been baking today (after shopping for oysters etc for tomorrow) and the house is filled with warm smells of spices and baking loaves and cookies. But nearby there’s no baking going on, nor any cooking at all. I was reminded forcefully of that todqy by a guy who makes the pates and other charcuterie at Sanagan’s, my local butcher. I asked if he was cooking, or being cooked for, for Christmas. “There’s no cooking” he said. “We have no power.” He lives in the eastern suburbs of Toronto, the area hardest hit by the ice storm and its aftermath: downed trees, downed power lines and telephone lines, pumping stations and microwave towers out of commission, and so on.

Many are staying with friends, taken in for a meal or a bath or to sleep. But others may be without friends or without the means to call for help. And so the have and have-not divide is being expressed in new and painful ways here in the “first world” that is Toronto.

It’s sobering.

Meantime in South Sudan there is murder and desolating violence going on… And in the central African Republic, and along Burma’s border areas… How and why do we carry on in personal happiness and satisfaction when others are suffering?

I think it’s about survival. Most of us cannot live with a daily acknowledgement of the suffering of others. We wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning; it would drive us literally crazy.

But others, rare others, manage to take action. They include the extraordinary brave and imaginative wmen of Pussy Riot, as well as countless un-famous incividuals who toil in the trenches to make things better where they are.

I’ve just read a remarkable novel, a difficult book in its story and truths, and also an astonishing one. It’s by Anthony Marra and is set in Chechnya. I avoid scary movies and violent movies, but somehow I couldn’t put the book down. It spoke truth to me. The title is A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. And in it people struggle to be present to others, to help when help is painful to give and to receive, and when all effort seems hopeless.

A must-read.

I try to read a book of intensity and range at Christmas, fiction or non-fiction. And to have time alone. My first experience of a Christmas like that was in my mid-twenties. I had been included in another family’s Christmas, warm and welcoming, the previous year. It was right after my mother had died. I was grateful, but the whole experience was somehow alienating, as if I was trying to pretend that I was really warmed by the warmth of others.

And so the following year I had a Christmas Day on my own, a walk and a long good read (Paul Goodman’s book Growing Up Absurd). I needed to be face to face with my aloneness.

And now? Well now I wrap my family of friends around me for part of the holidays and for a good part of the year. But I treasure the time I have alone, often lonely, while travelling or just being wherever I am. And in those moments I try to look the despair of the world in the eye. It seems so important to acknowledge it and give it respect. And to think about how, in whatever way large or small, we can each try to make things better for others.

So that’s my wish for this solstice season, that we consider the pain in the world, that we give it our attention for a while, and then try to commit to some action to help with it, whatever we can manage.

KEEPING GOOD ENERGY IN HARSH WINDS

I'm a couple of days late posting this week. I have that familiar autumn feeling of days slipping by me, either because they're so beautiful that I need to be out and about in the air, or so gloomy that they feel short and dark. There's always an excuse!

But once again I'm starting a post with harsh news, this time of the harshest: David Dewees, a fabulous man, and wonderful teacher, a good and reliable and remarkable friend to many, died on Saturday, in the prime of life. My kids' old high school, Jarvis is grieving, and so are many who passed through there in the last six years. The change in the landscape of emotion and expectation is shocking and the prospect ahead bleak-looking. This is the kind of life-lesson and life experience we hate to see our kids and loved ones suffer through. There are no short-cuts to getting through this, no "quick and easy".

I guess for people who are deeply religious, there's a way to invest suffering with "meaning" and thus explain it or rationalise it. I find that approach completely unacceptable, though I admit it gives some people comfort. As those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile know already, I take a different route through this question: pain and suffering and death all remind us that we are alive and that our job is to engage with life as fully as we can. For me that means trying to tune in to others and to connect with them, be in the present with them. It also means treasuring friends and staying alert to them.

I'm not saying to ignore pain, not at all. Live it and feel it and breathe into it, get familiar with it: that's our task. Our power to reflect on it and to empathise with others who suffer or have suffered, or will suffer, is what makes us fully human. All of us experience pain and sorrow at some time, and when we do we are linked to the rest of humanity and become more fully human, somehow. It's humbling, to find how hard it is to live through the pain of loss, humbling when we realise that everyone has faced a similar burden, or is bound to at some time.

I feel very fumbling and inelegant writing this, when I think of the extraordinary clarity and elegant ease with which Karen Connelly writes, and especially when she talks about the imperative she feels (and acts on!) to live fully, in the moment. I went to a book launch at the Gladstone for her new book BURMESE LESSONS two evenings ago. It was a great event, packed, and with a short video showing striking images by Anne Bayin. Yesterday I opened the book and whoosh, I fell down the rabbit hole, headlong, as happens with some wonderful books, a rare treat. I'm now more than halfway through it, not wanting it to end. Her clarity of vision when looking out at individual people or looking in at her own motivations and reactions, is remarkable, as is her language. Stunning. And it's a good story, as well as a valuable introduction to the beauty and pain that is life in Burma.

The gusting winds today, the trees already swept bare of leaves in some places, and the increasingly slanting light, announce October and Thanksgiving (here in Canada) and the slide down to the winter solstice. I'm not ready. Are we ever?? The garden still needs to be pulled up (I hold out hope for a few more tomatoes from my beleagered plants, and the mint is still green, but the shiso leaves are gone and the seeds eaten by little families of sparrows) and winter clothes need finding and airing. Yikes!

