Jealousy and Anger and Fear... OH MY

I keep remembering the old saying about the "ancient Chinese curse" May you live in interesting times.  We are certainly living in interesting times....

In Alberta for the last couple of years there has been an immense amount of anger. It has been focussed in a few different places (more on that shortly). But I have been wondering what is driving the anger and what is causing the specific focal points for it.

I have long believed that anger is more of a secondary emotion. It grows out of something else. And I see the current anger in Alberta growing out of at least three other things. The big one is FEAR. Next up is PAIN. The next one is JEALOUSY. 

People are angry in Alberta because the economy is not booming. It has not been booming for several years now. And the nature of our system tends to mean that if an economy is not booming and growing it is struggling and shrinking. For some reason "holding its own" is never an option. [One of the talking points is that our economy is held up by lack of access (no new pipelines). But no access has been removed either, we can still ship as much oil as we could 6 years ago, albeit at a much lower price than 6 years ago. Why does lack of growth have to mean shrinking?] And so people lose income, either by reduced hours or losing their job completely. And so people are hurting. It is well-established that when we hurt we seek to lash out at the person(s)/system(s) we think is to blame.

So people are angry because they have been hurt. And in their wounded state they have had a number of people tell them who is at fault for their pain: the federal government, environmental activists (especially foreign funders of same), other provinces, those living off the public dime (either recipients of support or public sector workers). Which has had the effect of making people angry at those things rather than others who are possibly more to blame -- the large corporations who continue to make profits, the changing global energy industry, the provincial governments of the last several decades. So that is one facet of the anger. But there is more.

Alberta has ridden the tides of an uncertain resource sector before (and seems to have learned very little from it). The anger seems stronger, louder now. This, I think is where the fear comes in.  Many of us have been suggesting that this will not be like other cycles because the big boom will not come back like it has before. Others have been refusing to admit that this is a possibility. I think there is a very real fear that the big boom will not come back and we have no plan for something to replace it. There is fear that new pipelines either will not get completed and opened or that if the pipelines [which for years we have been told will bring back the golden goose] do come on stream the boom still will not come back [personally I more than half-believe this is why Kinder-Morgan cancelled the Trans-Mountain pipeline which the federal government (who we are told does not support the industry) the bought to try and keep it on track -- they no longer believed they would make the money they wanted off the project.] And when people are afraid they get angry at the very thing they are afraid of.

A lot of what I have heard over the last few years, from a variety of sources, has had fear in it. Some have tried to quell the fear. Some have tried to ramp it up and focus it into anger at "them". Some have tried to say there is nothing to fear, that the boom will still come back like it always has. Still the fear is out there. I think it is justified. I think people are afraid of losing their livelihoods, that people are afraid of us not being what we were. I also think they may have reason to be afraid. I do hope that we find a better way of meeting those fears than we have thus far.

I have a sense that most commentators and analysts will agree thus far. Theses are obvious sources of anger. But recently (as i the last few weeks and months I have seen something uglier growing. Jealousy.

Alberta is jealous of other provinces, most especially Quebec. This has been true for a long time. Alberta is jealous of Quebec's special status -- not because they believe Quebec should not have it but because they don't. Alberta is jealous that other provinces (and especially Quebec) get more in transfer payments under the federal equalization program. Alberta is jealous that Alberta is not seen as the best province in the country. Alberta is mad that Alberta does not get special treatment because of its economic contributions to the country. This, I think, is a large part of what has fed a long-term feeling of Western alienation (long term as in most of the province's history) and the occasional popping up of separatist movements (WCC when I was younger, Wexit now). It is also a jealousy that was once harnessed by Preston Manning' Reform Party and is now being harnessed by Premier Kenney's "Fair Deal" campaign (though I have yet to see what exactly he thinks "fair deal" means -- I hunch it means Alberta gets what Alberta wants). Federalism is a challenge in a country as big and diverse as Canada. And as a person whose preferred model of federalism is a much stronger central government I often find myself out of step with much of the country. But jealousy of what others have, or what we think they have, or what we think they should not have, does not help.

