A Boy from Basswood

 

The older I get, the more labels I am acquiring.

When I was young, my father was killed in an accident, and my mother, sister, brother, and I moved to Winnipeg where my mother’s mother and all of her siblings lived. Seventy-five years later, if asked where I am from, I will still answer, “I grew up in Winnipeg, but I am from Basswood.”

This is a post musing about “labels,” “inner self,” “local,” and “context.”

When I was young, I had a naïve feeling of what it meant to be “fatherless.” Mostly, it had no daily importance. Except when it came to registering for things like school, or cubs. And not going to those “father-son” events that seemed so important.

Later I would also learn that though I was “fatherless,” I was not – and this was a very good thing – “illegitimate.”

When I was young, I had a naïve feeling that it was important to know where you were from. I experienced this because in my neighbourhood, almost no one was “from Winnipeg.” And where you were from meant something. It was not clear to me how it “meant something,” or why it “meant something.” But the labels for where you were from all “meant something.” And I was “from Basswood.”

Later I would also learn that though I was “from Basswood,” I was not – and this was a very good thing – “Polish,” “Jewish,” “Italian,” “Ukrainian,” or “from Toronto.” (Note: Actual labels have not been used.)

When I was young, I had a naïve feeling that it meant something to be a “boy.” It was not clear to me how it “meant something,” or why it “meant something.” But I learned – through acts of shaming and/or violence – not to play with girls, not to play like a girl, not to like what girls like, not to be “girly” in any way – like crying, or being emotional, or being soft.

Later I would also learn that though I was a “boy,” I was not – and this was a very good thing – “homosexual.”

When I was young, I had a naïve feeling of what it meant to be “poor.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was my first experience of “privilege,” or the lack thereof. In my neighbourhood, we were all relatively poor, and were all clear that more money was better.

Later I would also learn that though I was “poor,” I was not – and this was a very good thing – “lazy.”

For all of my young life, I was naïve about labels. Until, as a young adult, as an anti-war, university activist, we/I begin to hear about a new movement, “women’s liberation.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the beginning of a lifetime of collecting personal identity labels. “Male.” So that today, in 2024, at the age of 78, my labels are:

·       Male (He / Him)

·       Cis-gendered

·       Heterosexual

·       White

·       Neuro-normal

·       Able

·       Settler

·       Middle Class

·       University Educated

·       English Speaking

·       Western, First World

As I have aged, I have learned that it is a privilege to not be aware of privilege. And that whatever thoughts or feelings or responses I may have to becoming aware of my privilege is also a privilege.

I keep thinking there is something called “just being a person.” This is privilege-thinking.

In my old age, I keep wondering how do I be happy in the context of all my privileges.

In my old age, I’m very aware of how labels are used to exert social control: naming used as shaming. The social power of labeling as status degradation or status empowerment.

In my old age, I’m very aware of how labels replace individual identity with group identity, which complicates supposed individual agency / responsibility / integrity / authenticity. What does it mean to be authentically White, for example. Is integrity as a "male" different from "non-binary" integrity, for another example. Or are these questions, also privileged thinking?

In my old age, I’m very aware of the complications of scale. What exactly is an individual/personal morally responsible life in the context of historic and global systems/structures of racism, sexism, homophobia, patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism, etc.? I didn’t ask or choose to be born a boy from Basswood. And I didn’t ask or choose all the privileges / advantages that came with the various discriminations / prejudices / hierarchies / barriers embedded in the culture I grew up in. But as much as I seek to be a trustworthy ally in my personal choices and life, I am very aware that my personal choices have no impact on the systems and structures of privilege.

In my old age, I’m beginning to feel it is naïve to believe that individual actions – even lots of individuals acting collectively – will have any lasting effect on historic and global systems/structures. Only historic and global system/structural changes will have any lasting effect. As an individual, I have no idea how to get at that scale.