And on the good news front, a follow-up: Last week I wrote about our dear friend with mysterious and acute abdominal pain. Well he ended up responding to antibiotics, so he didn't have surgery, and it now looks likely that it was appendicitis after all (though the GI people could never find his appendix on the CT scan or the ultrasound!). These days, they say that good medical practice is to not operate if an inflamed appendix responds to antibiotics. I wonder though, does this mean it could flare up at any time? They say not, but...

In any case, what a relief to have him back, starving of course, because he'd been kept on an IV drip and not allowed to have even a drink of water down his throat for four days. In the last week we've had consciously fuller meals, trying to fatten him up a little: roast chicken one night, with roasted sliced potatoes all round; grilled pork and beef with friends over on the weekend; mountains of salad and stir-fried green beans (we need another name since they are yellow and purple-black, as well as green); more Simplest Apple Pie; another skillet cake; a massive chocolate cake with a sheeny-shiny chocolate ganache icing, the cake made as an experiment by the sufferer himself, and eaten by all. I can't say he looks any less bare-bones, but he has colour in his cheeks and best of all, good energy!

HARSH ENDING

My last post, just yesterday, talks a lot about Toronto and about all that we have to learn from each other here.  There's also a quick mention of the Tamil grocery stores along Parliament Street.  But these days the word Tamil means suffering.  This week we have all been reminded of the pain and suffering of Tamils in Sri Lanka.  You may think the Tamil Tigers are too extreme or you may agree with them completely, but either way it's unarguable that many non-militant people have been caught in the cross-fire and have suffered, and continue to suffer because of the war in Sri Lanka.  

Here in Toronto the Tamil community, along with others who support them, was out in force for demonstrations calling on the Canadian government and the US governmment to broker a peace, so that the killing could stop.  I saw a man swearing at to a middle-aged Tamil woman who was carrying a "instead of one country at war, why not two countries at peace?" sandwich board.  The man was angry because he'd been inconvenienced by the protests, as had many others.  I intervened, told him to stop speaking so roughly and rudely to her.  And I said "she has a right to protest; her rights are your rights"  But the guy said, "It is on the other side of the world.  It has nothing to do with me.  They should just all go back to Sri Lanka."  So then I repeated "Her rights are your rights."  

But the day the Singhalese Army declared victory, every Tamil I saw (so many people from the community work in restaurants like those down the street from us) looked sombre.  All that death and suffering, all that effort, and in the end the hope is steam-rollered by the Singhalese military.  Heartbreak.

PostScript:  There's a comment just in on this post, asking why we always seem to sympathise with those who want to separate but oppose separatists in Quebec.  I don't necessarily agree that the Tamils should have a separate country, I don't know enough, but I do agree that there has been murderous bloodshed and there have been horrible acts committed by both the Singhalese army and the Tamil Tigers.  The result is that many civilians have suffered.  And that's what the post is about, the harshness of the siffering.  The same goes for my post a long while back that mentions the murderous situation in Gaza.  War is always hardship and murder and devastation, especially for the civilians caught in the cross-fire.

LIGHT IN THE DARK

Sharp cold, bright sun, fresh snow: a beautiful welcome to 2009 here in Toronto.  I check the news and there's death in Gaza and the Congo, sexual slavery in Cambodia and elsewhere, anxieties world-wide because of the economic crisis, as well as individual stories of suffering and grief.  

But life goes on, we take our distance from the sufferings out there so that we don't go crazy, and then what?  Well I try to be mindful of now, of who is with me or what is around me, and of the larger picture too.  I assume most people do this: travel in and out, from the immediate to the larger world and back.  But appreciating the moment is a vital part of finding a balance.  We can luxuriate in the beauty of the day or of a painting, or kick up our heels at a party, even as we know that the dark and painful is always happening too, in places far and near...

Being present to strangers, for example to the guy begging in the market, or to the old man who collects bottles - skinny and hard-working, hauling his cart behind him down the sidewalk - having conversation with them and seeing each as a person rather than a cog in the landscape, is the place to start, for me.   So the effort for me is to slow down and take notice, real notice.  

This reminds of a couple named Adrienne and Rick, from Nanaimo.  They have been working at the micro level for nine years, always helping children: taking money to an orphanage in Cambodia; and to Karen and Burmese refugee children on the Thai border; and to other people in need in other parts of Cambodia.  They look to see what's needed, flip-flops for kids, or notebooks, or help with building a clinic or a school, and after consultation they give money and time and labour directly to those who need it.  They are the best example I know of people making a difference by giving targeted mindful help and respect to others. 

This is also the time of year when those of us in the colder parts of the northern hemisphere need to assert our confidence that the sun will come back and life will spring anew.  For us a big part of that assertion comes through dancing.  The other night we had our winter dancing party.  The music was DJ'd by two young friends, Emily and Ian, who each did two sets.  There was music solidly from eight until 1.30 in the morning, and it was wonderful.  Lots of young people, as well as forty-somethings and up, all dancing, engaging, caught up in the moment: what better way to affirm life in the often gloomy prognostications of the coldest darkest time of the year?