Stuck.

A few weeks ago the wife and I discussed jumping ship. Vamanos! (in the words of Dora.) Together though, and with the kids. It was the ‘sell all our possessions and move to a different continent’ kind of discussion.

Or at least a work transfer for a year. Or at least a month long vacation overseas.

Or maybe just a quick sun soaked trip to Hawaii or Mexico…

Okay, fine. A weekend in a nearby city.

But! We definitely stay in a hotel that has a water slide. And we order room service nachos and we splurge on a pay per view movie.

A lot of us have these conversations, correct? And they follow the same line, don’t they? At first big and grand, then scaled down and closer to reality, more inline with our work and schools’ schedules. More true to (or at least less offensive to) our budgets.

And of course we all know someone who just came back from the Caribbean, who just posted those new pictures of ancient Greece and that beautiful green sea. Who just flooded our Facebook with pictures of backpacking through Thailand. We might even know the couple who just upped and moved to another country/culture/continent. We see them eating mangoes and coconuts at every meal.

And Damn. Do I ever like myself some mangoes and coconuts.

So it’s a good thing that the local grocery store sells both mangoes and coconuts, because I’m not going anywhere.

I am stuck.

In no near future will I move to another continent, country, or culture. Neither will I soon be heading overseas for that work exchange. I’m not even going to head off to sunny mexico or Hawaii, despite the fact that spring break has just come and gone, and our Instagram and Facebook feeds are flooded with pictures from far away tropical beaches and all you can eat and drink buffets…

Now, of course I realize in the very literal sense, I’m not truly stuck. A quick trip to said sunny beach is only a credit card away. But I’m talking about a sense of ‘stuck’ that is deeper than a trip. Something a vacation could only distract me from. Something permanent, that is there for me on my return, be it from a hotel with watersides and room service nachos, or from sun and sandy beaches.

There are a lot of factors that can contribute to you feeling stuck, and perhaps surprisingly, not all of those factors are bad. In fact, many of them make up the best parts of our life. Does anything cement us more firmly in place than our children? Their school and friends? Swim lessons and Girl Guides and upcoming soccer seasons. Or what about the mortgage or rent for the house you wake up in and eat and play and sleep in. That kitchen counter where you prepare your family meals, that sunny spot where you curl up and read comes at a price. If you have a spouse or partner, you know the trade off. You get to spend your life, discovering each other, making a shared adventure, but that means you’re tethered. Your solo adventures are limited. You’re actions have weight for more than just you alone.

Recently I’ve felt especially stuck in my job. I’m a Registered Nurse who just graduated a few years ago. A few months ago I took a position on a very busy surgical unit. This isn’t a medical blog so I’ll spare the details, but the takeaway is that I’ve found the learning curve staggeringly steep. Just as I was beginning to feel confident in my previous role, I am now thrust back into the stress and chaos of once again being a novice.

I usually leave my wife out of these posts (she can get her own damn blog!), but it’s worth noting that she also faces an incredibly steep learning curve in her job. Each new day seems to bring challenges that are both exhilarating and draining. And though we might dream of running overseas, the weight of our careers pulls at us in a very real way.

And is it too obvious to state that I am stuck in my body? That all of us are stuck in our individual bodies. Now, I want to be grateful for my body, it is amazing despite my ungratefulness for it at times. Ever changing and adapting to the stress I put it through. It tries it’s best to compensate for my lack of sleep and reliable exercise (notice I said reliable there to give you the impression that there might be some level of exercise, just not reliable…yeah…). It puts up with my chicken wings and beer nights… but, not quite as well as it used to. As I draw closer to 40 I notice the heaviness in my gut the next day, the lines on my forehead that my children like to point out do not go away after I raise my eyebrows at them…

But working in a hospital makes me realize how fortunate I am to just have a body with a few extra pounds, wrinkles and the occasional grey hair. It also reminds me daily of the sobering reality that if we are lucky enough, if we live long enough, each and every one of us will come to feel stuck in our body.

So why talk about being stuck? It’s a bit of a downer, isn’t it?

Because despite our love of autonomy, our stubborn insistence that we have, and always will have full control of our lives, at some point reality says otherwise. It’s my belief that being stuck may not be the worst thing in the world. Being stuck and insisting that you’re not, might be. Because knowing the ways that you are stuck can lead to a freedom all it’s own.

How much of our time and energy do we spend trying to avoid staring down the ways that we’re truly stuck? How much time imagining how life could be different if we lived somewhere else? How much time shopping online, dropping things into our carts that might distract us or entertain us or make our lives better in some immeasurable way? How much time staring at other families spring break trips with envy? How much time imaging life in that more lucrative or less stressful career? How much time do we spend wishing that our children or partners were different in some way? How much time reliving our past, wanting to change some past event. How much time disliking some aspect of our still amazingly functioning body?

There are some things we can change, of course! The existence and expanse of my gut is directly correlated to my intake of chicken wings, beer and lack of reliable exercise! The way we work and play and eat and drink and sleep have a real effect on how we feel. It might actually be time for a trip – not to escape our life, but maybe to wake to it. Maybe we need to go to Hawaii and see an active volcano. Maybe we need to see the island grow beneath our feet. Maybe we need to make changes in our job. Maybe your job is mundane and soul sucking. Maybe the same could be said about your partner… but maybe (and most likely), life is just hard at times, and you might need to lean into the places where you feel stuck. Maybe that job is hard because it’s actually interesting and the stakes are actually high. Maybe that partner is a whole world of adventure that you haven’t seen for a while because you’ve become blind to the familiar (and as we’ve talked about before, alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity…).

I’m getting danger-close to man in the mirror content here, so I’ll back off. But it’s worth mentioning that these things are cliched because they’re true. Consider the serenity prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

The serenity prayer is cliched and oft repeated because it’s true. You don’t have to be a theist to get it. No belief in a deity is necessary to understand its truth. There is much that we can change if we are courageous. And there is much that we cannot affect. Places where we are well and truly stuck. We could spend our entire lives trying to work out the difference.

And if we’re wise, we probably will.

The Elephant in the Room (that no one can shut up about).

I’ve been finding it extremely difficult to write recently. This is likely due to a myriad of factors, but I’ve been fixated on one in particular. And that factor is best addressed as a question:

How does an amateur writer (me) engage with lofty concepts like meaning and wisdom in 2017, without each post being a half baked political opinion piece?

