Faith in the shadow of Wal-Mart

Here is an interesting story about a Jesuit community in Guelph, Ontario that fought the arrival of a new Wal-Mart next door -- and lost.

Sometimes when you go out to "fight the good fight," you lose. And then, slowly, you win again.

The Secret

A friend of mine encouraged me to read a book called The Secret - knowing that I am interested in spiritual topics, she thought I might be interested. From the cover and introduction, I could see that this book was packaged together with all the brand awareness of a Chanel campaign, but a lot of self-help and spiritual books are written that way these days. There might still be an interesting point or two.

So that morning, with not much to do other than to sit by the fire with a good book, I cracked it open and started out. It did not take me long to be terribly offended by this narcissistic and offensive book. The book takes a good idea - the power of positive thinking - and combines it with a lot of the pop-cosmology ideas of other spiritually-themed books and films (such as What the Bleep do We Know? ) to create something truly monstrous.

The book starts out by hyping a faulty scientific premise - the notion that the greatest force in creation is something called 'the law of attraction.' Of course, scientists would find this premise ridiculous, since in physics, cosmology, and quantum mechanics, there are many different attractive and repulsive forces acting, from gravity and electromagnetism to dark energy and strong interaction. There's no single guiding principle that is thematically behind all of it, tying your wish for a camera phone to the nuclear bond inside a proton. But I am nitpicking. It is the philosophy of this book that is offensive, not the quaint pseudo-science.

The premise of the book, I began to realize in horror, is not just that positive thinking leads to positive results. The idea, it turns out, is that you are somehow cosmologically creating reality by thinking it. By really focusing on that colour camera phone, you are beginning to make it happen. We create our reality, we are Gods, actualizing the universe with our mental accessorizing.

First of all, there's plenty of plain evidence that this just is not true. Think about the implications - juvenile leukemia? Parents must have been thinking bad thoughts. Terrorists attacked your city? You must have wanted 'em to.

But the idea's wrongness is still not what makes it offensive. The absolute arrogance of it, the pride and ego it takes to concoct such a silly fantasy, belie the very humble place we actually occupy in the cosmos.

The character Job from the Book of Job gets it right. He tries to understand how he has come to his desperate situation, as he discusses with acquaintances whether it somehow was his fault in some way, or some cruelty of God's. God then goes on a long discourse pointing out to Job, in great detail, that in fact he knows quite little about the universe, what it is made of, or about any of its creatures (such as the Leviathan.) God, in short, does not have to explain anything to anyone. Far from being a 'creator of his reality', Job is made quite clear on the point that he cannot even expect to understand his reality!

He responds to God, "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be hindered. I have dealt with great things that I do not understand; things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know. I had heard of you by word of mouth, but now my eye has seen you. Therefore I disown what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes."

Fortunately, I was able to pick up another book to clear my head of this noxious stuff; Dick Staub's "Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters," in which he uses Star Wars as a catechism with which to explain Christianity. He has a chapter entitled, "The Lord of the Force You are Not."

And I think that sums it up succinctly.

Think positive? Yes! Absolutely. But do not mistake yourself for God. For that, you are not. Nor am I.

A second or two

When I was a boy I devoured science books. One of them (I still have it on my shelf) describes the timeline of the Earth as it would appear if the Earth were a year old.

I don't remember the exact time frames, but the Cambrian explosion of life - the appearance of trilobites, primitive relatives of squids and fishes, and early scorpion-like athropods - doesn't begin until the end of October. (The previous months feature only archobacteria, and then finally protozoans and simple worms, sponges, jellyfish, and other soft-bodied creatures.)

The dinosaurs and early dicynodonts (the early hairy ancestors of mammals) don't show up until mid-December. On December 26th, they die out, grass spreads across the fields, and cat-sized horses called Eohippus take their first trot.

On the eve of December 31st, strange upright creatures start exploring the open wooded areas of Africa, and soon become us. 10 minutes to midnight, the Neanderthals are the masters of Europe. Four minutes later, Homo Sapiens Sapiens takes the first steps towards civilization by inventing Agriculture. Twenty to ten seconds ago, the Bible narrative happened - in its entirety, from Abraham's wandering in Genesis to John seeing scrolls at Patmos in Revelation. And in the last second, the entire modern history of our continent took place.

