Doing Good

"We shall pass this way on Earth but once, if there is any kindness we can show, or good act we can do, let us do it now, for we will never pass this way again."

Stephen Grellet

In my attempt to avoid politics for the next week, at least in my writings, I thought I would start off by pondering how we measure kindness without becoming condescending or consciously becoming a do-gooder for egoistic reasons. I was listening to an interview of the author of “Don’t Label Me” (Irshad Manji) which I thought was very fascinating because it really delved deeply into one’s need to listen to other people without an agenda. It struck me that quite often even though we may be listening with empathy there is a secret agenda to somehow influence or change that person in one way or other. Mea culpa. One doesn’t always intentionally have this agenda but frequently it will creep in during the conversation.

I don’t know that I have more to say on this - just be kind, as Ellen says.

Positive Reinforcement

Even the most positive of folks (that would include me) needs a boost now and then. Here in my office I have one bookshelf dedicated to self-help, self-improvement, spirituality, creativity and daybook inspirations along with some odd sod reading. On the other book shelf I have my classic books and childhood reads and THEN I have a small stack of extra books that haven’t found their way to the bookshelves in the basement. The reason for the delay is the shelves have not been put back up after the flood last year. I am really starting to get anxious about those repairs which I sincerely hope will happen soon.

The good news is that John’s arthritis woes seem to be abating and he thinks it is in large part to his refraining from eating red meat. Instead he has been eating a lot of seafood and a little bit of chicken. Apparently red meat is very inflammatory (good to know, eh?). The new Canada Food Guide suggests that folks should eat less meat overall and more plant based foods to stay healthy and avoid obesity. Apparently some farmers are quite upset about the new guidelines because their bottom line may be affected. Hmm, is this another one of those teachable moments like “Let’s Talk about Being Selfish”? I remember reading those books to my nieces and nephews when they were little. It would appear that grown-ups didn’t get the message loud and clear.

But I digress from the need for positive reinforcement! I have rediscovered Christiane Northrup’s “Making Life Easy” which has a lot of instruction on health as well as tapping into the Divine. I’ve put that one back on my night table for morning reading. I am preparing myself already for when I start my Palliative Care counselling (which I hope will start next week). Yep, I am a keener!

I will keep you posted on this progress but at the same time I don’t want to burden my readers with too much of the “hard stuff”.  That said, I am doing well.

Black History Month

Last year I found myself weeping day after day as I watched various programs documenting Black History. I kept looking over at Mom and saying “it makes me so sad and so upset”. She couldn’t understand why I was so upset since it “wasn’t my truth” but in reality, racism is all of our collective truth because whether we have it or not we are living in a world that has it. The onus is on us every single day to say no to acts that we believe are motivated by hate, dislike, racism, whatever you want to call it. Ditto for homosexuality.

We are CIVILIZED PEOPLE and I insist that it is possible for us to tolerate individuals for who they are without judgment or reservation. I will believe with my last breath that we, the people, are better than this. We are not perfect but we are not subhuman. Giving in to intolerance is wicked, simply wicked.

These “nationalist” or “populist” right-wing politicians here in Canada (and around the globe) should be boo’d out of even running for office. Basement religion has no place in politics nor in society. Jesus Christ would never have been intolerant and if you religious folks would bother to listen to the lectures on both the Old and New Testaments you would understand how manipulated “the Word” really is. So NO – religion as such has no place in this conversation of tolerance except TO BE TOLERANT.

Persuasion

I just finished reading “Persuasion” by Jane Austen which is my favorite of her books. I am on a re-reading kick of all my favorites since I am finding it impossible to get engaged in new works. I am just not finding new books up to my standard. The themes don’t interest me very much which is perhaps because I find they relate to the world we are living in today and sadly I have enough of that to deal with daily so don’t want it to interfere with fantasy land.

One of the things my book club members will say about me is that I am one who likes at least one of the characters to be upright and moral. It may seem boring and unrealistic but I believe that if we don’t surround ourselves with values they will disappear. When you look at the unbelievable amount of scandal we have faced in the last two years can you doubt me?