There is another piece of jealousy I am seeing, one that is more concerning to my heart. It is not a new think but in times where we are told we need economic restraint it is very divisive.  Jealousy of other Albertans. Jealousy because some have union contracts to protect them when others did not. Jealousy that some have jobs and others have lost theirs. I sense a lot of this in the ongoing debate around who has it better -- public sector or private sector workers. Right now, as we live into a provincial budget that some of us see as a disaster in the making (others see it as a much needed corrective) this jealousy is getting played out full force. And it makes people angry -- on both sides. It creates a "with us or against us" sensation. It gets in the way of having real discussions about what the best way forward is.

[For the record I believe firmly that the best way forward for Alberta's budget is to take a hard look at our revenue problem which is to blame for where we are. I have these dreams of what could have happened if 40 years ago we had not fallen victime to the myth of high services on low taxes]

But right now the fear and the jealousy and the anger are driving what passes for debate in this province. And it is getting us nowhere fast. Many of us have strong opinions on where to go next. Many of us have trouble allowing the opposite point of view speak to our hearts and minds. All of us go around trying to find data to back up our point of view -- which always reminds me of the quote usually ascribed to Mark Twain There are 3 types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. We have to find a better way. Jealousy and fear and anger, being used the way they are currently, will only poison the well.

Luckily I am, in theory at least, a person of hope rather than despair, of love rather than fear, of common good over individualism -- some days better than others.

Book 21 of 2016 -- The Church, Change and Development

The Church, Change and Development  
Ivan Illich (Urban Training Center Press) 125 Pages

In the spring I was asking on Facebook for possible books around Community Development. One of my colleagues sent me to a PDF link of this (free) book. Free books are almost always worth the cost so....

Until downloading this book I had never heard the name Ivan Ilich. Then he ended up as one of the people discussed in the last book I read. So as I was reading this I had to look him up and learn more about him.

It was an interesting piece. The book itself is a selection of letters, papers and speeches from the 1960's. They largely focus on Catholic mission work in Latin America but there are insights that also fit a broader (and later in time) context. Indeed in reading the first paper (which is the on the book is named for) I was struck by how prescient Illich is in describing both the era of his writing and the eras that followed.

Illich does a good job of pushing the church-folk he is working with (or possibly against?) to consider seriously the context in which they act. He also pushes them to consider seriously the ways in which their actions might actually be damaging to the people with whom they are working. He challenges the assumptions made about mission work and actively calls the church to focus on the needs of the people.

In the end, for my purposes anyway I found the first paper the most useful. The others were interesting reading and had some good insights but were a bit to narrowly focused for me.

Book 20 of 2016 -- Looking Back to Look Forward

Asset Based Community Development (ABCD): Looking Back to Look Forward: In conversation with John McKnight about the intellectual and practical heritage of ABCD and its place in the world today.
                  Cormac Russell

This is a short little read. The majority of it is transcribed (and one would assume edited) conversations with John McKnight about the people who have influenced him in his work around Asset Based Community Development.

And yet in this short little read I made 37 highlights. The print version is 80 pages so that would be roughly one every 2 pages. It is a short book with a wealth of insight into community and social development and systemic reform.

I like the idea of the Asset Based approach. It pushes us to ask what we have rather than what we lack. It pushes us to realize that we do in fact have what we need to change and develop our communities. And in this book the reader is challenged to rethink their understanding of how the systems around them work and the whole “it has to be like this” idea that often accompanies systems.

In the church we are often unaware of the systems we have built. We are also good at insisting we do not have any resources with which to make change. For some time now I have thought we need a new way of looking at things. Our systems are not working. We are not aware of all the resources we have (or –more importantly– how they might be used in new and innovative ways). If the present system/way of being is not producing the results we want, why do we want to keep tweaking it instead of building a new system?

I see myself referring back to this book in the near future.

Book 15 of 2016 -- Getting To Maybe

Getting to Maybe: How the World Is Changed

Frances Westley, Brenda Zimmerman, Michael Quinn Patton (Canada: Vintage Canada) 258 Pages

Change, they say, is the only constant in life. But managing (and possibly even directing) change is a really challenging piece of work.

The first thing I really liked about this book is that it is so honest. It is honest that social change/innovation is about complex systems. Not simple. Not just complicated. But complex, intertwined, always changing. This is a piece that we often miss in trying to start or direct change. We treat the system as if it is much more straight-line than human interactions ever are.

Another thing that makes this book so approachable is that it uses lots and lots of stories. Stories make it so much more real.