You know what I’m talking about, correct? Every single post you read online is political right now. Every single post divisive, mocking, angry, fearful, or lamenting.

And those are some genuinely legitimate emotions and responses. It’s been less than two weeks since the US presidential inauguration, and the actions of one administration dominate the news cycle on both the established media and social media. It is unprecedented. Usually if someone says or posts something that is viewed as ridiculous, or inflammatory or inaccurate it could be easily ignored. But the posts we see daily now (hourly even) are not coming from some dark dank corner of a reddit page (less so now, maybe), but from the highest office of the US.  And nobody seems to be capable of ignoring any of it.

Usually when we mention “the elephant in the living room” we’re talking about something that everyone knows or suspects, but is never addressed. Not here. I’m talking about an actual elephant in a living room. A creature so immense, so loud, and heavy that it obscures everything else. Everyone keeps pointing at it and talking about it.  It’s shitting everywhere, and it moves about the room trumpeting endlessly. It’s getting pretty damn difficult to do any actual living in our living room.

So while the elephant makes a great stand in for Mr. Trump, the elephant is more than just the President. Its the whole train wreck we can’t seem take our eyes off of.

I personally don’t follow Mr. Trump on Twitter. That seems like intentional crazy making. But that doesn’t do much to shelter me from his words and actions (and let’s be honest, our words are our actions, especially when we have great power). And truthfully, I don’t want to shelter myself from the fallout of these actions.

The rollback of the affordable care act, the restriction of money for global aid agencies if they offer abortions as part of family planning, the expedited moving forward on both the Dakota Access and Keystone oil pipelines, the expanding of a greater number of immigrations officers charged with increasing deportations, the building of a 12 to 25 billion dollar wall complete with concentration camps detention facilities, the gagging of government scientists, the quickening of environmental reviews for priority infrastructure and of course, the Muslim ban restriction of individuals from Muslim-majority countries (unless they are not Muslim).

I’ll stop there. I’ll stop partially because I am well out of my depth in looking at US politics. This website was not designed to be a place for political analysis, and frankly there is so much misinformation, it’s best if I don’t add my half baked analysis to the milieu.

Discussion of these orders belongs squarely in the realm of the political, but you’d have to be an absolute granite hearted imbecile to not see the already unfolding implications for women, for Muslims, for those of Mexican descent and for future generations.

In other words, our fellow man, woman and child.

So how do you go about finding the balance? How do you go about the work you feel is important, without being dominated by the current politics, the latest tweet, the newest outrageous soundbite about ‘alternate facts’ or invented massacres?

Well, it turns out this isn’t my problem alone. Turns out a lot of more established writers and corporations are wrestling with this very issue.

Twitter has been the platform of choice for Mr. Trump leading up to his election and inauguration, and shows no sign of stopping now that he has the official POTUS mantle. But Twitter is also a sea of increasingly divisive and polarizing views surrounding Trump and his tweets, and some analysts have seen the trouble that is causing for the company.

Recently an opinion piece at Mashable (an admittedly very left leaning news source) offered this analogy for Twitter in the age of Trump:

I never really thought Twitter had a personality before, but now, I do. Before President Trump, it was like the too-loud, motor-mouthed friend full of news, funny thoughts, and sometimes, unsolicited opinions. You liked the mix and the guy, so you kept him around. Lately, however, he’s been talking faster. Frenetically even. And he seems stuck, like a broken record on one topic. He repeats the name “Trump” over and over again—and seems very, very angry.

He’s so exhausting, you consider dropping him as a friend.

More intentionally centrist news agencies are also dealing with how to approach their job when the commander in chief and his staff offer up such low lying fruit for the 24 hour news cycle and is simultaneously adversarial to the entire industry of journalism.

In an open letter to the staff of the news agency, Reuters, their editor in chief outlined some guidelines for journalists who are suddenly unsure how to cover this new tumultuous administration.

If you haven’t read it already, please click the above link, it’s absolutely worth you time. The TL:DR? Do your job. Do the job you already know how to do.

Steve Adler reminds his staff writers and journalists: “We already know what to do because we do it every day, and we do it all over the world….we must follow the same rules that govern our work anywhere”.

Now the letter has already caught some flack online for comparing the US administration with other administrations/regimes from China, Egypt, Iraq, Thailand, Turkey, the Philippines, Russia, Yemen and Zimbabwe. But I think it’s brilliant. If a technique is true elsewhere in the world (rely on multiple credible sources, not official channels), it’s true everywhere, even at home.

In addition to being a fan of the content of Reuters letter from the Editor in Chief, I also really appreciated the title: Covering Trump the Reuters Way. The letter calls out the company’s true north, it’s the Reuters way, their way, their philosophy in journalism and media. It reminds their staff of who they already are, the ideals they are already living up to.

The open letter also suggests that Trump need not always be the story. Sometimes Trump is the context/ environment, and the story is down a few layers.

Now, I’m no journalist, and this website and blog is no international news agency, but I think this concept is powerful for all of us. Try to separate Trump as the story from Trump as the context. Trump as the story is getting old, and best left to political pundits and psychologists. Trump as context is a bit more versatile and applicable.

For many of us the context or environment has drastically changed. You read the news and what seemed predictable and safe now feels shaky and forboding. You sign onto Facebook or Twitter and the environment is charged and in turmoil. The context has changed, but your values, whatever you are about at your core, has not. Whatever it is you did with intention and thought and action before, you continue to do now.

Just after the immigration ban was announced on January 27th, there were a lot of posts and photos praising groups of lawyers setting up emergency command centers sitting all around airports across the US. There are photos of lawyers in groups sitting on the ground in suits, in airport meeting rooms and fast food restaurants working frantically. Those photos are inspiring, and these lawyers were doing amazing and desperately needed work. But I’m guessing it wasn’t their first time practicing law. I’m also guessing they knew a little about immigration law on January the 26th. The executive order changed the context and environment of their work, but those lawyers were about that work, and committed to the ideals of justice and representation long before then.

