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As the Caring for Creation series comes closer to its close, and the spring opens her full glory to us, I thought it would be fitting to finally have a listening party for the April 29th Caring for Creation class.  I invited a few of the finest of folks over to my house for potluck and fellowship before listening in on what’s happening in Vancouver.

Alas…. the best laid plans.  Our all-star broadcaster, Vida, was having some difficulties with attending the gathering and wouldn’t be able to send out the session on the #ds106radio airwaves.  What should I do??? Cancel the gathering?

I looked into the resources and prepared and impromptu discussion gathering and when folks arrived, I was prepared.

But then a wonderful thing happened!  We began to just sit and share with one another – our lives, our struggles, our observations.  Most of us knew each other, but a few were new friends, and others had much catching up to do.  We enjoyed our various food offerings and when it came time to turn over the attention to a video for discussion, we decided, instead, to make art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have struggled with inviting others into the spaces I have created this year – both in the digital and the analogue!  There have been few folks who have made it to my home and not been whisked away to a local coffee shop or pub.  Hosting this lovely group was challenging, and just allowing the evening to BE felt like some kind of risk.  In the end, I made a postcard for my boyfriend’s mom.  Another woman had her first experience enjoying making art!

Then I thought back to the reading about preparing the way for a world beyond capitalism and I figured we had done just a little work in that direction.  No television, no outside entertainment – just people getting together and enjoying each other’s presence.

Sorry to Jan who was trying to listen in to the broadcast – looks like the April 29th show was in the analogue.

 

In this archive from the March 3rd class,  Dittmar Mündel and Carmelle Mohr open the Caring for Creation series by turning us toward hope and love.  When we look at the multiple pressing issues facing our natural world, our communities and even our own lives, the weight can be paralyzing.  By turning away from fear and toward a deep and personal love for our places and their natural systems, we can act in gratitude.  Affection for creation helps us face these challenges with hope.

 

 

The Chester Ronning Center for Religion and Public Life at the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta has been instrumental in the Caring For Creation, Spirit of the Land, and Responsibility for the Land courses.  The ongoing work of this unique center continues with an internship project investigating Alberta’s oil and gas economy.

Please see the letter from the Ronning Center that follows and consider supporting students in their continued work in addressing these pressing issues from holistic perspectives.

I write to you today to introduce a Ronning Centre Internship project – Responsibility for the Land. This initiative grew out of two conferences held on campus: Responsibility for the Land (2012) and Spirit of the Land (2013) and a number of courses held by the Ronning Centre to investigate the cultural and spiritual dimensions of Alberta’s oil and gas economy. Our research is centered on understanding and documenting the impact of oil and gas development given the primary place of the petrochemical industry in Alberta and to facilitate meaningful multi-perspective dialogue to connect health, land and community.

We ask for your assistance in supporting Ronning Centre Internships so we might continue important work such as this. With your help, this summer our students will investigate in greater depth the issues inherent in managing our natural resources and engage in meaningful dialogue with a diverse group of Albertans and form relationships with various First Nations, industry representatives and municipal politicians. It will be equally important to inform our understanding with scientific and analytical knowledge to provide a foundation for this discussion. We will share what we learn on our upcoming website, www.responsibilityfortheland.org, which will serve as an accessible and comprehensive resource, forming a basis for continuing and informed public discussion. (To see parts of the project already well underway, visit www.albertavoices.ca).

Augustana is committed to developing our students as thinkers, researchers and communicators – this internship opportunity will allow students to explore and apply their academic learning and advance their skill sets. With your help, a wise and on-going conversation regarding responsible stewardship of the land, the challenges presented by our energy needs and the impact of oil and gas developmentin Alberta will be generated.