The title is an interesting choice for a book about change. In our results-driven, success-oriented culture maybe, at first glance, seems to be a mid-point at best. Shouldn't this be about getting to success? Or getting to completion? Or getting to yes? But the authors are clear that in a complex system where uncertainty is a given that maybe is the actual goal. Success is not a given ever, and in fact that methodology outlined in the book points out that learning from things that do not go according to plan is part of how social innovation works.

One of the things that struck me while reading this book was that we spend a lot of time in the United Church talking about the need to be innovative, to try new ways of being the church. And I agree. But more than once as I was reading this very well-laid out description of how social innovation works my thought was (and we in the church do just the opposite”. As an example, the authors talk a lot about the best way to approach evaluation in social innovation – not results oriented, not about meeting indicators, not goal oriented, more about what is learned in each step of trial But in the church, as in so much of the rest of society, we are results and goal oriented, we want to see obvious and measurable results (preferably immediately). Unfortunately, the authors suggest, (and I agree) focusing on those sorts of things too soon is a great way to kill actual innovation, which is about risk-taking. Or on the other side, there are those in the church who are great at hope and vision but not so great at actually looking at the world around the realistically – another way to kill effective social innovation the authors point out. I think the church could learn from these people.

Book 13 of 2016 -- Making Neighborhoods Whole

Making Neighborhoods Whole: A Handbook for Christian Community Development

Wayne Gordon and John M. Perkins (Downers Grove, Intervarsity Press)

8 years ago New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani scoffed at Presidential candidate Barack Obama for being a “community organizer”. Which annoyed many clergy because we know the value of community organizers.

You could easily say that helping to develop healthy communities is a vital part of what it means to be the church in the world. It is Scriptural. It is faithful to the Law and the Prophets. It is also what Gordon and Perkins (and their many other contributors) talk about in this book.

The first part of the book is a bit of history about how the authors came into the world of Christian Community Development and the formation of the CCDA in the United States. The last 2/3 are the handbook. The CCDA has 8 principles for Christian community development and each is given a chapter. In each chapter the principle is explicated, both in terms of rationale and in terms of how it is lived out. But then is the best part.

Each chapter includes at least one story (this is wehre the any other contributors come in) relating to the principle [though of course the various principles inter-relate and it is not always easy to only talk about one]. Story, as any of us know well, is a wonderful teaching tool.

The community development discussed in this book is specifically geared to areas such as under-resourced American inner-city areas or possibly some less developed parts of the world. And so it is not a direct line to use the concepts as described in many congregations (to develop them) or other communities. But there is a lot of cross-over and places where one can extrapolate from the descriptions offered here.

To be in church leadership is to be in the business of developing community. A big part of that is developing the community of/within the local congregation. But we are also called to work and pray for the welfare of the communities in which our congregations are set. Sometimes we are better at that than others. But if we are to flourish as communities of faith we have to live it out. The ideas in this book are a help in figuring out how we might do that.

An Open Letter to the Leaders of Alberta's Political Parties

Friends,
A week from tonight we will be listening to hear the results of the day's voting being announced.  Which means that we have had now 3 weeks of official electioneering (and at least a couple months of unofficial before that).  Things are heating up.

Over the last 3 weeks I have heard a lot of rhetoric.  Some I have liked, some I have strongly disliked, a lot I have pretty much ignored.  I have heard promises to balance the budget, to take care of Albertans, to improve the education and health systems.  I have heard people willing to actually discuss and a lot of people who were unwilling or unable to move off of designated talking points and enter into real discussion.  But I have not heard something I think very improtant.

If you are graced with the support of the most MLAs and so given the task of heading a government how will your government move to lift all Albertans out of poverty.  How will you ensure that every man, woman, and child in this province has safe and secure housing, a secure food supply, appropriate access to medical care (meaning both those things covered under Alberta Health Care and those things that are not--prescriptions, dental care, eye care...).  You all say you want to make Alberta a better place to live.  Often in my life I have heard about the "Alberta advantage" (which in reality was possibly more mythical than real in my experience).  A province that eliminates poverty, a province where all people have enough to live safely and comfortably.  Now that is something that is a true advantage.

And in the end lifting all Albertans out of poverty will help you accomplish your other goals.  It will grow the economy by leaps and bounds simply because people will be able to purchase things.  It will improve the efficacy of our education system because well-nourished children make for better students.  It will ease pressure on the health care system because living in poverty often has dire consequences for one's physical, emotional, and mental health.