I know firsthand how oppressive this news cycle can feel over the last two weeks (and the months leading up to that). I’ve found it hard to not fixate on the relentless nature of the current political upheaval. I’ve found myself thinking about, dwelling on it while at the hospital working, when I’m at home playing with my kids, talking with my wife. I’ve repeatedly found what I want to write about frustratingly obscured by the latest headline. It can make you feel helpless.

But you’re not helpless. You’ve been adjusting to new contexts and environments your entire life. Figure out how to adjust, figure out how to live your values in a new and strange environment. Help show others how to do the same.

So there’s an elephant in our living room. In your living room too. That totally sucks, and I wish it wasn’t true, but it is. We’ll watch the elephant, because it’s dangerous to take our eyes off such a large beast. We might have to clean up after it, move around it, and if ever remotely possible, support those who might be able to get it out of the house. But in the meantime it’s still my living room.

And I still plan to live in it.

Picture a boxer. On the mat. Bewildered, the unidentifiable hum of noise all around, the blurring lights coming in and out of focus above. The fighter knows he has to get up… as soon as he can figure out which way is up.

I’ve played a lot of different sports, but I was never a boxer, and I’ve only ever been in a handful of fights, but I’m well aware of what being completely blindsided by a hit feel like.

Here’s a truer, and much less sexy story than the cliched sports analogy. Two weeks ago I was carrying out way too much recycling. So much recycling that my hands were full, my arms were full, and I was holding this pile of miscellaneous items in place with my chin, and I couldn’t see my feet. And I slipped. I fell hard, my entire body crashing to the ground at once. Unable to see the ground coming to meet me, unable to brace my fall, unable to do anything but slam into the cold tile, and temporarily leave my body as everything hurt, and every other sense was temporarily dulled.

Now I don’t know if you have ever been a boxer or fighter, and I don’t know if you’ve ever fallen flat on your face taking in one trip what you should have done in two or three… but I’m willing to bet you’re familiar with this experience.

Late last Tuesday night, I and many others like me (though not all…), took the worst kind of hit. The one you don’t see coming.

This experience, this unexpected, unguarded hit to the head – this is the metaphor I’ve been drawn to in the aftermath of the US election. Rob Bell likened left-leaning people and media pundits after the election as “meat sacks just wandering around”. Wandering around, disembodied, staggering. Like our boxer on the mat. Like those people you see on the news footage after a nearby catastrophic event.

And here I feel like I should dial it back a bit. This is an election, not a nearby bombing, right? And I live in a different country, right? I am not a woman, a Latino, a Muslim, an African-American, a member of the LGBT community, or any of the many other population groups that Trump has actively attacked or targeted. But it feels like the hit just connected that hard. And with every new emboldened hate crime, with every new appointment of a climate change denier or white supremacist… the hits just keep coming. A whole country over, I’m still staggering and trying to clear my head. And I’m not alone.

This is a pretty common experience among those who hoped or thought that the Democrats would be successful. Everybody expecting that outcome, took a hit. But after that staggering blow, the responses have been varied; we lose some commonality. Some are already up and fighting. Some are staggering and falling over themselves in trying to get up. Some are still on the mat.

The ones I consider still on the mat are hopeless. That’s not a knock at them – in a lot of ways I’ve been one of them- I mean literally they are devoid of hope. They don’t have a reason to believe things will be better if they get up.

Hopeless looks like a lot of things. A lot of what I read online has an edge of cynical resignation.  It looks like a lot of dark humor. It looks like hunkering down for the next four to eight years. It looks like relocating to Canada (No judgement – come on up, it’s awesome here).

So why are some people hopeless, while others are already up and fighting? Where does hope come from?

If you’ve read these posts for any length of time, you likely know that I’m a huge fan of Brene Brown’s work. In her research, she uncovered that an individual’s hope was not a bi-product good socio-economic status, but rather of resilience. Children who had faced adversity, and overcome (which also includes losing and learning), we’re able to be hopeful in times of challenge, are able to embody hope, not out of naivety, but through hard won experience. They were also notably more hopeful than children whose parents had sheltered them from all conflict.

In boxing there’s a term I’ve always been intrigued by – the glass jaw. The boxer who can’t take a hit. The notion that someone could be the biggest, leanest, meanest looking mother, but if they couldn’t take a good hit and keep going – they were considered to have a  glass jaw. Alternatively, a boxer who may not be as big or fast or have as long a reach could still gain an unexpected victory by the simple virtue of being able to hang in there longer.

I think this past election has shown that a lot of us left leaning social progressives have glass jaws. I know I certainly do. And I think this has a lot to do with us being amateur activists. This might be especially true if we inhabit a place of power and privilege – because like the sheltered kid in Brene Brown’s research, we haven’t had as much experience with getting knocked around, knocked down, and getting back up. Online angst and activity often feels like a whole lot more than it is. I can spend a whole day on Twitter or Facebook and not accomplish a damn thing. I’ve cast my lot in with the left, I’ve shared stories about Trumps horrific claims or hilarious missteps, I’ve re-tweeted clever articles and quotes and memes. And if I spend enough time listening to and quoting and re-tweeting and writing about advocates and activists, I might actually believe I am one.

And in a way I am. I take this blog seriously, despite the handful of people following it (thank you – by the way!). I believe a mind is shaped by beautiful questions, and wisdom gained from listening to wise teachers, wherever you find them in life. And I think at it’s best, Twitter and Facebook can connect us with those far away and actually serve as a method for disseminating knowledge worth sharing.

But this can all be done from the comfort of my couch. It is cynically labeled ‘slacktivism’ for a reason.

With all of the race-charged rhetoric of this past election (and ongoing daily now), I’ve been drawn to the stories of the 1960’s civil rights movement. On Being has recently been highlighting interviews with these great leaders and thinkers, as we look for wisdom for our current social climate.

One of these leaders is John Lewis, a US congressman from Georgia, and a civil rights leader with Martin Luther King Jr. He relates how in preparation for any march, or ride, or event, the activists would meet and study together.

“a small group of students every Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m. would gather in a small Methodist church…we had a teacher…. who taught us the philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence. We studied. We studied what Gandhi attempted to do in South Africa, what he accomplished in India. We studied Thoreau and civil disobedience. We studied the great religions of the world. And before we even discussed a possibility of a sit-in, we had role-playing. We had what we called social drama. And we would act out. There would be black and white young people, students, interracial group, playing the roles of African-Americans, or be an interracial group playing the roles of white. And we went through the motion of someone harassing you, calling you out of your name, pulling you out of your seat, pulling your chair from under you, someone kicking you or pretending to spit on you. Sometimes we did pour cold water on someone, never hot — but we went through the motion.”

