The Orenda- I Want To Believe People Are Good

I just read Joseph Boyden’s novel The Orenda. When I’ve finished a book I like to journal about one thing that I want to take away from reading it.  That was hard with The Orenda because it gives you so much to think about.  I’ve been mulling it over for days now. I keep coming back to two different kinds of scenes in the book. 

There are these warm touching scenes where Huron mothers and fathers care for and enjoy their children, where friends share work, play and respect for one another, and where couples feel passion and empathy for their partner.  One such scene is Boyden’s description of the reverent ceremony for the dead that happens as the people of a Huron community move their burial ground from their old village to the new one. The love and gentleness with which they treat the physical remains of their deceased family members and share their cherished memories of them are described in intimate detail.

“Each family sees to its dead with such bereavement and care, their tears falling like raindrops … 

Yet these same tender people are also capable of horrific acts of violence and revenge.  Boyden describes in scenes almost too unbearable to read the way captured enemies are scalped, tortured and mutilated and their hearts torn out and eaten. In the Canada Reads discussions panellist, Stephen Lewis claims that Boyden’s description of torture is almost pornographic. 

How can people be so humane, so loving, so respectful and also so vicious, cruel and revengeful? It’s troubling and almost impossible to understand. But it continues to happen. 

How could slave owners be doting parents, faithful church members, affectionate spouses and yet abuse the black men and women they owned, treating them as less than human?

How could Nazi soldiers who were loving fathers and husbands and sons take part in the murder of millions of Jewish mothers, wives and children? 

What kind of inner struggle must there be for North American military men and women? I’ve seen them in the media weeping tears of joy as they embrace their own children and partners on their return home from the battlefields of Afghanistan or Iraq. How hard it must be for them to live with the fact that they had the capacity to participate in the killing of people like themselves who were ‘the enemy’  and will never again embrace their own families or return to their own homes. Might this be why more than twenty American military veterans commit suicide every day? 

“We hurt one another because we’ve been hurt. . . . We kill one another because we have been killed. We will continue to eat one another until one of us is completely consumed,” says a character in Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda.

That sad commentary on human beings haunts me. I don’t want to believe that such a capacity for revenge and hate exists in all of us, in me.  I want to believe that people are good. 

Other related posts……

Caleb’s Crossing

Hiroshima of the Indian Nations

Sacagawea

Bride of New France

Sniffing Tobacco For the First Time

The monks who offered me tobacco

We were visiting a Tibetan monastery in Shangri-La in China’s Yunnan province.  Nearly a thousand monks study Tibetan Buddhism at the monastery. The holy men were very friendly. They offered us a sniff of the tobacco the monastery grows. After the guys in our party had all inhaled a bit of the tobacco a grinning monk insisted I do so as well.  What an eye-watering experience!

Other posts about monks…..

Monk Chat

Sticky Rice

Another post about Shangri-la….

Dancing in Shangri-La

 

Mothers Have Stronger Bond With Kids than Dads?

Peter McKay the justice minister got lots of attention last week for his comments on Canadian family life. When asked why there aren’t more female judges in our country he said not as many women as men apply for the jobs.  McKay suggested one of the reasons there are fewer female applicants might be that mothers have a stronger bond with their young children than fathers do. He implied that since women make their children more of a priority than men, women’s careers take a back seat to their children. Because of their devotion to their families, females who have all the qualifications to be justices don’t apply to fill open justice positions.

Although some people are upset with the justice minister for suggesting men don’t care about their kids as much as women, his comments do reflect the status quo. According to the book Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, studies show on average North American mothers spend twice as much time caring for their children as fathers do. Fathers have more than doubled the number of hours they spend with their children since the 1960s, but it is still mothers who are responsible for the bulk of child care

Peter McKay’s critics in Parliament say his comments about mothers prove he and his political party are living in the past and still believe most Canadians follow the pattern of family life portrayed in 1950s television shows like Leave It To Beaver. Although we all know family life has changed dramatically in the last sixty years, to be fair to McKay his observations do reflect the reality that there is still not an equal sharing of the childcare workload in most Canadian homes. 