You all want to make Alberta the best province to live in.  I take you at your word (even if I often disagree with your idea of what that means and how to get there).  A province with nobody living in poverty would be the envy of the rest of the country.  So how will you do it.

You have a week to tell me...

On Poverty Reduction...

So I was called a hippie today.... (by someone who is just as much a hippie as I am--and a fellow clergy person) but more on that later.

I was invited to spend this afternoon and tomorrow morning at a meeting to discuss poverty reduction within this community.  And, seeing this as a valuable way to spend my time (although there are lots of other ways to spend that time), I chose to go.

Our first task in this strategic planning process was to define poverty.  Which really is harder to do than it sounds.  I mean in some ways poverty is one of those "I can't define it but I know it when I see it" types of things (although the reality is that often we don't see it when it is right in front of us).  And certainly poverty definitions have a sense of context and perception about them.  What are basic needs and rights when it comes to shelter?  What is a secure food supply?  What makes a safe place?

Then we identified our stakeholders in the discussion.  And in addition to the homeless, and seniors, and those of set/fixed incomes (such as disability), and the working poor, and those who go through episodic poverty (one of the realities of this community is seasonal shut-downs that sometime last for months), we started to realize that all of the community has a stake in reducing poverty.  I suggested it is because of the reality that when the least of us is healthier then we are all heathier (which is the first time I was called a hippy).

We continued to work on vision and mission statements.  And tomorrow we get closer to brass tacks.  In the end the committee that is being formed will not do this work.  The committee will help created a framework for the community to do the work.  Because we need a transformed society to actually do something meaningful about poverty.  And because there are a lot of myths out there (eg: well people just need to pull themselves together and work harder, if people could manage better/work harder they could solve things themselves, it really isn't my problem/doesn't impact me, that everybody has equal chances to succeed).  If we don't engage the community and challenge the myths then we will get nowhere.

One of the interesting things about the day was something really only mentioned in passing.  The committee that has been working on these issues thus far has done some work on determining what a Living Wage would be here.  For a two parent, dual income, family with 2 children that number is both parents working full time at $15.55/hr (in conjunction with federal and provincial tax credits that they would be eligible for).  And then 60% of their income would go to shelter food and child care.  Just for fun I did the math.  That wage, assuming working 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year--no vacation time--comes to a gross family income (before tax credits are added in and statutory deductions are taken off) of $64 688.  Which means no frills.

But here is the kicker.  My gross income for this year will be roughly $67 200 (although a third of that is tax free due to the Clergy Residence Deduction which makes a "real" income of closer to $73 000).  Which means we are not all that far above that no frills line.  And if you asked I would not say we were only just above that Living Wage line.  I am still pondering what that means...

So what do you mean when you say poverty?  What is the path to making a difference in your mind and context?  How do you transform your community so that all families within it can thrive?

Serendipity....

Today there was a consultation in town.  The topic--homelessness.

Normally I would not go to a day long meeting the first day back from a week of vacation time.  But this seemed like an important event to attend (and I find it notable that I was one of only 2 clergy in attendance -- and the other may well have been there as much because his church runs an affordable housing building) so I went, having done most of my "Monday work" on Saturday to allow for it.

But there is something terribly serendipitous about attending a meeting on homelessness this week.  Why you ask?  Well here are my early sermon thoughts for the week, and here are my liturgical bits for the week.  The gospel passage includes the line "you always have the poor with you", which sadly many people have taken as freedom to merely accept the reality and inevitability of poverty. 

As people of faith, how do we live with the reality of winners and losers, the reality that our stewardship of God's abundance has be grossly uneven, the reality that while some have more than they could use others across town are seeking a cot in the warming centre so they have a place to sleep for the night?

Hard questions.  But the day will inform my sermon this week.  And I came out with a great quote "Poverty is what happens when people stop caring for one another". 

Urban Sprawl

Central Alberta has some great farmland.  Rich topsoil, a good mix (on average) of heat and moisture.  So why are we living out Joni Mitchell's song Big Yellow Taxi?

In the 15 years since I last lived in St. Albert several whole new subdivisions (with overly large and over priced houses) have sprung up, with more planned.  The city annexed a huge amount of land to the north a few years back -- I often comment on how much stuff is there that was a LONG way out of town before.  Same to the West of town.  Areas where I once rode my bike along gravel roads with fields beside them are now paved roads with developed lots.