Now, that is preparation. That is a tilt. That is a fight. In another interview, the late Vincent Harding, a civil rights leader, speech writer and also a friend to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. relates how many of the same Civil Rights activists that he marched with are still going strong. Still fighting hard, ever resilient these 50 some years later.  He also reminds the listener that though we might find such obvious racism and xenophobia shocking, that “when it comes to creating a multiracial, multi ethnic, multi religious, democratic society, we are still a developing nation”.

And many of us are developing activists. That’s okay. Let start with acceptance. We’ll get there. I’m afraid we’ll have lots of chances to practice. We’ll ask forgiveness for not stepping into the ring earlier. But let’s also acknowledge that we are the newbies, the inexperienced, the glass jaws. Let’s be humble and look for the heavyweights, those who have cared and fought for years. Who can point us in effective directions, who can show us how to leverage our privilege. Who can help pick us up when we get knocked down ourselves.    

I’m glad we have some small notion of what it means to get knocked down, to feel powerless, to want to fight. Because now we can get back up. Now we can shake it off. Now we keep fighting.

Because if you keep getting back up, they don’t call you a glass jaw. When you keep getting back up, they just call you a fighter.

Ugh.

And I thought the lead up to the american election was anxiety producing. This is much, much worse. I slept fitfully and woke up at 4am today (I’m writing on November 9th) to double check the election results. My wife wisely called for both sanity and bed last evening, after hours of half watching Netflix on the laptop and constantly refreshing the election results. We went to bed at 1030pm, while there was still an outside-wildcard chance of a Democratic upset.

Instead I was greeted with this fine mess. There was no getting back to sleep.

I blame twitter for most of the amplification and prolonging of my anxiety. Today, it is awash of shock, anger, and fear. So much fear. Someone named November 09 National Amygdala Day. And I won’t say for a second that fear is unfounded. It is a completely rational response to what many see as a completely irrational election, start to brutal finish.

It is also one collective voice. There are nuances. Some voices are hopeful, optimistic, calling themselves and others to the everyday duty of loving kindness here and now. Some are looking years ahead to the next political pendulum swing. Some are wailing, raging, refusing to be comforted. Some are identifying the places and people on whom the blame most lies.

I am all of these things today, because Twitter is just a big microcosm of me. Twitter is a reflection of what I want reflected. My own echo chamber.

Today my wife was worried about me. The kids were cautious around me (not cautious enough, I still managed to absolutely unload on one of them when they refused to wear the jacket I pulled out for them). This election has upset the way I look at everything. The world seems notably darker today.

Why was I so upset about the election? On the surface, this is very, very easy to answer. I could easily answer that I believe Trump is a buffoon, a misogynist, a likely sexual predator, a xenophobe, a business man with a history of failed businesses and shady practices, a liar, a climate change denier, and above all, an inciter of rage.

But here I am. White male adult in his mid-thirties in Canada. The promised land of so many desperate and fearful americans last evening (enough fearful Americans to crash Canada’s immigration website). I have a full time job. My wife has a full time job. We have three beautiful children who are not harassed for their beliefs or skin colour. My family’s day to day life is unlikely to be affected significantly by Mr. Trump’s election.

There are plenty of reason to be weary of Trump in the future though.  I don’t believe for a second that the damage that he and the GOP can do will be limited to the United States alone. But this was not the source of my anger and distress this morning.

I was distressed because I had thought better of the humanity of my american neighbours. I had been hoping that the light is winning. And this morning I was a whole lot less sure.

Not because I felt that Hillary Clinton was the standard bearer for the light. But the rejection of such a morally repugnant opponent was. I watched this election with sick fascination. Each of the Donald’s ridiculous tweets or sound bites seeming to um… (excuse me here, I HAVE to…) Trump the one before it. And the rallying cry in opposition to his fear-mongering and blaming was infectious. I’ve liked and retweeted so many posts in response to his repugnance. I’ve followed so many activists and authors and spokespersons for Feminism, gay rights, religious and ethnic minorities. I’ve thrown my whole lot in with them.

And to wake up November 9th and find that those people – my tribe- only make up half of the american population. That was a real punch in the gut.

“59 million people voted for Donald Trump yesterday. 59 million people listened to this man speak venom with agreement or indifference” That is what I Tweeted to my like minded colleagues on Twitter. Then (feeling both angry and quite pleased with my phrase) I posted the same on Facebook.

While Twitter represents so clearly whom I want to associate with and what I want to be about,  Facebook has a certain scattershot quality to it. Your close friends are of course likely to have many of the same values as you, but things get a little further off the mark when you include your relatives, your work colleagues, or old friends from high school.

And so it happened that the first notification on my Facebook feed was from someone pleased with the results of the election. In stark contrast to my post, he stated that the 59 million votes didn’t represent Trump’s venom, just the hopes of new and real change to people who feel the system has increasingly not represented them.

I won’t get into the merit of his argument. There is so much intelligent (if depressing) editorializing about the factors leading to our current situation, and I won’t do it any justice to try and give you my dumb-it-down-a-touch version.

But here is what it really brought home for me. I don’t like those 59 million voters. I don’t understand them, and I don’t want to. And I didn’t much like my old high school friend at that moment.

And when you see 59 million people as “others” – that’s a real problem.

Before all of this, I half finished a similar post to this one, albeit with a completely different election result. In that post, and in this one, I keep coming back to the uncomfortable reality that I fundamentally disliked and “othered” a large percentage (now it turns out to be exactly half) of the American population. That’s not a dig on Americans either – Canada is closely related to both Britain and America, and it’s a very similar situation in both countries. It’s foolish denial to imagine that us Canadians are vastly different from either political landscape, (despite our recent Prime Minister…).

