Vânaprastya

I know a man from Uganda who moved to Canada with his wife a few years ago. When he learned that I had lived in Guinea for a short time his first question to me was: "When you went into the jungle, what did you feel?" I thought back to my many treks through those great forests with canopies towering over the earth, blocking out the sun.. I thought about hunting there for meat, battling vine and jungle mountain, breaking suddenly through the foliage to see a great panorama of rain forest and mist, rainbow and endless green life.

"I have not been able to think clearly since leaving my village," he said. "When I am in the forest I can collect my thoughts, but here in the city I cannot." He smiled and looked down at his feet.

The Romance of the New

It is precisely the giveness of love that enables us to hurt one another. It's perverse isn't it? But it's been like this since the beginning of human time. The cliché "We hurt the ones we love" is true here precisely for the reason I've elaborated. People really do love: here to the point of familiarity. Like any child or creature really, we treat those things we are familiar with differently than we treat something new. Elliott first gets a toy and lovingly plays with it.. and in time (sometimes not very long) he's throwing it down the stairs for our dog to chase. We're the same way with people (which is largely why people have affairs: they long for the "newness" of relationship and all that entails), when the relationship is in its initial stages, things are more passionate, it's easier to forgive, easier to defer to our partners. Over time, this changes and the relationship loses its "spark". But if people could understand that the exact same process takes place when we buy a new car, or coffee maker, perhaps we could stop blaming the other person in the relationship, or even ourselves, and start thinking about this fundamental experience of human nature. You can see how in a consumer society the logical next step would be to buy a new product to replace the now familiar one (in essence an effort to recapture the experience, the thrill, the romance of -the new-). So, relationships become disposable, replaceable, and objectified (and so commercial). I think the same underlying mechanism is at work here in our approach to human relationships and commercial objects. It's funny, but sad too, how these relationships often fall apart and are as flimsy as so many of the "new" products being sold in our malls. We are children of our time.

So, how does one forsake here the -Romance of the New- for a -Romance of the Familiar-? Can we stop seeing one another as objects (which is a fundamental part of the problem playing into -or out of- our culture's rampant commercialism)? Are we able to break our addiction to our experience of the new, develop 12-step programs, form support groups, etc? Can we cultivate an appreciation for the familiar, which is an awareness? Or, are we doomed to long for our shiny new things like plastic crack addicts, like addicts of the human object and other new toys?

Reconciliation

I really started thinking about -reconciliation- at the funeral of Vu Pham. Pham's wife spoke of forgiveness toward the one who killed her husband.. At that moment it was as if a weight had been taken off my shoulders, perhaps not completely, but consciously noticeable. I hadn't realized just how connected I was with my community, to feeling a shared responsibility for one of our neighbours and friends. The immediate victims of Fred's actions had taken the first step toward not just individual healing and reconciliation, but communal healing.

On the way to the school today I was talking to my father about Fred's wake yesterday. He mentioned that Pham's father and sister came to pay their respect to the family and a man they had shared a community with. I was struck by this information quite profoundly. Here was yet another step taken by the victims of this tragedy toward reconciliation and the healing of a broken community. I heard soon after that Fred's family has asked that any donations be made to the Pham family fund and was struck again how these two families have chosen to move forward. Preston's family thus acknowledges the wrong that was committed, and in their own way have taken a step towards restitution (no matter how inadequate).

I'm reminded of one of the key themes of restorative justice: healing the brokenness of community. The perpetrator of crime isn't always able to participate in this process, as in Fred's case, but it's victims (both Fred's family and Pham's family) are able to work toward the healing of their respective communities. Communities, it turns out, are organic, interconnected living things. This is precisely why any view of people as objects (as financial entities, as means to an end, etc), even if perpetrators of crime, fails to provide a ground for building a future where violence towards others becomes an option of last choice. In fact, understanding humanity in these ways only perpetuates violence by masking the "human" with abstract ideology.

One last observation here. Isn't it precisely the Pham and Preston family's faith that allowed these first steps of reconciliation to take place? Before my friends accuse me of losing my mind (or coming to my senses), let me say that I speak here of the Christian system, as opposed to any claim to content as truth. Isn't it precisely the Christian system that provides both families with a language to draw from, a language rich with notions of "forgiveness" and "grace", an ancient tradition of response to oppression and violence, an entire framework of belief in which to frame and understand not just "sin" but one's response to it? I claim here that it is Christianity which has made this kind of reconciliation possible, these first steps toward healing not just individuals but entire communities. In this sense then, there is a kind of "truth" revealed in this power to heal and transform very real people.