How short a time we get to witness. Don't waste it. :-)

Out into the woods

So today, even though I was coughing and wheezing, my brother in law and I went out into the woods to fetch wood for the first time in about six weeks. As usual, half the dead trees we took hung up. One he pushed out of the limbs it was caught up in, the other I pulled right out of the tree it was caught in. (This sort of business is something we got carried away with last time - we hung up three huge oaks in the same pine, and cut the pine out from under them - we're lucky we didn't get killed!)

But despite all of our foolhardy bravado, it was good to get out into the woods again - fresh air, the sound of nothing but a woodpecker tapping away at a trunk, good hard work... it is a simple thing, but a "fully alive" moment I always look forward to.

And I also look forward to the hot sauna when we get back. And the lasagna my wife made. :-)

Fast Eddie Greenspan vs. Patrick "Scooter shooter" Fitzgerald

One of Canada's most important trials is now taking place in the United States. Conrad Black, former head of the Hollinger empire, is fighting for his freedom in a Chicago courtroom, facing numerous securities related charges that could, if convicted, see him spending the rest of his life in jail.

His lawyer? "Fast Eddie" Greenspan, a Canadian lawyer who is so well known that he is nearly as much a household name up here as Lord Conrad is. He's taken on a lot of pro bono work and defended the poor and powerless - but is also the lawyer of choice of the well-connected and powerful. He's everybody's lawyer! His selection as part of Black's defense team is highly unusual, since he is a Canadian lawyer not formally certified for US practice. The judge made Black agree in fact, that Black cannot appeal on grounds of poor representation, should he lose.

The prosecution team? Apparently some actors from hollywood, if their picture is anything to go by. Actually, the four attorneys are from Patrick Fitzgerald's office, he of the Libby trial fame.

As for me, without knowing much yet about the facts of the case - I am rooting for Conrad. He is by far one of Canada's most colourful figures - a man who had a cantankerous relationship with Prime Minister Chretien, such that he ended up renouncing his Canadian citizenship and storming off to England for a while. Conrad also took our once terrible local newspaper - the Ottawa Citizen - and turned it into the flagship paper of his newspaper chain, a high quality paper with excellent writers and interesting living and recreational sections. Of course, Conrad is also known for using eight syllables when one would do. But that just makes him even more lovable. Canada would be a much poorer place if Conrad Black were locked up in a US jail... so here's hoping that Conrad is not actually guilty of what he's been accused of, and that 'Fast Eddie' can pull it off!

The weird stuff on TV

At the other end of the room, they're watching a reindeer attacking Santa Claus. I guess they'll do anything for an audience these days. I find that I don't watch much television anymore. There's so little that's interesting. Even the much hyped shows that are well regarded don't do it for me - the CSI shows, with their computer graphic gimmicks, don't have a loveable oddball like Quincy.

I'd rather watch Chad Vader on Youtube, I guess.

Getting old hurts

I think I've mentioned I've recently fulfilled a longtime dream, and gotten ahold of a Fender Telecaster. A telecaster is a type of electric guitar, and was one of the very first fully electric guitars to be manufactured, debuting in 1949. Telecasters had an important part in the birth of rock and roll and the electric blues, and were featured in the recordings of Elvis and B.B. King among others. The telecaster is also the de facto guitar used in country music - few country guitarists play anything else.

Now, for the last week, I've spent every moment I can down in the basement, playing this new beauty, trying to get sounds out of it that I've dreamed about getting. Last night, I went down shortly after dinner, plugged it in, and started playing. After five minutes or so, my index finger ached so badly I had to stop. This old man gave up and went back upstairs.

I guess I'm old enough now that playing in the basement for hours every night isn't something I can do indefinitely anymore. :-)

Make that difference - it might be why you are here

A friend of mine passed away yesterday, after years of a wasting illness. The last few months, I watched a group of singers come to his house and sing him songs of praise and worship. He really enjoyed that, as he had been a talented musician himself.

This group will never be famous, will never appear on the cover of a music magazine - they're all ordinary people who took on a great responsibility. In God's eyes, what they gave was as great an offering as the greatest, grandest thing by the biggest rock stars. They strengthened a good man for his longest journey; if you think about it, what greater thing has ever been done in this world?