If we want to encourage mothers to take their careers more seriously, including women who might apply for judgeships, what can we do to support and encourage them? Should we provide more childcare spaces and daycares with longer hours of service? Should we pay childcare workers higher wages, to emphasize what an important and vital role caring for and teaching young children plays in maintaining a healthy society? Should we make it easier for both male and female employees to have flexible schedules so they can accompany their children to medical appointments and attend their school events?  Should we make sure it is just as easy and acceptable for fathers as it is for mothers, to take a leave from work to care for a new baby or a sick child?  Should we provide more publicity, support and affirmation to fathers who choose to be the primary caregivers for their children?

Statistics do back up Peter McKay’s comments about maternal devotion. However one does have to wonder if making his observations about Canadian family life on national television wasn’t just a convenient way to try and explain the fact that his Conservative government has appointed a smaller percentage of female judges than the previous Liberal government did, and that people are calling for a more transparent system of justice appointments. Globe and Mail columnist Tabatha Southey asks why the federal government refuses to publish statistics about who applies for judgeships. Ontario does and there 50% of the applicants are women.

Supreme Court Justices

Currently, six men and three women serve on Canada’s Supreme Court and in 2013 only eleven of Canada’s thirty- six federal court judges were women. 

Our country would be best served if equal numbers of men and women were our judicial leaders. There are steps we can take to make that happen if we truly want to encourage more women to apply for those positions.

Other related posts……

Can Women Have it All?

A Parable for Rick Santorum

The Work My Mother Does

Lean In

 

The Changing World of Readers

“The connectivity of the digital world will be fatal to the serious novel.” That was just one of the startling  points of view in an article about reading by Julian Baggini in last Sunday’s Financial Times.  Here are some other ideas in the Baggini piece that really had me thinking. 

“In 2010 hardly anyone in North America had an e-reader or a tablet. Now half the population does.”

“One in four consumer titles bought in 2013 was an e-book.”

Reading on an e- reader promotes ‘deep reading’, where you actually become immersed in the text. People read more slowly on screens than on paper. Since it is not so easy to flip around in an e- book you tend to read the text in order, the way the author organized it. 

Reading on a computer can help with comprehension. You look things  up you don’t understand. 

 

Some studies show that people who use e-readers read more. “E-readers are small, light and portable and can be pulled out at odd moments,” like when you are waiting for your friend or the bus to arrive.

When you are reading on an e-reader from the outside anyway it is impossible to see what you are reading. People thus don’t feel forced to read things they aren’t really interested in to maintain a certain public image. They can read what they are curious about, so they read more. 

The preference you have for one reading device/method over another is cultural and personal. Some people may continue to enjoy using traditional print books because that’s what they are used to and grew up with. Habit, fashion and culture shape our preferences for certain reading methods. 

Other posts about reading…..

Great Aunt Marie’s Books

Reading Aloud to Teens

The Future of Books

 

Hearing The Red River Valley in Hanoi

Dave with our tourist guide Mango

“From this valley, they say you are going.” When we travelled in Vietnam I was surprised to hear our Vietnamese tour guide singing the Manitoba song Red River Valley. “How can someone in Vietnam know that tune?” I asked. Mango, our guide explained that during the Vietnam War his father worked as a translator at the Hanoi Hilton, a prison for American soldiers. Some captured pilots from North Dakota had taught Mango’s Dad The Red River Valley and he’d often sung it to his son. Mango had never forgotten it. 

Note: The Red River also flows through North Dakota

Other posts about Vietnam…..

Teamwork

Brave Shepherds

I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer……… Jeremiah 23: 4a

Gladys Aylward went to China in 1932 to help operate a mission that became a home for many orphans. In 1938 Japan invaded China placing Gladys and her young charges in danger. Despite being severely ill she shepherded a hundred orphans over a hundred miles of rugged mountain terrain to a safer neighboring province.

The book Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed tells the story of Le Chambon, a French village that sheltered thousands of Jewish refugees during World War II many of them children whose parents had been sent to concentration camps. Led by their Protestant pastor Andre Trocme and his wife Magda, the villagers were not only able to give sanctuary to the refugees but also shepherded many of them to safety in Switzerland.

On December 14, 2012 a gunman entered an elementary school in Newtown Connecticut and went on a shooting rampage. Some teachers died trying to protect the children in their care, but others managed to shepherd their young students to safety by having them hide in closets, cupboards, bathrooms and storage areas. They locked their classroom doors and kept the children quiet and calm till help arrived.
The prophet Jeremiah warns us about those who will try to do evil to children. But he also promises God will continue to inspire shepherds to protect children so they will no longer need to be afraid. Throughout history many people have answered the call to be those brave shepherds.