In a recent political panel discussion hosted by Krista Tippett, Dr. Eboo Patel, an Inter-faith program leader, admitted that looking out at the political landscape at all the potential Trump voters, he also had failed to empathize with the family whose job had been outsourced, or even simply the Republican voter that longed to see their elected official in the white house for these last 8 years. And he identified that as his failing. That despite being a visible minority, and a Muslim, he had a responsibility to “cultivate some sort of empathy for people who were once at the centre of the culture and aren’t anymore”

Dr. Patel went on to relate a favourite saying of his from William Raspberry, which was “The smartest people I know secretly believe both sides of the issue.”  That someone could (and should) have a held ‘side’ or position on a given issue, but always be seeking the best in the other’s argument. The human in the other.  That working together in a democracy certainly included trying to see your champion elected, and working together afterwards regardless of the outcome.

All of that was much easier to hear two weeks ago, while all the polls heavily favoured Hillary Clinton, but it’s likely just as true today. And in an election campaign with so much alt-right ugliness, and so much empowered and endorsed hate visible online, the last thing that I personally want to do is try to empathize with and care for the average Trump voter. It’s much easier to give into anger if they’re all deplorables.

But I’m struck by a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Junior that also came up in that panel discussion. That we must “learn to live together as brothers, or perish together as fools”. This is the highest calling of our humanity. This is what the light winning looks like.

And I also don’t think it is the white washed, lip service version of parties coming together under the orderly rule of the new president elect (I can’t bring myself to say his name and president at the same time). Words about healing differences without the necessary blood sweat and tears required are empty platitudes. It is about the hard grunt work of really seeking to understand the other in our families, in our workplaces, in our Facebook groups.

Maybe it’s the extraordinary shadow that this day seems to cast, but I can’t believe that things won’t become worse before they become better.  Change will continue, regardless of this election and subsequent protectionist strategies. Automation will make whole sectors of the workforce redundant. There will be job losses. There will be unrest and anger, and those feeling like their country is not their own anymore.

We get to decide now, and again, and again. Will we live together as brothers, or perish together as fools? There will be many people looking for the “other” in their midst to blame, to dehumanize. On the left and the right.

We can be shocked. We can be fearful. We can be angry and rage. And we can feel all of that and still look for the humanity in those we ardently disagree with. That is the light winning. Even on such a dark day.

Religion.

There are few words as loaded in our present culture as religion. You may associate it positively with meaning, hope, culture, colour and vibrance… but I’m willing to bet most of us would sooner associate it negatively with rules, power and a rigid set of assumptions about the world.

I am fascinated by so many of the concepts and elements of religion, and even I don’t like the word. Without effort, it serves as the placeholder for everything I don’t like about belief. While words such as spirituality have become vast and diverse enough to be met with inquiry and interest, I don’t find many people who have nearly the curiosity towards religion.

Readers of this blog have almost certainly noticed that I am a huge fan of Krista Tippet’s On Being program. On Being is a program fascinated with the intertwining concepts of spirituality and religion, and in each and every interview, Krista Tippet enquires into her guests’ religious or spiritual background growing up. Agnostics, Atheists, Buddists, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims etc… each and every guest has had those terms (partially) defined for them at a young age. Just as you and I have.

I love that this approach allows the guest to define their spiritual background in their own terms. It acknowledges that we are broader and more diverse than general religious labels, and even more diverse than more specific labels such as denominations or sects.

I count myself among those who are far less comfortable with these familiar labels and traditions religion has offered. I don’t currently attend any church, and I am by no means alone in staying home on Sundays (or much more often, at the hospital working). Statistics Canada states that in 2008, attendance at a weekly religious service was down to 21% of those over age 15, which dropped 9% from about 20 years ago. Canada has been a much more secular country than our neighbours to the south, but the United States has seen a similar, but much sharper, decrease in regular attendance of religious institutions. Though a much higher percentage of Americans  regularly go to a religious institution than Canadians (53% in 2014), that number is falling much faster, 10% less than a decade ago. (Thanks here to Diana Butler Bass who references this trend in her latest wonderful book, “Grounded”).

More and more it appears that even among believers, the older structures and divisions are less and less embraced. More and more it appears that people want to shake off their religious labels.

And some would like to see an abandonment of religion altogether. Many people outside religious communities look at the decline of religion as a death long coming, and long deserved. An old dry and cracked skin that humanity has outgrown and needs to shed.

It’s hard not to see their point.

When religion is seen as a hot bed and breeding ground for extremism (within many camps), when basic human rights such as marriage equality are denied or hindered due to the vocal opposition of the religious right, and when sexism, misogyny and a culture of accepted abuse is not only ignored, but encouraged or ordained, it is hard to not to understand (if not join in) the celebration of religion’s death knell.  

But what if religion was extremely important for our species? What if religion could be a gift, our birthright as humans?

That is the question that has been raised by Alain de Botton in a recent On Being interview. A prominent philosopher, author and speaker, de Botton calls out and disseminates the important past roles of religion in human society, and it’s important impact on the individual. Some of the standout observations that are mentioned in the interview include: a view of human nature that is both blessed and flawed, the observation of the difference between material and moral power, and the repeated attempt to answer questions of meaning and morality. He acknowledges that while our secular education may teach us basic and complex skills for our workplace, it is wholly unprepared/unwilling to give instruction on how to love, how to raise children, how to face the mortality and suffering around and within us.

Most surprisingly, this champion of the best aspects of religion is a convinced atheist. Alain de Botton is perhaps best known as founder and content currator/creator for “The School of Life”. This initiative attempts to take the best aspects of religion, without belief in the divine. It seems simultaneously amazing and absurd. In sorting through and presenting the best aspects of religion, his work has been seen as intriguing and valuable to both atheists and believers alike.

Perhaps strangest to me is how comforting I find de Botton’s findings. His fascination with and appreciation of the best aspects of religion seems deeply rooted in a care for all humanity. He boldly relates that “an awful lot that seems to us intrinsically religious is not; it’s part of the treasury of mankind. These religions at their highest points, at their most complex and subtle moments, are far too interesting to be abandoned merely to those who believe”. While the loudest and most strident Atheists we hear tend to be propelled by conflict with religious groups (and met by equally combative religious voices in turn), de Botton’s view sounds like the advocating for all humanity.