In my old age, I’m beginning to think that – even though the analysis that produces them is a necessary, good, and helpful thing – simply creating new labels actually continues and does not correct the harm that labeling does. Self-understanding and self-affirmation are a good thing. But these are not the corrective to climate disaster. The challenge of creating historic and global structures and systems that embody right relationships among all beings is not achieved through identity politics. What does?

Spirit Given Gifts

 

Spirit given gifts are special abilities that God gives to every Christian
to be used cooperatively for the strengthening of the Body of Christ
so that it might better fulfill God's purposes.

Learning what our Gifts are - and are not - can bring clarity of purpose and meaning for our lives.

Knowing what our gifts are not can ease feelings of failure and frustration. Acknowledging our limitations and seeking support from others who have gifts we do not have frees us to focus on our strengths, on the gifts we do have.

Going where our gifts are takes us to the place where the giver of those gifts, God, is closest to us in our lives.

Our skills may not be our gifts. When we are using our gifts, we may end the day feeling tired, but we will also feel deeply satisfied. But if our skills are not also our gifts, then we will simply end the day feeling tired and drained.

This Descriptions Booklet - PDF and Questionnaire Booklet - PDF will help you begin to identify your Spirit Given Gifts.

The United Church of Canada Needs a Big Vision

 

What the United Church of Canada (UCCan) needs now is a Greta Thunberg approved vision of a plausible future for the planet.

Here’s what I think the UCCan can offer:

1. 100% commitment to zero carbon by 2030.
   This would apply not only to buildings, but also to all programs and activities including worship, meetings, travel, etc. It would also include active participation in existing climate crisis networks, political activism at all levels, boycotts and other economic pressures.
   
   
2. Multi-generational community.
   We have decades of experience creating and maintaining personal connections of caring and friendship that are open and inclusive across all categories of gender, race, age, ability, orientation, culture, etc. We also have firsthand experience of learning to apologize and what it takes to make amends and seek reconciliation. We have gained understandings of the shapes of personal well-being and life-giving relationships.
   
   
3. A big story.
   Being rooted in a multi-thousand-year story helps give perspective to present experiences. We are not the first generation to fear there is no plausible future. Our big story helps us to avoid fear-mongering and false-hopes.
   
   
4. Spiritual practices.
   Dealing with the pressures of everyday life, work, and family as well as global issues of the climate, war, and the economy can be a recipe for toxic stress and anxiety. We have experience with practices that help one stay centred and connected.
   
   
5. A church that isn’t religious.
   The UCCan locates itself within the globally diverse and conflicted collective of those who look to Jesus of Nazareth. Yet in our looking to Jesus, we do not see a religion. We see a way of being; a way of living fully and truly. We see a call to live justly and in right relations with all beings. We are not interested in proving anything to anyone. But we do want the way the world works to be fair for all.

David Ewart

Permission is granted for non-profit use of these materials. Please acknowledge the source as, "David Ewart, www.davidewart.ca"

You will always have the poor with you ... but you will not always have me

 

Catherine talked with me this morning about what she was reading in Timothy Morton's, Being Ecological. The issue being discussed was how "we", the human species, need to act collectively even though we are so divided along so many fault lines, because it is "we" who are the cause of the climate crisis, not sea horses. This led me to wondering:

Do those of us who insist on the requirements for justice impede the work for effective climate action?

I re-listened to words from Mark 14:7 as spoken to me - not from Jesus but from a sea horse: "You will always have the poor with you ... but you will not always have me."

Jesus was right. The need for correcting injustice will never go away. And there will always be occasions when insisting on justice prevents doing what this moment is calling for.

It is increasingly clear to me that the past 50 years of climate justice action that I have been involved in have not accomplished the scale of responses that are needed. And were based on assumptions of timing and stability that no longer are true. We need to stop asking, "Is this just?" And start asking only question, "Will this eliminate the burning of coal, oil, and gas?" This is the question the sea horse needs an answer to. Because if we don't quickly get this right we will no longer have the sea horse with us.

David Ewart