Last week when we were down in the Edmonton area this story hit the paper.  12 000 hectares.  Most of which is currently active farmland.  More area where utilities and water lines and sewer (storm and sanitary) pipes will need to be run.  More area of asphalt and buildings and lawns.  On some high quality farmland.

It happens all over.  Grande Prairie has plans to annex land.  Calgary has done it many times.  ANd even without the annexations by cities the counties and municipal districts are rezoning land to residential and industrial.  And often marginal farmland is also marginal for other uses (poor drainage, swampy, rock outcrops etc) so more farmland gets taken away from the plow or the pasture.  Or more bush land is cleared away and the brush burned...

We need to find a better way.  Maybe higher density neighbourhoods are part of the solution?  Maybe redevelopment of existing neighbourhoods?  Possibly, but before that in politically acceptable we have to change some attitudes about how we live and what we "deserve".  Until then we will continue to "pave paradise and put up a..." [parking lot, mall, subdivision, freeway, school, industrial park...]

Ch-ch-changes

In chapter 8 of  For The Love of Cities (see previous post) Peter Kageyama talks about the importance of co-creators in creating lovable cities.  For much of the chapter he discusses two cities (New Orleans and Detroit) that have been decimated in recent years, almost to the point that one could honestly wonder if a come back was possible.  {and in the case of NOLA it seems reasonable to ask if making a comeback in that particular location is a truly good idea anyway--history aside}.  NOLA was of course devastated by a single day.  But there are signs of people making a big difference in that city.  Detroit was the victim of "death by a thousand cuts" rather than one event.  But after the crash of 2008 and the bottom falling out of the auto industry ithe city's decline became most evident.  And there too people are making a difference.

Kageyama points out that in cities like NOLA and Detroit it is alomost easier for co-creators to make a real difference--simply because they are fish in a smaller pond.  But he also points out that there is a big difference.  People in NOLA know that a total rebuild is needed.  People in Detroit maybe not so much.  On page 184 he writes:

If you talk to people in New Orleans. there is a sense that they are on a mission.  And that perception is reflected in public awareness.  The small group of co-creators I have met in Detroit are also on a mission, but that mission has yet to be understood across the city.
Dan Gilmartin, Executive Director of the Michigan Municipal League said to me, "Many of our leaders are trying to recreate the economy we had here in the 1950's and 1960's.  They still believe that is possible.  And until we break from that thinking, we cannot move fully forward."  Gilmartin is representative of many up and coming leaders who are battling with decades of tradition and industrial era thinking.

While I already thought that there was much in this book that applied as much to the church as to cities, this sunk it for me.  HOw many of us who are leaders in the church have run into what I once heard someone call "Golden Era Syndrome", that belief that we can return to what once was [note that it is my belief that GES also involves a whole lot of false or selective memory which blinds us to the flaws of that time].  There is a belief that if we just do something, or some set of things we can recreate the church, or the economy, or the community that we had once.

Of course it is not that simple.  Things have changed.  Detroit will never be what it once was.  It may avoid becoming a Robo-Cop world.  It may rebuild itself.  But it won't be that anymore.

I lived for 9 years in a community that suffered from the same problem.  There was a recurring desire to bring in the next big project that would employ hundreds (at high paying jobs) and bring the town back to what it was when the mines were running {currently that community is banking on a proposed gold mine, although it has a lot of work to do if it hopes to fully benefit from that project as this editorial points out}.  There was little appetite to hear those voices that pointed out that such mega-projects were more and more unlikely, that the town needed to find something other than rocks or trees as an economic base.

Currently that discussion is happening, to a large extent, throughout the province of Ontario.  That province was Canada's manufacturing heartland.  ANd as such it was, for many years, one of the two major economic engines of the country (the other being the oil industry, mainly centered in Alberta).  Now, due to a combination of factors, this is no longer the truth.  And yet the politics of the province tend to revolve around which party is going to bring those days back (the answer is none given that provincial/state or federal governments have much much less control over the economy than people like to believe).  There is less of an interest in figuring out what the next economic engine for the province might be and more in restarting the engine that has stalled.  A government which pledges to (and actually does) invest in new, risky, endeavours is called out for taking too many risks and spending money foolishly (especially when those risks don't pay off within the election cycle) when what they "should" be doing is investing in old-style mills/plants/factories. {Of course if they don't invest in new ideas they are then lambasted for that too -- sometimes government is a no-win propostition.}  And to a degree I understand.  THe new economy doesn't bring jobs that pay at the same level or the same number of jobs.  ANd we have led ourselves to believe that we can only survive with what we know.  After all change is always a challenge.