“Part of the treasury of Mankind”

Perhaps because I had always viewed religion as distinctly spiritual, I never stopped to think how obviously human it also is. For me, to look at the teachings/ rituals/ poetry/ art/ celebrations/ feasts, etc… as my inheritance as a human being doesn’t make it less spiritual or focused on the divine. Instead it retroactively fills what I viewed as (at it’s worst) stark and regressive and dead with new life and possibility. This is how my ancestors oriented their life towards each other and divinity. This is how they inhaled and exhaled together singing communal songs. This is how they remembered their most important stories, with courses of food and wine and singing and dancing. This is how they integrated the wisdom of their ancestors on how to live.

In an earlier post, “The Territory We Have Already Entered”, I focused on David Whyte’s assertion that alertness was the hidden discipline of familiarity. I think that concept has a lot of application within religion as well. Religion can give us familiar terms to identify with amidst the new and unknown that we are faced with everyday.  And at the same time, religion has the opportunity to disrupt our familiar day to day settings with a word or ritual from ages long past. It can confront us with a worldview that is not our own. In both cases of familiarity, religion can be a gift, but alertness remains the hidden discipline in either. We have a crucial role in understanding and evaluating what these rituals and teachings mean for our lives today.  

Just because our ancestors used these words/ prayers/ teachings/ songs/ feasts and dances… doesn’t mean we have to. It is my personal opinion that there is a lot within the old power structures that is detrimental to our personal and communal growth as people. Some aspects of these power structures worked for a time, and now they don’t. Some ideologies should never have been propagated. A great deal of religion may have to die.

But not all of it. Because (like almost everything) it is a mixed blessing. An account of those struggling and grappling with humanity and divinity,  just as we all do today.  

A treasury for all mankind.

The other day I went for a road trip with my good friend, Mick Bauer. Totally his real name. Not a pseudonym.  Mick is a particular guy, and (by his own admission) is having a bit of a mini mid life crisis (a MMLC) . Which he is handling… soberly. So, no affairs or sports cars or motorcycles or skydiving or face tattoos… Mick instead has been staring straight at his own mortality.

Mick’s been working out his mini mid life crisis with paper and pencil. Like ya do. Mick purchased some quality graphing paper. He counted out 52 columns (for weeks) along the Y axis, and 90 rows (for years) along the X axis. And then he began shading. Meticulous shading. One shaded square for every week of his life spent so far.

Mick then proceeded to tell me how he thoughtfully made a chart for his wife and child, too.

I asked Mick to never get me anything again.

…

There’s usually a thing behind the thing, and this is no exception. My friend just celebrated a milestone birthday, he’s recently started a job at a new company in unfamiliar territory. He’s begun to question long held beliefs. And perhaps most importantly, one of our mutual friends, an exceptionally alive and vibrant and present individual, was just diagnosed with cancer. Weeks later a friend, a mentor and inspiration to Mick, died suddenly of a heart attack.

Bam! Mortality.

Now, if you already don’t like this post, I don’t blame you. But hang in there. That’s the point.

I didn’t like hearing this story. Mick’s a little older than me, but not so much older than our partially shaded sheets wouldn’t look extremely similar. The mental picture of a sheet nearly half shaded was – and is – enough to make me squirm.  And that’s assuming 90 rows on the X column. Which is a big assumption.

It’s not an original idea that western society is especially infatuated with avoiding death in all it’s forms. But it’s true. We don’t like to face our own mortality. As a nursing student I still vividly remember the first time I printed up a toe tag and grabbed a body bag for a patient who had passed. It seemed so strange to keep those supplies next to the surgical scissors, or dressing supplies. I don’t know how I ever managed to start in a profession where I interact with the sickest of the sick, and still remain ignorant to the realities of death.

It’s now been over a week since Mick told me this story. So now there is one more shaded square then there was before. One more shaded square that will not be erased, can not be redone. This is redundant to say, but it’s completely true. Each week that passes shades in one more square on his chart. And on mine. And on yours.

Which brings me to the bigger problem, as I see it.

…

How did you spend your last week?

If you’re like me, the last time someone asked you how your week was, you probably answered something socially acceptable… and then realized you had very little memory of the recently past days. In addition to such non committal and automatic responses such as “good” and “fine”, we’d probably laugh and say “busy” or “crazy”.  

‘Busy’ doing what?

‘Crazy’ doing what?

Because the uncomfortable truth is, that week is going to pass – that box is going to be shaded-  remarkable or not. Aware of it or not. Awake to it or not.

In 1854, Henry David Thoreau published his book, “Walden: or Life In The Woods”. Thoreau spent  two years, two months and two days living in the woods on the shore of Walden Pond within Concord, Massachusetts, making observations about his current society, the natural world, and the inner life. It’s a weird book that I’ve only skimmed the surface of. But the oft quoted conclusion of the book has absolutely captured me. In the final paragraph, Thoreau admonishes his audience that “the light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn”.

If you were feeling a bit tight around the chest with the mental picture of the shaded boxes, Thoreau’s admonishment may even turn the screws. The un-shaded squares ahead of us, they’re not really there. Not unless we are brave enough to take them. Unless we are brave enough to be present and awake in them.

And what does it mean to be awake to our life?  I might point you towards Brene Brown’s books and seminars on what her research shows are the qualities of those living a wholehearted life. Rob Bell has some excellent words on how putting down our phone can help us avoid endless distraction from moment to moment.  It might start with a quiet walk alone once a week. It might start with a journal. It might even begin with a beautiful question to focus on and be shaped around. The call to be awake and present in our life is both simple and complex. Expansive. A life’s work. The life’s work of many, even.

For now, just for the moment, perhaps we can sit with the problem, without jumping to our quickest solution. Perhaps for the moment it is enough to look at that half shaded sheet and know, with absolute certainty, that we do not want to shade in one more square in distraction, unaware and asleep.

Because there may be many unshaded squares ahead of us. “There is more day to dawn”…

If we’re awake.

There’s something about the word, pleasure, isn’t there? I think it’s been absolutely hijacked by the sensual and erotic. And even though it plainly belongs there, I think it’s a word worth engaging in on an even more basic level.

(Which is to say that don’t worry, this website will remain SFW – safe for work-  for at least one more post…).

Pleasure is hardwired into us. Obviously, that’s not a new insight, but what we do with the desire for pleasure has been discussed for centuries. It seems that on the two ends of the spectrum, the pursuit of pleasure is often encouraged exclusively (hedonistic egoism) or shunned and shamed (Anti-hedonism – which I think amounts to a denial of our basic self). I’ve come to believe that neither is very healthy.