Sincerely,
David Goa, Director
Chester Ronning Centre
For the Study of Religion & Public Life

As I was walking by the ocean I came upon a preschool class with parents. They were cleaning 4 waterfront areas , removing garbage and recycling objects, equipped with tongs and buckets. I spoke with a parent that said they were trying to help their children appreciate our creation,and to learn to care for it. They were clebrating Earth Day early. I spoke with a child who said it was sad to find tins on the beach but she was happy to take them away. She also said it was one of the best Saturdays she had spent with her family in a long time.
I grew up loving walks in the woods and by water and so appreciative of time outdoors. Proably why I like this course so much. So tomorrow is Earth Day and I am up island for a meeting with 20-30 others. I wonder how many others will think of carpooling. Our car is full.
What are you doing to celebrate Earth Day April 22?

Something that I assumed as we started this new round of gatherings in Vancouver and Victoria is that you would all be interesting people who bring with you lifetimes of experience, and 165 other hours in your week with which to live, love and learn. I have not been disappointed! It has been great to see how on-location and online members alike are engaging in these topics in their everyday lives. We’ve been sent a few event notices, so I’m including them here in this blog post.  And I issue a challenge to others: Share an event here on the blog, along with what it means for you! Tell us what you do with other chunks of your precious time, and why? To invite those who are close enough to join you, and to inspire event greatness further afield. For example:

April 19th, Shawnigan Lake BC: “Re-Becoming Villagers! A Day with mark Lakeman”. $75 includes a day of sessions and a delicious lunch. Click here for more details.

May 8th, Victoria: “The Judgement Game: An Interactive Afternoon of Game Play to Launch a Book of Fiction on Crime and Punishment”. This event is free but reservations are necessary. Click here for more details.

 

Prime Minister Harper will likely make his decision on the Enbridge Pipeline in June. To prepare for the big day the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) is spending big bucks visiting communities through B.C. to generate support.

We’ve had two visits here in the Comox Valley. I attended one of them in Comox along with eight others including one of our elected officials. My purpose for attending was to do my due diligence as a taxpayer.

Every savvy investor knows that before buying into a project he or she should investigate the project thoroughly. This is called “doing your due diligence.” It compares the costs with the benefits and is particularly concerned with the money. As Deep Throat said to Robert Redford playing a reporter investigating the Watergate break-in in the movie All The President’s Men, “Follow the Money.”

The meeting with CAPP was all about money—particularly money in the form of Jobs for the Comox Valley. I was trying to follow the money, but it was impossible.

When CAPP said “Jobs” the magic happened. Most of the participants started talking about how they could use the money in the form of taxes—for schools, health care services, and municipal services.

But there was nothing about the specific number of jobs, the kinds of jobs and salary levels, the length of jobs, the credentials needed to get the jobs, the use of temporary foreign workers, the actual spinoff effects for local businesses, and so forth. CAPP just said “Jobs.” Then they sat back and let the participants do their work for them convincing one another that this was a “good deal.”

In terms of money there was no weighing of the net benefits and costs to the Comox Valley compared to what CAPP, Enbridge and their Multinational investors would get in terms of profits.

There was no discussion about what Comox Valley residents would get for their portion of the whopping $1.4 billion taxpayer dollars the feds were giving to the fossil fuel industry annually in terms tax cuts and subsidies.

Nor was there a discussion about the millions of more taxpayer dollars Mr. Harper and his cabinet were spending as they traipsed around the world promoting the Enbridge Pipeline.

Finally, the CAPP representatives didn’t let the conversation be soiled by discussions about tax-payer costs for spills, public health consequences, increased pollution climate change and its effect upon our Canadian economy. These things are not even in the CAPP Community Tour Playbook.

As I left the meeting I was sad.

I couldn’t help thinking of that $1.4 billions of taxpayer dollars Mr. Harper and company are sending to the fossil fuel industry each year. It is coming back at us to pay for CAPP’s Magical Mystery Tour. They want us to dream in Technicolor and buy a pig in a poke.

Mike Bell
Comox

I came across this tweet from Chris Turner who spoke at the Spirit of the Land conference in November.

“It’s time we started selling sustainability rather than treating the threat of climate change as some kind of punishment for capitalism.”

— Chris Turner (@theturner) April 2, 2014

This prompted me to look further at his feed and saw this article he had been reading in the Ottawa Citizen.  It’s short and worth it, so go ahead and click.