Virtue is moral excellence and it is something that we ought to be looking for in our leaders but seldom find. When I say “leaders” I not only mean our politicians but corporate leaders and community leaders. Today we find that people tend to look for “celebrity” rather than virtue in their icons. Those who are at the top got to the top on the backs of the people and now in their success they want to trickle down some of their wealth and “make a difference”.

Sorry pal but the ship has sailed; you are not redeemable after the fact. I don’t say that from a Christian principle (which would prove me wrong of course) but from a reality check. Attempting to fix an educating problem in Chicago, for example, by suddenly pouring money into some school or education fund will not help those who missed the boat a decade or two ago. These families are now in a cycle of underpaid jobs (at best) and at worst are into an underworld we don’t even want to acknowledge. Starting food banks or other charitable concerns is attempting to rectify something that should never have occurred in the first place. The failure stems from YOU NOT PAYING YOUR FAIR SHARE OF TAXES FROM THE GET-GO.

I repeat, the failure stems for corporations not paying their fair share of taxes from the beginning.

Don’t take my word for it, read the books I suggested a few days ago, all of them will affirm this lamentable fact.

Our Better Angels

Last week I listened to Doris Kearns Goodwin speak about the results of the election and she quoted Lincoln with the hope that “our better angels” would lead the American people into a better mindset than the one they are currently exposed to. The quote inspired me to search further into it and I came upon an article respecting Steven Pinker’s book “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Had Declined” which was published in 2011. Somehow I think since its publication things have changed, but that is neither here nor there at the moment.

I have not read the book but I read quite a summary of the book on Wikipedia and I found some elements of the book intriguing and worth mentioning today.

Pinker examines four motives that "can orient humans away from violence and towards cooperation and altruism." He identifies:

1. Empathy: which "prompts us to feel the pain of others and to align their interests with our own."

2. Self-Control: which "allows us to anticipate the consequences of acting on our impulses and to inhibit them accordingly."

3. The Moral Sense: which "sanctifies a set of norms and taboos that govern the interactions among people in a culture." These sometimes decrease violence but can also increase it "when the norms are tribal, authoritarian, or puritanical."

4. Reason: which "allows us to extract ourselves from our parochial vantage points."

In today’s divisive world these 4 elements seem to be lost on many people as they simply try to enforce their beliefs on others and refuse to listen to an opinion that differs from theirs. First of all one ought to at least give the other person a chance to say their piece and when the listener then says “well, that is interesting but I don’t believe it” then the first person ought to let the issue rest there and move on to asking about the weather (a sage piece of advice from Sense and Sensibility). There is no use in arguing with someone about your beliefs with they have already made up their mind. It behooves a civilized person to accept them for who they are and socialize on indifferent matters.

I write this in the context of political matters and not on values or principles which I believe can still be discussed without anyone getting hysterical. At least so far that has been my experience.

In the past one could speak on politics without anyone’s panties getting in a twist but today, thanks to the man who shall not be named, only insanity can reign if one is not on the same side of the discussion. It is rather alarming to think that one idiot on the planet can make people doubt “mainstream media” simply because he cannot abide anyone crossing him!

 

Core Beliefs

I take the following amazing message from Deepak’s meditation today, in full:

Day 12 - Core Beliefs Make Us Who We Are

In today’s meditation, we look at how the changes that happen in our body and mind over the course of our life is largely determined by the core beliefs we hold. These core beliefs are deeper than the beliefs we generally think about. They deal with issues of identity, a sense of the fairness of life, and our beliefs about what is worth pursuing. Core beliefs actively shape our every thought, attitude, feeling, action, and reaction. Positive, life-affirming core beliefs will promote the vitality of our body and mind, while negative, self-defeating core beliefs undermine our energy and well-being.

The most powerful way to transform our old core beliefs is through the direct experience of ever-present awareness in meditation. Infinite, unbounded consciousness transcends all beliefs and realigns our life with the evolutionary forces of Nature within.

“Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind . . .  it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.” — Samuel Ullman

Perhaps these ideas are not new to you but my question is – how often do you think about your core beliefs? Are they beliefs that you are aware of daily, weekly, once in a while, never? Do you know what beliefs you hold and are they positive and life-affirming? Here’s what I find alarming in myself; I am not sure what my core beliefs are in the sense that I haven’t written down a list itemizing I believe this or that; if I did, would it be useful? I have a nebulous consciousness of knowing what I believe are essential values in life such as living by the Ten Commandments (more or less), do unto others, social consciousness, etc. But are these the sort of beliefs Deepak has in mind?

I guess my point for today is perhaps we should dwell a little about some of the things we believe and is there more to our core beliefs than we really know? Mind bending, it is.

John Maxwell on Thinking

Looking at an Open Mind, Fixed vs. Growth Mindset and Political Correctness leads me to a positive venture in thinking as seen by John Maxwell.  His book “Jumpstart your Thinking” really made a great impression on me and I followed through on his “work book” to such an extent that I realized many goals in my retirement (and prior to my cancer diagnosis).  There is Synchronicity with Dweck’s work in that it definitely can assist in altering your style of thinking to your own betterment.  He uses the following list of thinking experiences or versions:

 

·         Big Picture

·         Focused

·         Creative

·         Realistic

·         Strategic

·         Possibility

·         Reflective

·         Uncommon

·         Shared

·         Unselfish

·         Bottom Line

He considers them as building blocks and suggests that you will become a better thinker which in turn will change your life.  It certainly changed my life, not once, but twice.  First by allowing me to achieve many goals in the first read and my retirement goals.  Secondly, when I re-read the book and my notes I had that amazing Epiphany that I must think outside the box created by my illness.  Instead of limiting myself to a short term life I decided that I should remain optimistic and look at my 100+ year plan when working on my property, my writing or whatever else I should take on.  Why limit myself?  And why should you?

“Nothing limits achievement like small thinking, nothing expands possibilities like unleashed thinking.”  William Arthur Ward

Edna Ferber - Some More Thoughts

I just have a little more to say about Edna Ferber.  It seems that her writing have fallen out of favour which is a crying shame.  I think with the times we are experiencing now, in America but also around the world, her take on humanity has real value.  

Ferber wrote many books on the expansion in America focusing on the value of the immigrants’ who helped build America, the Polish, the Jews, the Dutch, the American pioneers; in books such as Cimarron, So Big, American Beauty, Ice Palace, Giant and Come & Get It.  In her obituary the remark was “Her books were not profound [well, I take exception here] but they were vivid and had a sound sociological basis.”  In today’s society we have new immigrants who are bringing their work ethic into the country.  In particular the Philippine people are outstandingly hard workers and keep their funds inside the country to help the economy.

 

Do we have challenges today with immigration?  Yes, but overall the majority of the people who enter our country or well-vetted, decent people who just want to have a good life away from war and strife and poverty.  Looking through Edna Ferber’s lens of compassion, curiosity and acceptance I think we can all learn some valuable lessons in being multi-cultural.  It’s not easy, but that’s life. 

 

That’s the velvet.

Second Yale Course - The Old Testament

In the spring I told my readers about the New Testament course I was taking on Open Yale and how much I enjoyed the learnings.  Christine Hayes is another brilliant professor and her knowledge of the Hebrew Bible (as she continually referred to the Old Testament, correctly) is profound.  Once again I admit that I learned so much about the historical development of this part of the bible.  Understanding the history of the Israelites and how their canon was written is very rewarding.  You may recall how disgusted I was as I read the Old Testament through as part of my year of reading the bible cover to cover.  I now have a very different perspective on the stories contained in the bible and why there was so much admonition going on throughout most of it.  Anyone wanting true knowledge of the history of the bible would find both courses rewarding.

Would a study of the “history” of the bible cause a person to lose faith in God or their religion?  I think it is possible if one has relied heavily on their bible for the source of their faith.  One is taught that “all scripture is inspired by God” and clearly you will learn that this is doubtful since many of the stories have strong parallels in other, older religions of (for example) Canaanites and Assyrians.  As well, you will learn that there are many conflicting ideas in different books of the bible.  Doubt is thrown on the existence of notable writers as well as characters of the bible.  With respect to the character and teachings of Jesus, in particular, there is a lot of doubt and conflict of what the various books of the New Testament propound to be his teachings.

