To Life

You might have noticed that I haven’t posted in a week. I have been stuck. Not blocked. Stuck. I was going to go into a long diatribe against corporate life and how no one believes in anything meaningful. Diatribe. Reminds me of the time in grade five when we were making a diorama, but I said diaphragm and I got in trouble. HOW SHOULD I KNOW WHAT A DIAPHRAGM IS? I AM IN GRADE FIVE!

Well, I salvaged part of that post and I wanted to share it with you and I will tie it back in somewhere near the end.

The problem with belief is that it requires something of you. Belief in anything. And that sucks. As if I am not busy enough already—I have to do something more. I believe in stories. Curtis believes in ecology. Leif believes in love. Rob believes in thought. Tracy believes in poetry. Brenda believes in meditation. Dad believes in chemicals. Mom believes in people. Leah believes in innocence.

This blog is a place of joy and sorrow. I was stuck with last weeks post because I wasn’t adding a new story and I wasn’t really adding anything important. I was going to be didactic. I was going to rant about the users and abusers. But you know all about that already. You and I are those people too. I know that the post was wrong. There was no sharing or caring.

Lately, I have been reading Henri Nouwen’s Can You Drink the Cup? I have to say I usually keep myself as far away from Christian literature as I can, but (1) I trust my mom’s opinion (actually that’s not even remotely true—you should see the “literature” she reads) and (2) I like Catholics, they are strange but wise. I love when I am reading a book and it changes my perception of life. I would say, while reading last night, my perception on the nature of life changed. Maybe only a millimetre, but it changed. Henri says:

When each of us can hold firm our own cup, with its many sorrows and joys, claiming it as our unique life, then too, can we lift it up for others to see and encourage them to lift up their lives as well…

But when we lift up our cup to life, we must dare to say: “I am grateful for all that has happened to me and led me to this moment.” This gratitude erases bitterness, resentments, regret, and revenge as well as all jealousies and rivalries. It transforms our past into a fruitful gift for the future, and makes our life, all of it, into a life that gives life.

I was joking last week with Leif and I said I had to get back to writing the funny stuff. My serious and sad blogs just weren’t selling the same. This blog is a journal of my joy and sorrow. I can’t and won’t ignore either. I lift up to you my life, all of the parts, as an act of sharing and friendship. I won’t be ashamed of it.

There are plenty of people that don’t like personal bloggers. Or personal people. We should keep our life to ourselves. I don’t think this is the case. And that brings me back to the beginning. I know my little list wasn’t a sum of the whole, but all of those people have shared themselves with me and I know those things about them because of it. I could have gone on and on. More people, more traits. But, it’s just the start. A start. I have been made a better person because of all of them.

So I love my life today for all my successes and failures. I wish the same to you. I wish you life. Zum Wohl, A votre santé, Na zdorvia, L’chaim—to life.

Happy Birthday Tracy!

One of the great things about Facebook is that it allows me to remember things that I would not have remembered. Today is Tracy’s birthday and I hope she has a great one! I wanted an embarrassing picture, but I think this is more embarrassing for me. However, I will let you know that Tracy probably had more to drink that night then I did. I can’t remember if that’s true, but I don’t care. (I had to play with the colours in GIMP because the scanned copy was in such rough shape. This way before I ever had a digital camera. Come to think of it, I still don’t. I just got Leah’s. Maybe you would call it a dowry. Just kidding. I got two calves.)

God Grew Tired of Us

In the case that you don’t have a clue what this image is—and most of you, if not all, won’t—it’s a screenshot from a really old computer game called Colonization, a Sid Meier’s game. A game that I used to play and enjoy. You got to be a colonial nation, bring Christianity to the heathens, burn Incan cities to the ground for gold and war with other Europeans. Great fun.

It’s funny how life comes full circle. Or is it a half circle? Colonization takes up a lot of my mind. I think about it all the time. Yesterday, I briefly talked about the documentary God Grew Tired of Us. A film that focuses on three Sudanese men who were refugees—part of the group labeled as the Lost Boys of Sudan—and made there way out of Sudan, to Kenya and, ten years later, to America. There are sections of sadness, humor, loneliness and triumph.

There is a great section when they first get to America and everything is so new to them. They have to learn how to flip a switch on/off, how the fridge works, how the toilet works. There is a brilliant moment where one of the men is mashing up crackers with the handle of a hammer in a kettle, then he pours milk in and puts it on the stove. It’s funny. It’s supposed to be. It also makes us realize how much we take for granted.

I said there were lots of different emotions. I didn’t feel any of them. Not really. At times, it was like watching a really long World Vision commercial. And all I can do is shutoff. There are a lot of emotions I can ignore. A lot I have trained myself to ignore. But, as soon as colonization was mentioned, I couldn’t ignore it. Then I knew, then I felt it—guilt.

Britain leaves the Sudan and instead of breaking up the Muslim north and Christian south they leave the split country to fight it out. And they do. Which, in turn, creates the necessity for this film.

As a white man, with an English heritage, I bear the sins and curses of my father and mothers before me. Maybe, you’d be tempted to say, Rhett, you are not responsible. I say, fine, throw out the few drops of Welsh blood in me. I am still the child of the richest, most powerful continent in the world. With the power to do anything. I am, we are, guilty of Rwanda, Sudan, Darfur, etc. We are guilty of destroying this planet in every way we can imagine.

Isn’t it weird to think that while living in one of the most powerful countries in the world that I feel completely powerless. Like being in a room of people and being lonely.

I have to say, however, that guilt is not the worst thing. I can live with guilt. I can’t live with the idea that there is no one to forgive me. I’m not talking about Jesus here. How do I apologize to Africa for my part in what has been done to them? How do I apologize to India, China or South America?

It’s a great movie. At the very least, we are called to action. Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’.