Other related posts…….

Sarah’s Key Personal Connections

Sandy Hook on my Facebook Page

Mrs. Brown- This Woman Should Be A  Saint

 

 

Rainbow

Photo taken near Sanford Manitoba last night

Photo taken last night in Sanford Manitoba

The true harvest of my life is intangible – a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched – Henry David Thoreau

Take Me Out To the Ball Game- Osaka Style

Dave and I attended a baseball game in Osaka with our friends 

Take Me Out to the Ball Game. You won’t hear that classic 7th inning stretch song at a Japanese professional baseball game.

Cheering fans and their balloons

Instead, when the 7th inning rolls around, everyone in the crowd blows up huge colourful balloons and on a signal releases them into the air. That’s just one of the differences I noticed between attending a ball game in North America and at the Kyocera Baseball Dome in Osaka Japan. We watched the Orix Buffalos play the Hanshin Tigers in Osaka.

Dave with our friends Rudy and Sue and Jon and Yolanda at a baseball game in Osaka 

Another difference was the noise. I’ve never heard anything like it at a game in the United States or Canada. We sat in the Hanshin Tigers section of the ball park, and their thousands of fans kept up an incessant barrage of noise when their team was up to bat. Men in immaculate gold and black uniforms, wearing spotless white gloves directed the crowd in a rich variety of chants. A dozen trombone and trumpet players accompanied a recital of Japanese baseball tunes sung in rousing unison.

Young fans with their black and gold bats

All of the fans had small black and gold plastic baseball bats they beat together in rhythm to the songs. Four men balanced enormous Tiger flags in their hands and swooshed them through the air in dizzy patterns as the crowd sang. It was a visual and audio spectacle.

Other posts about Japan……

Hiroshima Pancakes

A Kaleidoscope of Possiblities

Japanese Surprises

Japanese Pancakes

I had my first opportunity to try okonomiyaki or Japanese pancakes in Hiroshima. Although these pancakes are served all over Japan, the chefs in Hiroshima are famous for the number of layers their okonomiyaki have -and their ability to keep their many-layered pancakes intact till they serve them. We went to a place called Okonomi- Mura which literally translated means Pancake- Village and that’s what it was- a tall building with floor after floor of restaurants- each one serving okonomiyaki.

Our tiny- kerchiefed chef was a true artist. She created the base shape of our pancakes on her piping hot grill with her spatula- fashioning each dollop of batter into a perfect circle. After the batter had cooked she added layers of crisp shredded cabbage, crunchy bean sprouts, baked fish croutons and meaty bacon. She was cooking noodles in a wok at the same time and when they were done she added them as layer number six. She broke eggs onto the griddle and twirled and swirled them creating a scrambled egg mixture. Shrimp were dumped on the grill next and after they were sizzling our chef chopped them deftly with a razor sharp knife and then attacked an onion and green pepper with the same blade. The shrimp, onion and pepper bits were mixed together with the egg and placed on top of the pancake to form layer number seven.

Our imminently skilled chef then took that seven -layer pancake and flipped the entire thing upside down intact and after it had cooked for a few minutes she flipped it once again. What talent!

The pancakes were huge and I wish my husband Dave and I had shared one. We could only eat about half of our enormous meal.

Other posts about Japan…….

A Kaleidoscope of Possibilites

Japanese Surprises

The Globalization of Art- From Japan to Cape Dorset

When the Coin Rings Luck Springs

A Time of New Beginnings

Creatures I’ve Photographed- Part Two

Checking out an oyster in Xian China

Peacock at a winery near Florence Italy

Lion in the Phoenix Zoo

Seagull on the beach in Sarasota Florida

Ants on my dinner plate Luang Prabang Laos

Turtle on Punaluu Black Sand Beach Big Island Hawaii (Photo credit- my husband Dave) 

My Dad holds a bag of live grasshoppers in the Bird Garden Hong Kong

Kangaroos seen on a walk in Hunter Valley Australia

Fish caught in Fiji (photo credit my husband Dave)

Pair of ducks in Frankfurt Germany

Other posts ……..

Creatures I’ve Photographed Part One