Whispers From Babylon

Relationships are always worth restoring. I never met anyone who found internal harmony by discarding relationships whenever there was a rift, a hurt or a conflict.  Interestingly a significant amount of all so called ‘spiritual literature’ is focused on teaching us how to get along with one another. Christians have no monopoly on this, you will find it Judaism,Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism, notwithstanding  that fringe coterie of extremists in all belief systems   who sow hatred.  Restoring relationships is peacemaking, and peacemaking is hard work. Its not easy to resolve conflict, whether it be between Israel and Palestine or in the interpersonal realm.. Peace making is not avoiding conflict nor is peacemaking  appeasement, but it is  always  a tough hard slog.  I do not know about any of you, but now that I have crossed the big age bar, and as friends die, I feel the need to set certain things right somehow,  not over events but with people whom I discarded and rejected or who rejected me over the years because of perceived affronts to ego. I want to act while there is still time. But how to do it in a way that is not self serving, uber soapy, and obnoxious?  I do not have an answer yet, but I have thought about a few prerequisites. I have never been a good listener, I am a talker, so I am  trying to learn to listen more, and it is a chore.  I also know that I have to take the initiative, not postpone, not put it off to later, because delay only deepens resentment and makes things worse. I know little about you, but I know that I have a few peace conferences to schedule with certain people I have avoided now for a long time, and I am working up the neve to take the first step.  I want to get myself in the mood  to listen, to using my ears more than my mouth; I know I will  need to acknowledge what was my fault; that how I say what I say will be as important as what I say, and I need to keep emotions in check so I can address the problem and not castigate the person; I also know that I may not be able to resolve the problem, but I must try to  reconcile with the person.  It helps me to think it that way, focus on reconciliation not on resolution, its OK to have differing opinions, it is not OK to flush other people  down the proverbial loo. 

The Old Irish used to talk about the time to make your soul, the Hindus about  the successive stages of life, what ever the  age, the time is always ripe  to put things right.  

Uriah Heap is one of literature’s most obnoxoius characters. His very name makes one’s  skin crawl.  Desception, disloyalty, conspiracy, betrayal all cloaked in the   guise of his mother’s summons to submissive huimility.  If that is humility,  little wonder few  aspire to be humble.

The virtua of humility is at the heart of Islam, submission in humility to Allah, of  Sikhism, Hinduism and of course in both  Old and New Testament teaching. The invitation to a balanced ego is universal.  In jest, Oliver Wendell Holmes described it as the first of the virtures, —for other people.

In my occasonal consciouusness examinations I soemtimes pose the following questions  even as  I  look at the summer Tee Shirt my sons provided  emblazened with the slogal  “Im kind of a big deal”, and  I am conscous of the following : 1] I am   far too often influenced by what others think of me. 2} I challoenge myself with the questions, do i pretend  always  to be either richer or smarter or nicer than I really am?.and why?  3] I ask myself  why I need to atrract attention and fill the room?   In my interior being I do not  want to  gloat over praise on one hand, or be discouraged by criticism on the other.  Nor do I want to  waste time weaving imaginary situations in which the most heroic, charming, witty person present is myself.

Alas, I am guilty of all the above and much more. Perhaps humiity is about recognizing that one is ordinary, and I most assuredly do not want to be ordinary.  You know I would probably have needed little prompoting to take the first bite  of the original apple.  Its freeing to recognize that sometimes one wants to play God.

It’s another one of those days on the calendar when one is supposed to pause, take note and celebrate. Part of me  prefers to ignore it, but I am forbidden. My number one son Jonathan came home from LA , as he always does on this day, and my number two son flew off to London. There is a message there. I am grateful for them both.  Jonathan is a writer and considers me a rank amateur, a want-to-be romantic transplant from 19^th century England. Nevertheless his gift to me  was my very own blog   https://whispersfrombabylon.wordpress.com/    You may find his description of what it is to be used for guttural, graphic but true. I invite you all to follow me there if you are so inclined