In our churches, the same thing happens.  New-style programming is looked on, all too often, with askance.  And that assumes that there are people with the vision of a new-style program.  Many of us are not naturally co-creators.  Many of us are not naturally people who can envision a whole new way of being the church.  But we need to give those co-creators room.  In our churches, in our community groups, in our cities, in our provinces/states, in our nations we need to give room (and possibly $$$$) to theose people who see a new way forward.  We can't go back.  The table has turned.  Which way are we going now?

I Miss Boulevards

In the community where I grew up (and the community where I lived from 2001 to 2010) residential streets all had boulevards.  Your front yard would go down to a sidewalk and then between the sidewalk and the street would be a strip of grass with trees planted at intervals between the driveways.  This community does not have these.  And I miss them.

Boulevards are a blessing. In the winter they make snow shoveling easier (both by allowing one to pile snow on both sides of the sidewalk and by providing a buufer to keep people from driving on the sidewalk and packing the snow down before one can clear it).  They make street cleaning more effective because plowed snow can be piled on the boulevard without blocking foot traffic or needing to be hauled away.  Year round they make it safer for pedestrian traffic, particularly children, by keeping them farther awayfrom (and less like to stray onto) the street.

But more than that boulevards, in my opinion anyway, have a civilizing effect on a neighbourhood.  THere is a far different feeling to walk down a street with grass on both sides of you and trees shading the path than there is to walk down a street where cement and asphalt just run together.  In a mature neighbourhood, where the trees have grown tall (and in my experience boulevard trees are generally deciduous so you have the canopy effect rather than evergreens with branches reaching out all the way up the trunk) it almost gives a park sensation in a way.  A community which mandates boulevards is making a statement about green space, about priorities.

It is my belief that developers don't like boulevards.  They take up space, even that 4 ft width adds up over a few blocks.  ANd that means fewer lots can be fit into the same area.  Knowing how much prime farmland has been lost to urban sprawl I can have some sympathy for making best use of urban space.  Some residents grow resentful over boulevards.  They feel that it is unfair to be responsible for the maintenance of the grass on city property.

But on the whole I miss boulevards.  They make a city more livable somehow.

An Intriguing Possibility

In the mail today was an envelope from the seminary I attended for my MDiv. Half expecting the latest fundraising letter I opened it up.

Instead was an invitation to consider enrolling in a new degree program. The college, in conjunction with two other seminaries on the UofS campus, has long offered an STM degree and I have often wondered about when (if?) I might go back to school to take such a thing.

But now the STU is offering a new STM degree. They have partnered to form an organization looking at issues in rural ministry (the website is still largely under construction) and are offering a STM in Rural Ministry and Community Development. The program description says:

...targeted towards rural clergy...interested in a rigorous program of interdisciplinary theological study aimed at helping rural ministers to lead their congregations in a more effective engagement within their communities.

It would be a 3-year program with 3 week-long intensive courses per year plus either a thesis or two additional courses for the non-thesis option. And it would blend theology with issues like rural health, rural culture, ecology, and community development. It truly sounds intriguing. Costly but intriguing. This will take some thought, and some negotiation with the M&P committee should I want to go forward with it.

Development Options

One of the challenges faced by small resource-based communities is that their economies are incredibly fragile. All it takes is the resource (or the industry around it) to collapse and the community economy is put under severe strain. This is what is happening in much of this area.

One of the possibilities for another economic engine around here is a TV project currently in development. I have been asked, an hve agreed, to serve on a local committee working on the project.

Check it out here!

Dion, Harper, and the Carbon Tax

Prime Minister Stephen Harper pulled no punches on Friday in describing a carbon tax proposal by Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, saying it would "screw everybody" across Canada.
...
Harper said the plan would be worse than the old national energy program introduced under the government of Pierre Trudeau in 1980, which still sparks fury among many Western Canadians to this day.
"It is like the national energy program in the sense that the national energy program was designed to screw the West and really damage the energy sector — and this will do those things," Harper said. "This is different in that this will actually screw everybody across the country.
"That is really what the Liberal Party is proposing and I hope that it won't fool Canadians."