Nevertheless if one has faith in God regardless of the “holiness” of the bible, have no fear, you will not be shaken.  Instead, you will actually come away with a greater regard for humanity and a better appreciation of people’s struggle to understanding the meaning of life.  Our ancestors were as confused, doubtful and seeking as we few, we happy few, are today.

More on that tomorrow.

A Page Turner of a Book

On January first I began my year of bible reading with the guide assuring me that I can do this in one year.  Let me tell you that there is some very racy stuff in this book and the danger is that I will leap ahead of the daily requirement!

It’s not that I haven’t read Genesis before and my thoughts this time are very much the same as they were the first time I read when Abraham tells the Canaanites “take her, she’s my sister, not my wife”.  What a cowardly shit, is what I thought.  Who the hell does that to his wife?  Then his son Isaac does the same thing with his wife, like father like son.  Shitheads, both of them, is what I thought.

Oh, did I say that out loud?  Never mind Abraham and Isaac, I thought God was a shithead too when he told Abraham to go out and sacrifice Isaac.  What kind of god does something like that?   I remember thinking that when I was a little kid and we learned that story in our bible class at school.  What?  I thought.  That is just wrong.

When I studied with the Jehovah’s Witnesses they tried to tell me that there was a meaning behind it all but my stubborn mind looks at bible reading this way; this is a narrative and you cannot cherry pick what is a story, what is an allegory and what has a deeper meaning.  The story is the story and when God tells Abraham to go out and kill Isaac that is a test too great for any god to put on a man.  I don’t like it, not at all.

Furthermore, over and over again God tells the various patriachs that he is going to give them all these lands and yet they go roving around in “foreign lands” for hundreds upon hundreds of years.  What kind of shit is that?

I’ll tell you what kind of shit it is; the kind of shit that is still going on in the Middle East.  I do not like this type of mentality where everything is just a leetle bit off kilter.  I’m a straight thinking girl and I do not like this kind of sharp dealing.  There is a very sharp contrast between the thinking in the Old Testament and that of the New . . . and I am not even finished with Genesis yet!

Evaluation

According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolotion or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".

 

Alfred Nobel's will further specified that the prize be awarded by a committee of five people chosen by the Norwegian Parliament.  Nobel died in 1896 and he did not leave an explanation for choosing peace as a prize category.

            Over the 100+ years since the institution of the Nobel Peace prize there have been some controversy over some of the winners.  This year three women were awarded the prize.  Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia, Leymah Gbowee also of Liberia and a peace activist and Tawakul Karman a journalist from Yemen "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work."  Researching each of the women on Wikipedia my first thought is "why all 3" when Leymah Gbowee appears to be a strong candidate all on her own?  She co-founded a peace movement that brought about the end of the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003 and has clearly been an activist for peace.  I don’t mean to disparage the other ladies hard work but sometimes it seems to me that the Nobel committee doesn’t send a clear message when there are co-recipients.

            Despite all the advances of human rights in the western world women’s recognition is still far behind that of men.  We are still a long way from being equal, just ask the female professors at the University of Calgary who are paid on average 20% less than their male counterparts.  There’s a shocker for you.  The banking industry is notorious for being discriminatory towards women.  Articles like to soften the discrimination by saying some of it is caused by women themselves, or that bosses are doing their female staff a favour by “covering” for them and not asking them to take on “challenging” roles.  Thanks but we do know the value of money and no matter what we are in it for the money.  I don’t get up at 4:00 a.m. every morning because I like it.  I do this because I am going where the money is – downtown Calgary.  If I could make the same money in my little town, naturally I would do so. 

            When women are recognized, I feel good for the ladies but also for womankind in general.  There are so many unsung heroines in the world today. Don’t be our own worst enemy.  Self evaluation should be to the good.  Avoid self deprecation and blow your own horn.   Your worth it.