1946 is a long way away. Indeed, It’s in another century. Consider for a moment those intervening years, and how different the world is today from that whence we sprang.  While grateful for the well-spring that is our  past, I really have no desire to romanticize it.   We grew up in a world more similar to  fascist Quebec in the 1950’s than to  more advanced and open democratic societies. We were trained to be bigots. Pius XII was both Prince and Fascist, and I apologize to this day for what we could have and did not do during the Shoah [Holocaust]  Ours was a paternalistic, authoritarian, clerically dominated world where free thought was not encouraged. In fact, if anyone dared, they were immediately ostracized and suppressed.   I was among the most compliant, and learned very early to play the right games.  I entered  into the heart of our religious heritage, self-appropriated all of it, and then was graced by Jesuit intellects to grow beyond it and them.  I don’t know how many of you know this, but I was supposed to do doctoral studies not at Cambridgeunder Owen Chadwick  but at Tubingen under Hans Kung. Gregory Baum had arranged for me to study with Kung and pushed me hard. I chose not to go, not because I didn’t want to, but because I feared the German Examination called the “Rigorosa”,  a comprehensive on everything in your field; and the thought of having to do that in German scarred me silly.  Instead I went off to  Harvard for a month to check it out, didn’t like the United States at the time, and thankfully escaped  to wonderful and glorious England.  Kung has since been sort of excommunicated, not allowed to teach, even though he was the main reason Tubingen  hired his old friend Josef Ratzinger.  I still wonder what I would have turned into had I spent three or four years with Kung.

Like Quebec we Newfoundlanders will now travel through our own period of reaction. In the 1950 Quebec was the most conservative and highly  religious cultures in the world, with more in common with Franco’s Spain than with France. We were not all that dissimilar. Today Quebec is one of the most secular cultures in the world, religion is firmly on the side-lines, and fascism has given way to democratise socialism.  Are we not going through our own similar ‘Quiet Revolution”? Will we yet see the NDP govern our Province?  Will we lose our rich spiritual heritage as we cast aside religious paternalism and triumphalism?  Will we drift into secular authoritarianism as easily and as readily as we embraced religious authoritarianism? Or will we discover our own via media? Who knows?

My focus has also began to turn to more immediate and personal issues. My friends seem to dying before they should, and most months I am forced to grieve and confront my own limitedness and mortality.  Ultimately we are all alone, no matter how intimate the marriage, and that too grows in my consciousness.  I have also begun to feel my own ‘limitedness’, some of the old bravado has diminished, new consciousness dawns, and very old friends are making contact again.  This week I heard from Linda Inkpen, one of the brightest minds I encountered in my youth, and a dynamic female leader way before her time.  I love reconnecting. Number two son is now in London with Moya Greene and her daughter Mary Angela, and I heard from Moya Friday, one of those amazing Newfoundland women not sufficiently  acclaimed.  I am also connected to Patricia White, a national media anchor at the age of 23, a career media star, and another accomplished Newfoundlander not sufficiently celebrated. This year has also brought me in contact with Greg Power’s son, a man who has taken up the torch of making us all proud of who we are, with Seamus O’Reagan, now out and married, and a truly delightful human being. On our own  front, I am determined to fly down even if only for a couple of days to visit Jim Prowse, among other things.  I don’t understand the urge, I just know I have to do it.

To conclude, allow me to celebrate all of you, you who have run the race, taken the transcendental turn, and moved beyond the illusion of your own self-containment.  Ad multos annos!

Saturday, 03 December 2011

I think it was Samuel Johnson who wrote that few things in life surprised him, but there were some which astonished him. Being honest, I confess I read the quote in one of Conrad’s Black’s recent articles about Quebec in The Post.  I suppose what I want to say this morning is that I am never surprised by selfishness, egocentrism, self-destructive behaviour and the whole list of ‘evils’ all of us encounter in ourselves and others. But I am genuinely astonished by ‘goodness’, by an unexpected good turn, by  the generosity and helpfulness of others.    Over the past few months I have reached out to far away St. John’s for help, and I am very very grateful for the response. I need to especially thank Richard Stocker and Ed Shorthall for their references to painters, and I need to thank Regina O’Keefe for taking the time to fill me on land development particulars in CSB.   Few of us say thank you as often as we might, and I am certainly one who doesn’t, so thank you all!

Last Sunday night a few of us ex-pat Newfoundlanders gathered in my house to watch John Doyle’s movies about his Father, Gerald S. Doyle.  I may have mentioned this before but I want to mention it again. Those of you who have not seen it should pick up a copy. [I had Jim Brokenshire of Fred’s send me a copy.]  Because we live so far away, it is cheaper for me to fly to see my son in LA, and because many of us have been away for so long, we tend to romanticize our home.  We all loved it, and all of this week I have been receiving emails from the people who watched it with us conveying how much they were touched.  Thank you again  to John and Marjorie for capturing something that might have been lost.