Don't hold yourself back from anything; even if you think it will not help you make your mark in the world, rest assured it will. All good things that there have ever been are made of little kindnesses - and God saw them, and it was good.

He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins.

He said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.’ (Luke 21:1-4)

Now if only we didn't club baby seals...

Apparently Canada is, along with Japan, the most favourably viewed country in the world. Now if only those countries didn't hunt whales and club seals, we'd be even more popular.

Conservapedia

I read today about an alternative to Wikipedia called Conservapedia. This site was supposed to be an alternative reading of Wikipedia meant to - I guess - evade heavy handed editorial bias on the part of those users who regularly review scientific and political articles.

Though a bit sceptical about this project, I was prepared to look at this with an open mind. After all, there are certain forms of political correctness that do seem prevalent on Wikipedia - the constant insertion of "Citation Needed" for perfectly well known facts I find irritating, for instance.

So hoping to keep an open mind, I opened what was sure to be the litmus test page.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Evolution

All I can say is... wow. This is hard stuff to take seriously.

I expected to see criticism of evolution, of course. But that's all the article in question contains: only criticism. There is no description of the thing being criticized, no outlining of the theory's tenets, or the evidentiary case for it. The thing reads like a grade school rebuttal, and not anything you'd expect to find in an encyclopedia, even a conservative one. When I think of some of the scholarly criticisms I've seen of evolution, including Cardinal Schonborn's article in which he lambastes the development of multiverse cosmologies specifically designed to get around the God problem... well surely Conservapedia really could have done better than this.

I think even Conservatives would do well to stay away from this. It reads like an Onion or Uncyclopedia parody.

Swiss accidentally invade Liechtenstein

Some of history's famous military campaigns have been described as blunders. None probably qualifies quite like this one though. :-)

Swiss accidentally invade Liechtenstein - Boston.com

A baptism song

My granddaughter was baptized last month, and I wrote a song for the service. I finally recorded it, so she remembers me. :-)

Rock and roll

I did something last night that I haven't done... in about twenty five years.

I played in a rock band.

I've been a blues musician all of my adult life, and all of the musical groups that I have been in have either been gospel, Stax-style R&B, or Texas-style blues. Rock music is something I like to listen to on the radio, but not something I've spent a lot of time on musically, although I've recorded some things that are rock-like. But a month or so ago, a friend invited me to take part in a Tech Rocks project, because they needed a singer.

So my friend helped me get my gear, and then I went with him way out to the bass player's house. As soon as he hopped on the drums and hit the snare with a huge "crack", I knew I was in for it - volume! My blues groups did not tend to play at very loud stage volumes - we relied on a PA system to provide any needed volume for the audience; we kept it quiet.

When the keyboard player and other guitar player got there, we launched right into one of the songs that had been selected for us, an eighties synth-pop hit that we were planning to rock up. The other guitar player rolled out sustained power chords, and I locked into the bass player and crunched out rhythmic chunky chords in the same phrasing as his bass line. The keyboard player is an accomplished musician who hasn't done a whole lot of time in rock bands either - she got those perfect eighties samples on her keys, and it gave us a cool blend of hard-edged alternative and eighties synth-pop.

I can't say I didn't enjoy myself, because I did. But it certainly was not as much fun as doing the blues groups. The other guitar player was a little dominant, but that's fine... I get to sing, and he's the group's sponsor anyway. I don't think that was my problem.

I think my problem with rock music is that generally it has no dynamics... there are some exceptions, like Dire Straits, but rock bands just tend to play all out the whole song, which these guys did. I had to sing at the top of my lungs the whole time, even though I could hardly hear myself. I had to play as loud as possible the entire time, without subtlety. There were very few moments of subtlety, actually. Even the one semi-quiet song we have got played without quieting down as much as a blues-based group might for the softer parts.

But this is a temporary project, and it is still fun to do. People will have a lot of fun with what we did to that eighties number.

The other project I'm involved in is a little folk quartet, which is also a little off the beaten trail. That's a little more fun, since the group is heavily focused on harmony singing. We all have found our natural spots in the quartet, and the harmonies usually sound good.

But I miss the blues. I miss being dynamic, and soulful, and tender one minute, and dramatic and pointed the next. I doubt I will be truly happy, musically, until I am playing the blues again.