Love Will Never Be Extinguished

Last night I attended an inter-faith community vigil for the 11 Jewish people who were shot in a Pittsburgh synagogue on the weekend.  Memorials were carried out across Canada.  The CBC covered those in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax.  The one that I attended in Barrie wasn’t covered so I imagine there were many others that I don’t know about. It was only a few years ago that a similar event happened but this time for the shooting of Muslims in a mosque in Quebec.

The rotunda in Barrie’s City Hall was filled when I arrived.  There were between two and three hundred people who had come out to support the people in Pittsburgh who had lost their loved ones and the community that has been so devastated by this hate crime.  There were people from many faiths and backgrounds present.  Audrey Koffman, Spiritual Advisor for Am Shalom Synagogue in Barrie led the vigil.  Spiritual leaders from churches and mosques joined the Jewish leaders in the service.

The question was asked over and over again: What is our response?  Of course people are angry and horrified, but once those emotions have calmed down, how do we as individuals and as a community want to respond?  Over and over came the answer: Our response is love.  Our response is to build communities where we learn about each other, respect each other and stand together.

We got an opportunity to stand together during the vigil.  I was standing just behind a young Muslim couple and their little boy.  Like any child, he soon grew bored with this adult stuff and started to peek out at me from behind his mother’s skirt.  I smiled at him and he grinned back.  Then he peeked out from the other side of her skirt.  He was lovely and I couldn’t help but remember that we have a responsibility to make this world more loving and safe for the children who are going to inherit the world that we are creating.  That is quite the responsibility.

The choir from the synagogue sang beautifully, as did the Jewish Spiritual Advisor and the Imam.  Haunting tunes of sadness and strength wafted over us.  We were invited to hum the tunes even if we didn’t know the words.  Eleven candles were lit for the eleven lost ones and suddenly it was as if they were there with us, people we didn’t know, people we were honouring.  I imagined that each person present had such a light in them.  If those lights were visible to the ordinary naked human eye, then that room would be bright indeed.  I imagined that brightness for a moment.

Many speakers spoke about building tolerant communities and for that hour, we were a community that came together to share our concern, our support, our love.  My friend was there, even though I couldn’t see her.  One of the people that lit a candle was the retired minister of the church my parents attended in Brampton.  One of my clients goes to synagogue with one of the victim’s brothers.  In a crowd of “strangers” I was connected by my own life.  But more than that, I was connected by intent to these people.  We were all trying to do something good in the face of hate.  Ms. Koffman remarked that our presence was evidence that love is more powerful and prevalent than hate.  I could feel that power.

What does standing together, praying together, listening to each other, being entrained by the same music do to us?  I wondered how coming together changes each of us, how knowing that we are not alone, that there are others who are willing to be counted changes us.  I thought of the one gunman who acted out his hatred and will likely lose his own life now and he seemed so tiny, so alone in comparison with the people who were standing together non-violently, building a community of compassion.  I was grateful to have the opportunity to be a part of such a gathering.

We were invited to sign a book of condolence that would be sent to the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.  Such a small thing but perhaps important to people that have come under attack.  Suddenly they have new friends.  Hate crimes are meant to create fear and only love conquers fear.

 “Love will never be extinguished,” said one of the speakers.  And I believe him. We are not diminished by acts of fear and hate if we choose to stand together, offer our love, our understanding and come to know that we are more alike than we know. We have to decide what kind of a world we live in.  We have to create that world.  It’s up to us.  It’s our story after all.

Regenerative Business Models are All About Connection

Guayaki is a company that sells Yerba Mate.  That is a tea made from the mate plant from South America that has health benefits.   But Guayaki is much more than that.  Guayaki’s mission is “to steward and restore 200,000 acres of South American Atlantic rainforest and create over 1,000 living wage jobs by 2020 by leveraging their Market Driven Regeneration business model.”  The founders of this innovative company are rethinking economics.  They are creating a B Corporation certification for companies that want to go beyond serving only their investors, for companies that want to be good global citizens as well.

Check out this video from their website to get the idea.  

From Guayaki, Come to Life was born to showcase, through film and music, people who are living their passions while creating positive change for humanity.  And one of these films is about Playing for Change co-founder Mark Johnson.  You can watch him talk about how that came about here:

You can watch Evan Marks of the Ecology Center in California talk about re-learning how to grow food in an arid environment here: 

What is exciting for me about all these endeavors is that there are young people in the world who are rethinking how we do things.  They are creating the new story of business.  They are re-imagining how we can be in the world.  We get inundated with the old story of scarcity and greed and sometimes believe that that is the only story.  Humans have been changing throughout our existence and if we are to continue to exist, we have to change how we are doing things now.  These stories are about connection with each other, with the planet, with plants and with ourselves.  There are more videos on the website to inspire people to do things differently.  These are the stories of human imaginal cells, to make an analogy with the cells that turn a caterpillar into a butterfly.  Imagine that we could have a regenerative business model.  These people are.