Today is the day a man named Francis Xavier is remembered.  Recall those red robed creatures in Shogun.  Born in Spain, educated at the University of Paris, and buried in Goa in India, this man was a real mover and shaker, one of the early Westerners in Japan and in China, and a geographic trailblazer, even if you forget all that pouring water on the head missionary  stuff.

Friday, 05 August 2011

From Huron Ridge in Port Carling Ontario:

I usually write when I am touched by something with which many of us can relate. Sometimes I write out of abundance of gratitude and joy to have been born where I was born, and to have grown up with all of you. At other times, I write out genuine sadness. I do not mean to be morbid or depressing, but I ‘feel’ for the travails of others, and take no joy in their sufferings.  I skim  The Telegram on line most mornings, and seldom miss the Obituaries. In days gone by it was to keep abreast of the passing of my parents friends, these days I encounter more of my own.

I usually love the first week of August, and look back with a fondness on  Regatta Day, a fondness  based more on  myth than reality.  Nevertheless, after 50 years, I still know when it takes place and search out the weather, the times, and the results.  This week was no different, but at the same time  it was quite different. The pictures and stories  that greeted me this week were quite painful.

Whatever all of you may think of former Premier Brain Tobin, I have nothing but good memories of him and his wife. I have lunch with him here occasionally, our next is scheduled for September, and I owe him a real debt of gratitude for what he did for my oldest son Jonathan.  Brian used to be a Director at  Lionsgate Films, and it was through his good auspices that my oldest son Jonathan obtained his first internship in Hollywood. Fathers never forget such kindnesses, and neither shall I.  The visible pain on the face of Brian and his wife Jodean can only really be understood by parents.  I  think back to all those nights when my two were going through the drinking stage, and marvel aloud that there but for the grace of God go many of us, most certainly me and mine.   My heart goes out to Jack Tobin and to his parents. It also goes out to his deceased friend and his parents. No one of us should have to endure the death of a child. But my focus this week is on the son of my friend and I have absolutely  nothing to offer but remembrance in prayer.

I was pained too by the picture of Ray Lahey. I have ceased being angry, now I am just saddened.  My heart too goes out to his family  whom many of us know and who carry this burden of shame.  A friend of mine wondered aloud if Lahey would get less of a sentence than Tobin, and the comment both put me off and made me uncomfortable.

There was another story I read this week which touched many of us and left me even more saddened.  I leave them  and all the others in the hands of God.

Sunday, 16 January 2011

I have long been fascinated by the wonderfully diverse and complex lives of the people I have encountered through the course of my pilgrimage of grace. I love to reflect on these lives still being lived, and to celebrate their uniqueness and their richness.  In some instances I reflect on people only recently met, and in others, it is matter of renewed acquaintance.    “Ex pat” Newfoundlanders are prominent in my reflections, and they are to be found in every nook and cranny of the world.  There are many  who make us particularly proud.

In Toronto parlance, the West Coast [British Columbia not Corner Brook] is often called the “Left Coast’. Our own ‘La La Land’, lotus country, the home of radical unions and sometimes equally radical ‘alternative’ life styles.  It is a truly glorious place, with all the gifts of the biggest of seas, and the awesomeness of the mountains.  It is understandable that Newfoundlanders would migrate to such a place.

I recently became reacquainted with a rather successful Human Resources and Labour Relations Specialist who successfully juggles 2800 BC Trade Unionists, three different Unions, and who in the past eighteen months negotiated not one but seven challenging Collective Agreements.   His personal evolution has taken him through most of natural resource rich Canada, from Labrador and Hibernia,to all over the Great White North, and thence to the most challenging Union environment of the lot, British Columbia.   His has truly been an exciting and challenging  life well lived, but it is  also a personal  journey he would probably never have embarked upon if at one point he had not been fired for insubordination.     A family man with a wife of forty plus years, two children and now four grandchildren, he is still plugging away making a difference.

we know him as that fellow who joined us from Topsail. He is our own Harold Mercer, and he is still living and loving on Vancouver Island in BC. I celebrate him!

An ode of English plurals

To all you lovers of language

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let’s face it – English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England .

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing,
grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and
get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
in which your house can burn up as it burns down,
in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and
in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother’s not Mop?