From CBC.ca

My, what a surprise, Stevie doesn't like the Liberal Green plan. And how coincidental that he chooses to play to the energy industry while standing in an energy-rich province (and of course he has that big Alberta power base).
But is there a bit of a politics-as-usual feel to this? Or is it just me? And what was Harper's green plan again?????

Mind you, there are a number of us, even from Alberta, who think there was some good ideas in the old NEP--things like making energy rich provinces share with the rest of the country. And this plan at least makes an attempt at putting the real cost of energy use/production on the table.

Green Communities

At the end of a meeting yesterday we got into a discussion about growth and possbilities for the future of the town. As a part of that we talked about what it would mean to be a Green Community.

I know that there are some communities in Scandinavia that have made that designation. But I don't know what it means. While I will need to do some research before these discussions go more in depth (which I think they will, given one of the people involved). I realized there are people who read these ramblings on a regular basis (for some reason anyway) and they may (would) have some wisdom on the topic.

What do you think a Green Community would look like? What would be the defining characteristics?

I am thinking that carbon neutrality would be a part, a big part. and green space. and discussions around chemical use. and no plastic bags. and...?

Be Not Afraid?!?

In 1933, a newly elected US President stood up to give his First Inaugural Address. And he gave us a phrase that would echo through the years – “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. To a nation in the depths of the Great Depression Franklin D. Roosevelt offered words of hope and challenge. He reminded them that they could overcome the difficulty they were facing. But first he reminded them that fear – “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance” -- could get in the way of that recovery.

At first glance FDR's words make no sense. In 1933 people had no work, and no prospects of work. People were losing houses, land, hope. People had no way to provide for their families. And remember that in the US (and in Canada) at the time there was little to no social safety net. Certainly there were many things that people had to fear.

But on another level FDR was very right. Fear is a powerful thing. In fact many suggest that the two primal motivators in human life are fear and love. In times of change and upheaval fear gets into our psyches and freezes us in our anxiety. Fear leads us to lose hope. Fear leads us to depression. Fear leads us to give up. This is why Roosevelt was right. Fear gets in the way of change and therefore blocks recovery.

In the first two chapters of Luke's gospel three different people are visited by angels bearing life-changing news. And in all three instances one of the first things the angel says is “be not afraid”. In order to hear and absorb the news about how God is active in their lives Zechariah, Mary and the shepherds need to release their fear.

And I think we can find a resonance between these stories and our present. Certainly the parallels between present-day life in Northwestern Ontario and the US of 1933 are obvious. The only difference is in the depth and scope of the economic collapse. As I listen around town I hear a lot of anxiety and fear over what the future will, or will not, bring. What is it that we have to fear?

But every time of upheaval brings new opportunities. The challenge is that those new opportunities often mean change in our beliefs and our expectations. The challenge is that those new opportunities often come in unexpected ways. This is where I see us in the same spot as a man too old to become a father, a young unmarried woman, and some lowly shepherds on a hillside.

In a time when the world is turned upside down we have to choose how we will react (and we can always choose how we react to things). Do we give in to the fear and anxiety that leads to paralysis and despair? Or do we find a way to let go of that fear and look for the signs of hope in the world around us? Can we embrace the changes that may be coming our way despite the fact that change always brings uncertainty? Can we “be not afraid”?

We Need A Little Resurrection

We in the church are now in the middle of the 50 days of the Easter season. And so I find my thoughts turning to resurrection. At the same time I am listening to the level of anxiety and worry around town and it really seems like we in TOwn-on-the-Small-River could use a little resurrection these days.

But at the same time I am not totally convinced that resurrection is what people are looking for. What people are looking for is the sale and restart of Particle-Board MAker, the restart of Lumber-Mill, a return to what was. That is not resurrection. That is resuscitation. When we think of giant defibrillator paddles being placed on the economy and shocking it back to life we are talking about resuscitation, not resurrection. Resurrection is something different.