There will be naysayers no doubt, for whom bashing Christianity (indiscriminately) has become not only fashionable, but a religious way of life. For my part I'm calling it how I see it. I'm further interested in thinking about how other systems provide similar language, narratives, and traditions from which to approach the issue of violence and victimhood.

In the meantime, I pay respect and honour to the integrity and humanity displayed by both families.

A series of unfortunate events

The past few weeks have not been easy.. First I heard of a close relative who attempted suicide. Dealing with the realization that someone I love, loved herself so little and felt so lost and alone that she could attempt to end her life was stunning to me.. I was literally stunned.

The second news I heard actually came to me before it ever hit the mainstream media: Fred Preston, a man who lived literally three doors away, a man who was a member of the church I grew up in, who I've known my entire life, had shot and killed a police officer just a short drive from where I live now, some 4-5 hours from my hometown. Anyone who has grown up in a small town will understand how quickly news can travel, and before the shooter's identity was ever displayed in the media, I had called my parents and asked them if it could possibly be true, if they had heard anything about Fred. Dad served for years on the same township council as Fred and it was through the current reeve that the rumours I had heard from local friends here (who of course had never heard of a "Fred Preston" but had gleaned this information from their neighbours) were true. The impact of this is still resonating within me, within the community of Sundridge, within my family. It's been a horrific experience to live here where Officer Pham worked and hear the opinions and feelings of the locals about Fred, a man they've never met or known, to see Fred's picture in the local papers and news broadcasts, to read the comments made by people on websites about this tragedy, to go to school but a few blocks from where Fred is recovering from his wounds and feel torn inside about whether or not I should go over there and try to see him (I know this would be impossible) while at the same time feel the guilt rise up when I think about Pham's wife and three children who have been left without a father and partner.. I've spent hours and hours trying to put it all together.. I've watched reporters interview people in my hometown and felt the sadness well up inside myself when these honest people can only hang their heads and lower their voices: "I just can't believe Fred would do something like this."

Has it been a tough couple of weeks? Yes more than I can ever articulate. Can I find a redeeming something here? Can I make this into a lesson, a study of human behaviour? Can I say, "Here's what we can learn from this?" I can.. yes it is possible.. but my heart isn't in it. My heart is broken, along with my communities' heart. It is during these moments that I realize what "community" means.. and you precious soul who reads, Sundridge is indeed a community. When one (and yes two) of its sons fall, the community falls. It will not point a finger at Fred: it will weep for Fred. It will not justify Fred: it will weep for Pham. This is no lesson.. it is pain and it is loss. It is a series of events which are not just unfortunate, but tragic.

Scapegoat

I was thinking about T-- too on the way home.. especially after our readings this last week. Doesn't he function as the scapegoat in this class? The rest of us certainly have banded together to form a kind of expulsionary alliance against him.. expulsion in the sense that our primary mode as group toward him is one of alienation. T-- is "the one" in every crowd. In his identification as scapegoat (the exlusionary subject) we are united and cohesive. In a sense the group owes him more than we know.

This, however, presupposes the veracity of the mimetic model. Do we really "believe" that T-- is the scapegoat in our miming of one another? My issue here is that imitation is never authentic, in the sense that only the originary subject/s can claim. Imitation, by definition, is never authentic: it only thinks it is. What we try to convince ourselves, rather, is that "I believe more than you". It's a group one-upmanship which eventually leads to the slaughter of the sacrificial victim. This is why I disagree with the internal mechanism of the mimetic model (of "real belief": even though I think the outcome is pretty much the same). Understood in this way, there is always room to ask the question "but do I really believe this about T-- or do I only think I should?"

I've thought about this a bit (long drives home are quite conducive to thinking/soul searching), and I've come to the conclusion that I don't really want to be a part of any alliance (even unconsciously) against him, even though his personality makes him an easy target at times. I really have nothing against him. I can certainly disagree with him, even feel his positions may be completely erroneous, but in the end I share his humanity and recognize we've both been shaped by forces we had no control over. Here is freedom and peace I think..