Jean Vanier is a humanist, a philosopher and a theologian, and has founded a number of homes called L’Arche where people with disabilities, and those without, live together in community. He’s been invited to speak in Rome, in Geneva, and Toronto to both religious and secular organizations. He’s given a series of lectures at Massey Hall which were aired on CBC’s Ideas. He’s a recent recipient of the Templeton Prize, whose past recipients include Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, and the Dalai Lama. His quick and dirty biography is certainly inspiring, but he’s not one I would expect would speak so excitedly about pleasure. But that is what comes ringing through to me in his interview with Krista Tippett. Not a shaming or shunning of the desire for pleasure, but the all important question of “where, what activity, will give the greatest, deepest pleasure”.

That acknowledgement of the ‘greatest and deepest’ pleasure is the real trick here.

My wife is a vegetarian, and when I was first with her, I found many of her dishes to be bland. I really enjoyed the the savory tastes of meat and heavier sauces, so when she first slaved over a small kitchenette in Banff (where we lived) to create an apricot and walnut couscous dish, I smiled politely, and ate small bites, and when asked what I thought of her dish, attempted to answer diplomatically, yet truthfully,that it was good, just a little bland for my liking.

…

It has taken roughly ten years for us to bury that particular hatchet.

Fast forward to a week ago. Someone I work with was trying to limit the meat in their diet, realizing that their average plate was comprised of little else. I was excited, but also a bit ashamed to recall our go to dishes in the past week: slow cooked lentils on toasted buns (a vegetarian sloppy joe), chickpea quesadillas, Nasi Goreng (which sounds fancy but is simply fried rice toped with egg and pickle). And my personal favorite, I sheepishly ventured, was our version of a glory bowl – Brown rice, with beans and smoked tofu, covered with thinly sliced lettuce, red peppers, diced tomatoes (heirloom when we’re fortunate enough), cucumbers and topped with salsa.

I realized that to a dish, they were all simple creations – no more than 5 or 6 ingredients each, and all highlighted the individual ingredients present. I apologised, realizing that what I had really come to appreciate, was the simple pleasure of each grain and vegetable.

Now, let me be perfectly honest. I also love the heavy cream of a butter chicken, or the pho soup that has at its base a broth that has been simmering for hours. Or even the hot dog on the street corner covered in diced onions and sauerkraut and grainy mustard. And don’t even get me started on taco trucks (seriously! How could anyone even try to imply that a taco truck on every corner is a bad thing?…).

But a simple meal with my family where I enjoy the natural taste of each ingredient – this is the analogy to deep pleasure that came to mind. And it’s also true that this pleasure has been a long time in forming.

Jean Vanier’s reflection, and my realization about the meals I now enjoy have led me to the belief that it’s not an absence of pleasure we need, it’s actually more. But it’s the discipline to discover and work towards the question, “what is the greatest, deepest pleasure that I long for”?

Because I think it is good to enjoy the pleasure of the tomato grown in your garden, or the simple nutty texture of the short grain brown rice, or the simple crunch of the cucumber. But let’s be honest, I don’t get there without a bit of discipline. I don’t get there if I’m gorging myself on poutine and chicken wings each night.

(Side note – I often joke with Nadine that if she ever left me, things would go one of two ways: I would either hit the gym hard, and become obsessed with my physical appearance to attract as many people as possible or… a steady diet of poutine/chicken wings/ ice cream sundae. I think we all know which is most likely.)

(Second side note – I’d pretty much live at the Costco cafeteria).

Back on point.

Writing is another example of this deeper, greater pleasure. I love writing. Except when I hate writing. Which is a lot of the time. More precisely, I hate feeling like I have something inside of me that needs to come out in my writing, and then throwing it away after an hour or two of typing, and feeling more frustrated than before I began.

Recently I’ve started trying to take one consistent day for recreation and resting. I work shift work, so it’s been hard to nail down a ‘Sabbath’/ day of rest/ day of play, but I’ve been made aware of the important work that Brene Brown has surfaced on those who live wholeheartedly. Simply put, the whole-hearted play, and find ways in their life to express themselves creatively. And so, being that I often have three or four days off in a row (after working three to five 12 hour shifts), I’ve decided that my third day off will be a rest day. On that day, I can get together with friends for coffee, read, exercise (I can… I’m not saying I do…) play video games, binge Netflix… and I can write.

And a lot of days, I mostly write.

Why? Because right now, that is my deepest and greatest pleasure. And it takes a good amount of discipline – because I’m just starting out, and most days I’m not happy with it, and I can’t possibly do it while listening to music, or watching Netflix, or playing video games.

And look at the sum of Jean Vanier’s life. Numerous vibrant communities, a celebrated speaker and author, awarded presigiously – all (if we believe him) following his deepest and greatest pleasure. Now, he could be lying, of course, but I challenge you to find a picture of this man through the ages where his eyes are not beaming.

And when you consider that the thing that makes you come alive, the thing that is the most pleasurable, might also be good for you – might also be good for all those around you.
Man alive. That sounds pretty damn great.

Curiosity and The Beautiful Question

As a young child, I loved Curious George. Probably because he could still smile while spewing fish, look dope smoking a pipe, escape fascist firemen and float through the air on a couple of coins worth of helium balloons. As a small child, I’m sure that the striking similarities between the unending curiosity of monkeys and small children was lost on me.

As a parent of small children now, the connections are no longer lost. My children have been much more enraptured with George’s television exploits, but the kindred spirit of curiosity is still there, and still met with a hunger to discover. PBS’ now discontinued run of Curious George has taught me a shameful amount of knowledge as well, and I have been laughed at more than once by my children when admitting acquiring new knowledge from a cartoon show.

The curiosity of children is unending – if allowed. Given the senses to see the world, and the space to play and explore, imagine how truly magnificent and strange it all must seem to new eyes. Imagine being so close to the ground that you see the different blades of grass, the stocks and prickles and flowers of weeds that make up the green/yellow/brown tapestry. Image your vantage point being so low that you crane your neck to see the tops of trees, buildings, surrounding hills, or passing clouds. Imagine the wonder.