It’s a valid argument that our response to moral imperatives in the Western world is quite often resistance.  In the post-modern milieu, I will do what you tell me not to do just because you told me not to!  We mistrust authority (sometimes for good reason) and many times act like defiant teens.  Even in exploring such life-giving activities as having pot lucks, growing food, and fostering community, we are afraid of what others will think.  I’m overjoyed when people come by and think it’s “cool” that I recycle, that I have a vermiculture in my house, and that I want to join the community garden.

Thankfully, we’re not just here to share the scary story of climate change with each other.  I deeply feel that Caring for Creation and Spirit of the Land are about showing the belonging, the joy, the self-esteem that can come from engaging with the natural world.  After all, our mother Earth is the greatest source of love and belonging there is!

This week the internet had a cold – strep throat or something nasty – and it just didn’t work.  Carmelle, Greg and I worked so hard to get the broadcast up and running, and it just didn’t want to play nice(cast).  I felt the cold hard edge of resistance rise against my will.  I was defeated, upset, and spent.

So when I got home after a long day of defeat, I did something different.  I skirted my computer, that whole digital world, and I went for a walk.  Now walking at the end of March for you folks out on the coast is a glorious thing!  Lennor wrote about the sweet ocean spray on her face in this post, but out here on the prairies I contend with the still biting winter wind, the ice on the walkway, the layer upon layer that prepares me to enter the cold.  Winter is like one of those marginal acquaintances that I have to prepare myself to reluctantly spend time with.  So why would I get out there after such a hard day?

Well, my frustrations with the digital world quickly wound into my head – repeating a mantra of negativity that never fails to leave me breathless.  I have recently been working with my body as a way to escape that merry-go-round of defeatist thinking.  I get down into my body.  I feel, I work, I use my muscles and suddenly that circular thought works its way into my circular bloodstream.  It churns its way through my sinews and finally escapes through my pores.  I literally sweat it out. (Though I don’t get too sweaty…. I’m a gentle walker!)

When I came home, I was still a bit upset that I couldn’t achieve what I had aimed for, but it was suddenly a manageable thing.  I thought how tomorrow the internet may be over its cold and that maybe I was just pushing it a little too much for its own good.

Just like the weather, this too will pass.

When I got back in, I tuned into #ds106radio – a large part of my frustration – and I found @bryanjack broadcasting from Port Moody.  He was singing some of his original tunes along with favourite covers.  Others gathered from the #ds106radio world. @DrGarcia @rowan_peters @cogdog all tuned in to share a little digital campfire time.  I was reminded how this space is one for friends to gather and I was reminded how blessed I am to be part of sharing that space with new friends.

So thank you all for participating.  Thank you for your patience.  And when your frustrations present, I hope you have many worlds to give you perspective.

Lennor / Reply March 28, 2014 at 12:57 pm

Hi everyone, I just wanted to say that those who do come to the gatherings and those who listen in with intentionally planning to add something new to a weekly experience are benefiting themselves and their communities.
The first week we had a chance to listen to some awesome poetry and music in connections with nature..trees to seas to sky. We also had a fine small group discussion about raising awareness about growing your own food . This week I had a chance to walk near the ocean and observe the various water birds in their habitats. It is a wonderful experience to feel the ocean spray on your face, to watch birds interact and to feel the Spirit move.
During our Lenten practice at church this year we focus on various themes. this week it had to do with eating and drinking and last night at our soup gathering we had a great crowd, followed by a service of music where one person shared her love for cooking and nurturing others by doing that. So go ahead and think about your various experiences.

I have recently joined this group and I just wanted to post a message thanking the participants and speakers in Victoria’s latest gathering. I was so encouraged to see the turn out and the discussions really helped drive home the point that these issues are cross-generational.

I am also looking to get some feedback on a policital/social action I am engaged in and wondering if it would be ‘bad form’ or improper for me to post some information about the event in hope of getting some of the participants to join in it.

What do you think?