The Hunger Games

Last night I stayed up late reading The Hunger Games and of course that’s what I dreamt about. I was sleeping up in a tree just like Katniss and almost rolled out of bed doing the upside down branch roll! Poor Thumper let out a big meow and leaped from the bed which startled me awake! It was pitch dark so I realized it must be midnight and went back to sleep only to end back in the dream. Don’t you just love a book that you can dive right in to and live the story? These days it doesn’t happen very often to me even when I enjoy the book immensely but this book is really grabbing my attention.

I love stories, shows, movies and articles about survival after the world has gone south (so to speak J ). It continues to fascinate me how other folks think people will react. Unfortunately they all think the same thing, that we humans will revert to the lowest form of animal. As I’ve written in the past I do think that humanity is disappointingly unevolved considering what individuals are capable of. After a lot of thinking about the cause I conclude that it is the few that are bringing down humanity.

The few being the greedy bastards at the top of the pile.

Did I say that out loud? Yes I did. The rest of us have the heart and the will to be good people but we are constantly manipulated by others with more money and more power who can control what we are supposed to be thinking. Few of us are raised up as individualists so we tend to believe what our peers believe. And that belief comes from generations of being taught status quo is good. This seems to be particularly true in Alberta. We can make fun of the hillbillies in Alabama but I am afraid there are people in Alabama more enlightened than some of the people I meet in Alberta.

Should I have titled this “How To Win Friends and Influence People”? Just think about our political process. Currently the Conservatives are voting for a new leader and it seems like one of the old guard may get in. Think about the fact that we’ve had a Conservative government here for over 40 years. Wouldn’t you think that it would be good to shake up the legislature and get new blood in just so we could audit the books? Seriously? Pretty much everyone in this province thinks that we are prosperous because the Conservatives were in power. Did you notice the fact that we started to get rich when Texas started running out of oil and suddenly Alberta’s oil reserves were the next best thing to gold? In fact, better. Agriculture runs a distant second in our economic equation.

My point is that people have come to believe this mantra as strongly as they believe the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt vote conservative or you will go to hell in a hand basket.

If the unthinkable happens and you survive the chaos left behind, how would you hope you would behave? Like a civilized human being or like an animal forced to kill other humans in the fight for food? The challenge is to think outside the box you were given and start looking for real answers in today’s world. Become an individualist not a follower.

Mind Plateau

I think I must have reached a mind plateau as I have been struggling with various themes to get back into my blog. This morning I was reading the latest O magazine; there was a section on women who had lost an incredible amount of weight and one woman talked about a mind plateau as part of the weight plateau phenomenon. Well, that resonated with me and opened up a window of thoughts and conversations in my mind.

The truth is that we can get stuck in our own conversations and that can be a dangerous thing. It’s important to hold on to one’s belief and essential truths, of course. However, we are not evolving as civilized, educated human beings if we don’t move past our initial learnings. Now for those who know me that may seem a little ironical because I certainly have some long held beliefs that anyone would have difficulty shaking out of me, such as my left leaning political beliefs. But I think no one would say that I don’t listen, and I mean really listen, to people spout off their own opinions. (poking fun at myself in case you don’t “hear” it). I listen to folks talk about their alien stories or their conspiracy theories and later I will mull them over to see what merit I can find in their beliefs.

Yesterday I had a discussion with my sister and my nephew which was voluable even though we were all three on the same side of the discussion. The discussion was centered around university students who parrot their parents’ political leanings without in any way understanding what they are saying. This astonishes us because being “university” students one would think they had an open mind. We are fooling ourselves because even though a person enters the “hallowed halls of learning” it doesn’t follow that these individuals are above average in intelligence nor does it mean that they are actually open to learning outside their comfort zone.

When an individual says “that’s the way it is” to end a discussion one wonders why he has even bothered to show up for the exposure to ideas in the first place. Yes, I am delusional if I think that education will necessarily open up a person’s mind to the idea that she is their to help make the world a better place! (Lest ye think we were wanting to "convert" anyone to our political thinking, it was simply an example of the way the discussions were going. People like these still think Darwin was crazy).

