October 14 2023
Poems are made by fools like me. But only God can make a tree.
Anonymous
Here is a foolish example:
We live in times of deepest gloom,
With covid, wars and climate doom,
the future looks so dire and grim,
our only hope now comes from Him.
I call this foolish writing, because today nothing will prevent collapse anymore, yet we ignore all signs.
I am re-reading a book bought on March 26 2002. In the introduction to The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life, by Thomas Moore, a former professor of Religion and Psychology, I read: “In a disenchanted world, for all its concern for moral and social action, religion separates itself from everyday life and becomes obsessed with its own brand of belief and moral purity. In this kind of setting, the people who pollute our rivers and oceans and exploit workers and families may go to church and profess strong moral values, and yet they don’t have any conscience about the water, the earth, or the human community.”
The author, a fine Catholic, a monk for 12 years – now married with 2 children – states that these persons, including us, are committing heinous sins, not acknowledged as such.
His words echo those of Karen Armstrong, also a former ‘spiritual’, who wrote Sacred Nature, about 20 years after Thomas Moore implied the holiness of our earth, seas and skies.
Of course, the earth is holy. Of course, the church, emphasizing ‘belief’ and confessional statements and pious behavior, will never ‘proclaim’ that state of ‘holiness’. Even now it has great problems with equality for women, basically because the Bible, written 3,000-2,000 years ago, saw women as subservient to men. The same is true for different sex orientations, even though in the animal world, this is quite common.
The church should follow Karl Barth’s life rule: look at the world with the Bible in one hand, and a respectable newspaper or weekly in the other.
Become like children.
We must become like children, and dream, dream of faraway countries, dream of the future new world as I visualized it in my book, DAY WITHOUT END.
When I was 10 years old, I got a bladder infection, now simply cured with antibiotics. Then, in 1938, the doctor prescribed 6 weeks of bedrest! Also, some diet restrictions. The doctor, whose father lived next door, visited me a couple of times each week, while my grade 4 teacher came once a week, assigning homework. My bed was next to a picture window, three stories high, allowing me full view of the busy street, always different bakers, always vegetable merchants, milkmen doing deliveries, continually something to watch. Cars? No. I also read 100 books.
In 1940, my 6th grade of the school just around the corner from where we lived, occupied the third floor of our school building, overlooking the entire neighbourhood to the northerly sky where often thick clouds would resemble giant mountains, and I would dream of climbing them.
I remember standing in front of Lake Louise, with the glaziers in the background, and suddenly I was overwhelmed with emotion.
I now live on the edge of a large forest. Between the highway and my abode – a 2 storey dwelling, passive solar, with 4 large windows facing south and super insulated – I planted 4,000 trees, a monoculture I am afraid, of pine, the same uniformity that burned – is still burning! – in British Columbia, the opposite of a cure for Climate Change. Well, it proves the common saying: The way to hell is paved with good intentions.
Now, 85 years later -my 95th birthday is TODAY! – I enjoy my solitude, my kids visiting faithfully. I love reading and writing, love hear myself chuckle, love follow my strict regime from dawn to bedtime. It gives me stability and predictability, still love foolishness: here’s another example.
A song celebrating the laws of Ecology.
(Everything is connected)
All people that on earth do dwell,
sing to the Lord, his ways foretell.
Remember earth, air, sea and tree
Are all a part of you and me.
(Creation knows best)
Creation knows the ways to go
God bred it in its natural know,
We therefore must inquire of her
To see where we go right or err.
(Nothing disappears)
Nothing will ever disappear
It lingers on, it is now clear
The oil we burn creates much ill
And causes universal kill.
(No free lunch)
There is no free lunch to be had
The bills are due: they will be bad
Our children must pay this very great debt
We robbed them of their safety net.
We robbed them, left them in the lurch
No wonder they have left the church
We wasted, stole, their future need
Please Lord, forgive us our great greed.
Sing it! Now!