In grade 5, in the 2-room country school (Renfrew) in Saskatchewan, I made the softball team. There weren't many to choose from so the odds were in my favor. I played third base and one of our first games was against the town (Hague) boys. We rural kids didn't often play against the town kids; they were strangers to us farm kids. But somehow, our teacher had arranged a game. We expected to get clobbered … but then, we didn't. We won in one of the more lopsided scores of all time. Forty-nine to 4. In that moment, the world had righted itself in our favor. We were the Cinderellas of the Renfrew community for about a week. It was a big deal to beat the town boys and I suspect we became a little cocky because in a return game, we lost, 12-10. I remember we had a hard time swallowing that loss, after our over-the-top win a couple of weeks earlier. But things were back to as we 'knew' them to be.
Aside from the fun of telling that old story, is there a point? It's about how the world feels these days, even more so than back when I was in grade 5. We are divided on many fronts. It's an us vs them world. They vs us. Could it ever become about all of us again? Town kids and rural kids, not intimidated by or ignorant of the other? During covid, year one, that was the language. We are all in this together, we kept hearing. So what happened that we so quickly moved back to winning and losing?
Our parliamentarians in Canada, all grown, mature?? people show little inclination on any given day, to even acknowledge that they are all part of the government, all with important roles, all deserving of each other's acknowledgement, at the very least. It doesn't happen. Could there not be a conciliatory way for our leaders to talk about each other? Disagree all you want, but try to be civil about it? I'm quite sure that Canadians would resoundingly respond if even one politician actually spoke respectfully of the other side. We are made for decency and respect.
Greg Locke, a evangelical mega pastor in the USA, in one of the more absurd actions I've seen on any stage, decided he needed to make some point about the Barbie movie, so he taped a Bible to a baseball bat, shouted about demons and how to destroy them, and then proceeded to bash a Barbie doll house to smithereens. I have no idea how that is possibly any kind of testimony to the Jesus Mr Locke professes, but there he was, in full action mode, defending some terribly important truth? With a baseball bat. (Our granddaughters have barbie dolls, by the way, and Kathy and I liked the movie. There's a lot in that script.)
As a young teacher, I was teaching a grade 12 English course to adult students in Northern Alberta. One of our students was an older gentleman, pastor of one of the more conservative churches in the area. The course required him to read Fahrenheit 451. It's a difficult story, and there is colorful language to get through, so I suggested that if he preferred, I'd be happy to suggest an alternative book. No, he said, I can see past the language and there is lots to learn in the story. My elderly student has passed away, but I wish Greg Locke could have spent an hour with him.
Darrel Heidebrecht, formerly of MCC Alberta, worked with young offenders in Calgary for many years. His work involved getting young offenders to meet with the people they had harmed, in an effort, maybe, to get to know each other just a little, and to acknowledge that the other is, also, a human being with a story. There was never any pressure. The victim or offender could walk away if they wished, at any time. But they rarely did, once they were sitting in a room across from each other, and more often than not, after an hour or two of listening to each other, the person who had been harmed would begin to view the offender as more than just a guilty 'offender'. No one was being let off easy, nor was the purpose to look for alternate sentencing. But almost without exception, once people spent a bit of time together, with someone present to help the conversation along, what was until then two sides entrenched in their stories, became two sides, also interested in each other's stories. Look for a third way, Darrel sometimes said. It's never just about one or the other.
Saturday's Calgary Herald had a full page (E3) about Alexander McCall Smith. Well, it's not so much about him as it is about the books he writes, particularly the 23-book series, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (of Botswana). I've read 19 of them. They're all kind of similar with Mma Ramotswe being the ever curious, so always patient, bush tea drinking detective who somehow manages to work with her assistants (there are several by book 19) none of whom are particularly good at being detectives. Still, she keeps them on, nudges them a bit, this way and that, sometimes rebukes, but always carefully. She, with her people, solves the problems of other people, almost consistently without pitting them one against another. She's a woman, so she often runs into people who assume being a detective in Botswana is a man's job. But she figures out how to work with men who are, as she might say, a little traditional. She thinks a lot, and she solves problems by trying, one way or another, to understand what happened to create the problem she is hired to solve. Most of the time, no one goes to jail. McCall Smith says, 'the cement that holds a society together – it should be a personal cement of courtesy and consideration'.
The 23 books are based, says McCall Smith, on African customary law. Traditional African Jurisprudence, he says was concerned about reconciliation, whereas, in our (British) system, someone is always right and someone is wrong. There is a harshness and a lack of mercy and a need to blame, and always to 'hold someone to account'. 'Quite a few pyschiatrists, says McCall Smith, say they recommend these stories to patients. 'Ramotswe', he says, 'helps people deal with the normal sadnesses of life.'
In a FB post yesterday, Anne Lamott writes, in her usual edgy style, about the end of summer. She quotes Jeremiah when he says 'the harvest is past … and we are not saved.' It's very hard here on earth, all of the time for some, and some of the time for the rest of us, she writes. Right. Also, it's late August and BC is still burning. Peaches are over ripe. It's now all just about apples and apples and apples, and soon, sweaters. And with Jeremiah, she says, it's easy to become lost in pessimism and 'where did this glorious summer go'? So what do we do?, Lamott asks? We behave gently, she says, towards people, no matter how annoying they are. And she quotes her friend Janine, who heard someone else say … that they no longer bring a bat to resolve problems; now they just try to remember to clean the lenses of their glasses.
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