Oh dear, really? I thought I was here to make buckets of money so I can buy a BMW.

Once these people have received their degree, diploma, certificate or whatever they have reached a plateau in learning that never moves forward. That would be one of the reasons why the Teaparty is enjoying such success. The flower children and hippies have bred a couple of generations of right wing Republican rednecks that scare the beejesus out of me! The other day I was a captive audience in listening to a right winger nutbar inciting his audience to hate. Yes, to hate. Right on a Canadian radio station. We are to hate the uneducated and unemployed. It’s their fault they can’t get a job. And apparently there has been 40 years of left wing, bleeding hearts causing this sense of privilege and entitlement in the lower classes. Lower classes? Did he actually say lower classes here in Canada? Wow. Aristocrats. We have aristocrats in Canada?
I think mind plateaus are real but for some people the plateau only leads to the edge of a cliff.

Noah's Fortitude

I really don’t know how Noah and his family survived the Flood and the untold months of floating around with no dry land anywhere. I thought that hooking up the sump pump the other day had solved my problem but the constant rain defeated the pump and me. Even my lawn looks like a small sea, there is no place for the water to go so it has seeped through the cement in the basement. Erik and I worked like fiends last night but eventually my back gave out and Erik carried on alone. I lay in bed after taking a pain killer and speculated on various engineering feats that might solve the long term problem.

I’ve battled the waters before but I just don’t have the strength I used to have and if I plan to live to 116 I need some serious backup plans for disasters like flooding. Oh goodness, every time I look out the window I see more water. Perhaps when I am not faced with the present turmoil my brain will click in and I can figure this all out.

Meanwhile let us think a bit about fortitude. Today at book club we will be talking about the book “Half Broke Horses” which is a true life novel about Jeannette Walls’ grandmother in Texas and Arizona. What an interesting life this woman had and certainly she had that thing Texans call “grit”. Can you imagine riding on horseback several hundred miles to a strange town to become a school teacher? Can you imagine surviving a bigamist marriage in a big city like Chicago? Well, I’ve survived my share of drought, rains, snow storms and the like but still I have to admire a young woman who simply “moved on”. She didn’t have time for self pity and here I am going whah, whah, whah over a little water in my basement. J

It’s like I’ve said before, when things get tough you really need to take a look at the world around you and count yourself blessed. Things could be a heck of a lot worse than a little rain in the basement. Shame on me for being such a cry baby!

And by the way, my next critter is going to be named Noah. It’s about time.

Day Three - Home Stretch

This is the final day of my Writer’s Retreat and I already can say that it has been a very fulfilling experience. It has definitely reinforced my desire to write and has given a pathforward on one particular story that I have thought would be good to write. Yesterday we did a lot of writing exercises and then Karen taught us a lot about editing and graphic design. Today we are going to learn more about the publishing world. I must confess that I feel a little bit like a pretender when we talk about publishing and yet, OF COURSE, I want to be a published author. But I feel a bit shy about it too. I think this is one of those moments where Jennifer would say “Get out of your own way”.

I confessed to the room on Friday that I still have bad habits (LOL) that hold me back so here I go with one of them. The retreat is supposed to go to 5 or 6 but with the long drive back home I really feel I must leave no later than 1 which will get me home around 4. I just need that time to unwind on a Sunday night before I go to work tomorrow. If I land at home at 7 or 8 I know I will not be able to get to sleep and I will be bagged tomorrow. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour.

So forget my bad habits, I can work on them in a different context and just keep the energy flowing from this weekend. One thing, I still hate this netbook’s spacebar which just doesn’t seem to want to work. I should NOT have to whack it to get a space between my words. Karen asked us not to edit but I just had to put those spaces in place, it drove me nuts. OK another habit but STILL, who could understand run-on-words? It will be better on my home computer, I can free write without having to edit. I took so many notes on ideas that I can write for some days.

And now, brush my teeth, get dressed and go for another walk. This time with camera!