A Scary Time Song

Singer Lynzy Lab Stewart wrote this song A Scary Time as a parody in response to the Kavanaugh hearings and the president’s remark about what a scary time it is for young men right now.

The verses list all the things she can’t do because she is a woman.  I have included most of the lyrics because it is a bit hard to hear them all on the video.

“I can’t walk to my car late at night while on the phone. I can’t open up my windows when I’m home alone. I can’t go to the bar without a chaperone. I can’t wear a miniskirt if it’s the only one I own. I can’t use public transportation after 7pm. I can’t be brutally honest when you slide into my DMs. I can’t go to the club just to dance with my friends, and I can’t ever leave my drink unattended. I can’t jog around the city with headphones on my ears, I can’t speak out against my rapist after 35 years,”

Then the chorus is “it sure is a scary time for boys”.  “Yeah gentlemen! Band together, make some noise. It’s really tough when your reputation’s on the line and any woman you assaulted could turn up at any time.”

And then again, “But it sure is a scary time for boys. Can’t speak to any woman or look her in the eyes. It’s so confusing. Is it rape or is it just being nice? So inconvenient that you even have to think twice.”

“I can’t speak out against my rapist after 35 years. I can’t be taken seriously if I’m holding back tears. And I can’t ever speak earnestly about all these fears. Cause it sure is a scary time for dudes. Can’t text a girl repeatedly, asking for nudes. Can’t make a girl have sex when she’s not in the mood. And what gives her the right to give you attitude?

“Yeah, it sure is a scary time for men. Girls like to act like you’re to blame and they’re the victim. Her dress was short and she was drunk. She’s not so innocent. Thank God your dad’s a judge and you won’t be convicted.”

Check out the video and see what you think.  The story is changing.

Changing How You See Your World

These two videos may just change the way you see your world.  They are telling a new story.

Blessed Unrest

Paul Hawken is a leading environmentalist, social change activist and author.  He has spent the last ten years researching organizations that are dedicated to environmental restoration and social justice issues.  In this video he explains how these groups collectively form the largest social movement in the world.

This movement has no single name, no single leader and no single location.  Instead it is diverse, innovative and based on centuries of hidden history.  It is largely ignored by politicians and the media.  And you may be a part of it.  Check it out!   

    

We Came Here to Dance

What if we could rise up from where we’re rooted, meet each other like a long-lost harmony, dance as if we share the same five senses, as if our feet were planted on the same small planet, our veins running the same red blood? We’d forget why we ever stopped listening. We’d forget why we fought ourselves in the first place. We’d forget why we fight each other. We’d forget all the made up lessons we learned along the way because we didn’t have to go to school for this. The users manual we picked up on the way to this planet is in our guts. ~ Tasha Blank

Every Child Matters: Orange Shirt Day

I was travelling home on a commuter bus last Friday and since I am a compulsive reader, I found myself reading the amber letters at the front of the bus naming the next stop, warning us not to chase moving buses and then came the words, “Orange Shirt Day – Every Child Matters.”  This rang a bell.  I knew it had something to do with remembering Indian Residentail School children.  So once I got home, I looked it up on-line and learned that it is always held on September 30^th.  It is at this time of year because that’s when the children were taken to go to these “schools.”

You can hear Phyllis Webstad tell her story of the orange shirt here:

The Orange Shirt Day started at the St. Joseph Mission Residential School commemoration event that was held in Williams Lake, BC in 2013.  It grew out of Phyllis’ story and it became an opportunity to keep the discussion of all the aspects of residential schools going once a year as well as a way to remember all the children who died while at these schools.

Many schools and other organizations across Canada commemorate Orange Shirt Day. It is an “opportunity for First Nations, local governments, schools and communities to come together in the spirit of reconciliation and hope for generations of children to come.” (Orange Shirt website)

Here are two video made in 2013 by Shaw TV Northern BC about this.

Students and faculty at UPEI Orange Shirt Day 2017

My partner and I happened to be going to a Storytelling Circle on Orange Shirt Day so we wore orange t-shirts and told the story of how Orange Shirt Day came about.  Another woman was wearing an orange shirt pin and other people nodded their heads when I told the story.  They had also heard it.

And that is the power of story.  You can’t argue with the story of a child having the new shirt her grandmother got her being taken away.  It is such a powerful symbol that we can all relate to.  And wearing an orange shirt is such a simple action to take.  But by wearing the shirt, the little girl’s story becomes embodied in us.  We wear the shirt that she wasn't allowed to.  We can all wear the shirt and their is power in that action.  We take on her story, we stand with her, we continue the dialogue, we show that we know the truth and that we are open to reconciliation.  Millions of Canadians can be a part of the solution as we tell this new story.