Wonder is a gift that we don’t truly appreciate the significance of until we rediscover it years later. I’m sure that my youngest years were marked by uninhibited marvel. But then for years as an older, only child, I valued the praise of adults who noticed how mature I was over childish questions. As a teenager, I valued conformity to peers and parents alike (in different settings) over wonder. As an early adult in my twenties I valued certainty over awe and curiosity. Eventually though, I became bored and trapped with acting certain. For it is a small world indeed that we have all the answers to.

I wish I could tell you a concrete starting point of curiosity, but it came on slowly, covertly and constant. Eventually it was ubiquitous. I remember the moment I realized that something had already changed. I was listening to a CBC program on gardening. I hate gardening. But they were explaining the proper growing conditions for potted tomatoes in the Okanagan region. Maybe I might want to know a thing or two about potted tomatoes. I wanted to know a thing or two about all the things.

I listened to a lot of podcasts and audio books. I began to deconstruct and reconstruct my faith. I began to appreciate good stories, clever communication, an apt turn of phrase.I began to develop an appreciation for the best and brightest among us and a simultaneous awe for our common connectedness and humanity. As I walked/ rode/ gardened/ washed/ folded and listened, I grew in knowledge and became more curious still. The world became larger, then larger still.

When tragedy struck our family in 2011, it gave me the permission to reboot my life, but in many ways curiosity had laid the groundwork. In the long slow process of two steps forward, one step back, I began to let go of unexamined certainty and hidden fear.

Can I emphasize once again how non-linear, how fearful, and how slow this process is? It might make for a compelling story to tie it all up neatly and brag about how far I’ve come – but that’s just a different form of the illusion of certainty, right? I still find myself casting an appearance of certainty, still attempting to fool others and myself into believing I’ve got it all figured out. Still perfecting the art of bullshitting. But occasionally I surrender into the bliss of admitting my ignorance and embracing the new, unhindered by my posturing.

Besides, as already discussed on this site, knowledge is nothing. Wisdom – knowing what to do said knowledge – that’s the real trick. Not so much knowing the answers as knowing how to ask the good and beautiful questions.

There is this quote from the Biochemist Issac Asimov that asserts that “the most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ (I’ve found it!), but ‘That’s funny…”. The scientist begins with curiosity and wonder and begins to form a more concrete question regarding the anomaly. And I think we can do the same.

The philosopher poet David Whyte suggested that a beautiful mind is shaped by beautiful questions. That a beautiful question can set or re-align the trajectory of our life, even without our full awareness of the course correction. I think it’s precisely the curiosity and awe that makes a question beautiful. It had to be big enough for our life, bigger than our life. A question born of restlessness and intrigue. A question not easily or simply answered with a quick google search. A question that may take years of pondering and intention and effort, or even our entire lives.

Elon Musk finds himself stuck in traffic in Los Angeles and begins to ask if there isn’t a better way for mass transportation between communities and cities, and the seeds of the hyperloop experiment are planted. Brene Brown begins to notice common qualities in people living wholeheartedly, and a national conversation about shame and vulnerability is birthed. Krista Tippet begins to wonder if the most strident and hoarse voices in religion and science are setting up a false dichotomy, and an articulate conversation emerges on how both fields overlap and complement our lives.

How many beautiful minds, acts, inventions, initiatives- all come to be because of a beautiful question?

And more importantly, what beautiful questions are calling out to you and me, even now?

“The language we have is not large enough for the territory we have already entered…”

The above quote was brought to my attention by a famous poet, David Whyte. But they are not his words. Instead they belonged to an American businessman who wanted to hire the poet after listening to a live reading of his poetry. This anonymous businessman knew he needed to hire this artist, this philosopher, to come work in the belly of the beast. To come and work in corporate America.

Let that sink in for just a moment.

To say that I don’t know much about the business world would be an understatement. What little knowledge I have of corporate culture is limited to television, movies, and stories from friends in business. In short, my view of corporate america is largely one of caricature. In my (considerable) ignorance, I can imagine a competitive corporation requiring a number of necessities: Strong leadership. Quality products. Effective lines of communication. Reliable distribution systems. The absolute last thing I would ever think of a business as needing is a poet.

Thankfully, the unknown businessman who spoke to David Whyte saw the complexity of the world around him. He saw individuals working together, attempting to accomplish corporate goals while bringing all their unique baggage to the table. He realized that behind every sale was a relationship, and activities such as buying and selling could not be completely separated from the people who engaged in them.

For me, the example is hyperbole. If this is true there, how true is it here… What other areas can we look around and realize that we do not have language large enough for the complexity we are currently immersed in – the ‘territory we have already entered’? How familiar are we with our surroundings? How much attention have we truly paid them? How often have we been guilty of allowing something (or someone) to be a caricature or generalization. This is mental laziness. This is simplifying something for the sake of easy computation.

Of course, as an adaptive mechanism, simplification has it’s place. Life presents us with stimuli and asks us to categorize it quickly. We need to know if that is a lion or gazelle (or tofudebeast) coming towards us through the tall grass, and we need to react quickly.

And I wonder, as we continually try to do more in less time, to be ever more efficient and effective, whether we don’t reinforce that part of ourselves that makes snap decisions, that categorizes quickly, and simplifies complexity.  

“Alertness is the Hidden Discipline of Familiarity”

In one of his poems, David Whyte invites the reader to see that “alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity”. That saying has traveled everywhere with me this week. It has come with me to all of the places and relationships I am familiar with. It has served as a reminder of what hard work paying close attention is. It is a hidden discipline. And it reminds me that there is a certain type of alertness you can only have in the familiar. It’s when you sit down for coffee with an old friend, and you hear a subtle difference in their voice. When you know that your child is uneasy and needs to be hugged tightly, just for a moment. When you can look past the contours of your partner’s face and look inside their eyes and see them. To see the person you both know and don’t know. To see them in all their astounding sameness and strangeness.

Familiarity is a dangerous thing. It’s the place where we can be most on autopilot, the most disengaged, it is the easiest to navigate. But the time and energy we’ve spent in making it familiar also allows us to see past the surface, past efficient categorizing, past simplicity and into complexity.

How refreshing to discover complexity where you thought you had everything figured out. How surprising to find ourselves in what was previously familiar territory, where our language is now too small. How amazing to begin to see a world that we have no words for.