Sunday, 28 November 2010

History helps us understand why we are who we are, and ours is a melange of the compliant and authoritarian nineteen fifties, with just a touch of the total social blow  out of the late sixties. We are true “in-betweeners”,  mostly ‘jock’, but with a hint of rebel. Not so those who immediately followed us, the younger siblings of Collins and Angel and all. During my Jesuit sojourn, I was sentenced to teach at Gonzaga for ten months on the cusp on the seventh decade, was privileged to encounter some of them, and have kept in touch ever since.    Unbeknownst to many of you, when I come home, I always try to find time to meet with a group of those former Gonzaga inmates, and be updated. They also send me an occasional précis of where their minds are travelling.

Many have now rejected our religious inheritance as purely and simply  a vehicle of political and social mind control. They  also reject all of the visible manifestations of denominational adherence.   Catholicism commands  no more  of their  interest and attention than does Anglicanism or Hinduism, and recently they engaged me in a discussion on ‘intelligent design’, with some feeling it was not really necessary to postulate such a foundational base.  These are good caring intelligent men, and I listen to them carefully. They openly speculate on whether they have crossed over into atheism, and no, they are not angry.

If one believes the Big Bang theory, why bother with intelligent design?  Does belief in God necessitate we swallow one or another creation myths? Further, why bother swallowing out-dated mythology about an afterlife?  Why live for what is not and may never be? These men are not crusader atheists, they have simply rejected all the language and forms of the world in which we were raised.  Neither are they violently dogmatic about any of this, and many still leave room for “the just in case.”  We have surely travelled centuries in just a few decades.

I am neither surprised, offended, nor alienated by any of this.  I welcome their mature reflection on matters of faith and belief, their openness, and their inquiries. Neither am I so arrogant as to think it a stage that will pass. The ancienne régime is  past and well buried.  It shall not return.    But  I also personally still continue to hold firm to the existence of a spiritual reality that transcends man made religion.  In time I may elaborate further.

Wednesday, 24 November 2010

We are at a wonderful time in our lives, a time to look back and be grateful that we were born, raised  and grew to maturity when  and where we did.  We have seen neither war, pestilence nor famine. Ours was a world of more or just a little less, not a world of nothing. Very few of us have died, and catastrophic illness has thus far not decimated our ranks.  Alas we all know of friends, neighbours and colleagues who have not been so lucky, and today I am prompted to  think out loud to the friends of my youth.   It is not an easy subject, so be tolerant with my meanderings.

I have lost four good friends over the past ten months, one older than us by a couple of years, one our age, and two others just a little younger.   Witnessing  their last months  has left me puzzled and troubled, and not at all at peace.  In Canada, we are blessed to have a wonderful health care system. It has its fault and shortcomings, but we are generally well served, especially when we approach our final innings.  In Toronto, the hospitals in the University Health Network are staffed by men and women of international  renown, and  at home, your own Health Sciences  hospital is very well  rated. [do I have the name right?]   Nevertheless, some of what I encountered this year here has raised more questions than I have answers for, and seldom are my questions ever seriously addressed.

Allow me to begin where you least expect me to begin.  I have personally witnessed some amazing feats of medical science over the past year.  My cousin’s husband came up here from home for special treatment at Princess Margaret Cancer Hospital, and had a complete scalp replacement. Think about that miracle for a moment.  Another friend went  through two bone marrow procedures;  a third had two kidney transplants in the course of 18 months.  Modern Science certainly has the ability to  keep us going, but I am forced to ask at what cost?   I am not referring to the costs of the procedures, but rather to the  costs in quality of life.  I salute the bravery of my now departed friends who fought so hard to the very end, but I wonder if there is any room left  for the art of medicine? I wonder how many specialists and oncologists  ever look back and ask, should I have done that procedure? Did I not just prolong suffering and unnecessarily prolong departure? I need to know  that they do ask such questions, and I hope they do. Lying on a hard bed in a white room with tubes projecting from every orifice , poisoned by chemo therapy, skeletal men half their former sizes, barely able to stand as they are officially stabilized to allow for the next round or series of procedures, is not a good death.    To be brutally frank, what I have witnessed over the past ten months  scares the hell out of me, and I never  want to put my loved ones or myself through it.  But how do I stop it, and will I want to when my day dawns.  I don’t know. What I do know is that I stand in awe of the miracles wrought by science, that I do not fear death, but I am scared as hell about the processing of dying.

Happy American Thanksgiving!