One of the biggest challenges about resurrection is that it means transformation. The Easter stories in the Gospel make it clear that people had trouble recognizing the Risen Christ. In a very real way the man they met in the garden or on the road to Emmaus was different from the man they had seen led out to be killed. It was not just life being breathed back into the old body and the stopped heart restarted. Jesus had been transformed; the new life after Easter was not the same as life before the cross.

The same can be said for Jesus’ followers. Before they experienced resurrection they were afraid, hiding, certain they would be next for the cross. Afterwards they were filled with strength and courage, able to launch a movement that would reach from a tiny Roman province to the center of the world and beyond. The transformation was complete and world-changing.

What are we looking for here in TOwn-on-the-Small-River? Is our hope only that the different streams of resource extraction will start up again? Are we really looking for a resuscitation of mining and forestry or are we open for resurrection? Opening up to transformation is always risky. Opening up to change means letting go of what once was. But those of us who share Christian faith are people who believe in resurrection. We believe that even when all hope should be gone, there is still hope. We believe that God is doing a new thing in our midst.

What might resurrection’s transformation bring to TOwn-on-the-Small-River? Only a fool would try to make a complete prediction. True transformation is remarkably hard to predict or even to plan. We who believe in resurrection’s transformation are not called to spark or guide its’ happening. Our task is to open our hearts and minds for new possibilities and realities.

We need some resurrection here and now. We need some new life and new hope. But we need to decide if we will settle for a rebirth of the old and familiar or if we are willing to accept transformation. We need to decide if we want resurrection or resuscitation. Resuscitation will keep us going for a while but in the long term hope comes with the dawn of resurrection and transformation. And take heart, God will walk with us on the long road of transformation, leading us with hope and promise.

How much control do they really have??

THe provincial budget was announced this past week.

In the aftermath there has been a lot of debate about whether this budget did enough or did the right things to stimulate the provincial economy which has been hard hit lately (the combination of high oil prices, the US non-recession, and the high CDN$/low US$ have turned much of the manufacturing industry and the forestry industry upside down). SUch debates are a common part of politico-economic dialogue, particularly in times of recession/downturn/oncoming recession (however you choose to describe the current situation).

BUt I really have to ask of governments have nearly as much control over the economy as they like to believe. In truth I suspect not even close. ANd the control is getting less. I think there was a time when governments had a much larger say in how the economy progressed, when tax regimes and incentives and so on made more of a difference. But in a global economy I really think that there are forces at work far beyond any one government to control.

After all, some of the larger economic units in the world are no longer national economies but instead are multi-national corporations. I would think that they would (do) bully, threaten, blackmail governments to get what they want for operating conditions -- and then do what they feel is best for their profit margin anyway.

We Have This Ministry!

Sally laid out this challenge on Facebook:

There are many good things happening in the Church today, and yet we often only hear negative stories.
With this in mind I am proposing a synchroblogging/ face book posting event for the 2nd February.You are invited to share a local positive and encouraging story.
God is with us, working in through and amongst us- lets talk about it!!!!

This seems to be a great idea so...

What is happening to fulfill the ministry of the church in this place and time?

LOTS! ONe of the gifts this congregation has is that of caring for each other. IT is one of truths abotu small communities that "everyone knows everyone". Truly this is sometimes a mixed blessing. But when people are so close then people know when there is need.

THis congregation supports each other. Maybe someone is ill? A card gets sent. Maybe a significant birthday or anniversary is being celebrated? IT gets named in worship. Death in the family? New baby? You might well get a meal delivered to help feed the family who have arrived. ANd you will be named in prayer, names written in the prayer book. Worship at the care home? Expect not just the clergy person but a group of others to show up to sing and chat and worship with old friends.

Little happens in this congregation that someone doesn't know about (again a mixed blessing for some). And because of that we find ways to let people know they are cared about. Both in word and in deed we live out this ministry, and we are not discouraged.

ANother gift is that of hospitality. When we have a meal the whole town is invited. People of all faith (and/or no faith) communities in town arrive to eat together fall and spring. OR when we host a regional gathering the food is given a high priority (and often rave reviews). And of course there is something holy about sharing the table with our neighbours.

Thanks be to God!

Nature and SPirituality

On thursday I am giving a presentation at the local library titled "Nature and Spirituality".

Tomorrow I will start building the power point for it.

So now I am thinking, what is the key part of that link? Why is it so common that people find their spirituality in the outdoors and not in churches?

For sure a part of the presentation will be a discussion of "thin places".