Religion, doubt, and dishonesty.

The John Patrick Shanley play Doubt is now a movie. A movie that feels a lot like a play that has been filmed, rather than its own piece of art. While I found the movie intriguing, the significance of it for me has nothing to do with whether or not that fictional priest was guilty of sexual abuse of the boys under his care.

What I was most interested in was a philosophy expressed by Sister Aloysius twice in the movie. I checked some of the online websites to see if I could find the actual quote, but I could not. It was something along the lines of "Sometimes when you are fighting evil, you have to step away from God." I know that's not quite right, but the sentiment is close enough.

In a recent Edmonton Journal article, on the Religion page under the Offerings section, a local Christian Reformed pastor wrote about how a recent polygamy case in Bountiful BC shows that the definition of marriage, made nebulous by the decision to allow marriage of same-sex couples, must be re-affirmed as a voluntary union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

The problem is this: the pastor used arguments against same-sex marriage as if they were the same as arguments against polygamy. He referenced passages of the Bible and he also referenced a scholar from McGill University. Unfortunately, when I checked out the references I found that they did not support his position vis-a-vis polygamy (although they partially supported some of his other points - only partially). I don't want to be too blunt here, but the gentleman was not being truthful, including in the way he used the reference to the McGill scholar (who had admitted to polygamy as a variant of marriage in her submission to a Commons committee - I looked it up).

It made me wonder if he felt he, like sister Aloysius, was justified in playing loose with the facts because he was serving a higher good.

Unfortunately, many people know that

• polygamy is still permitted for Muslims in India (a country with a diverse population of more than 1 billion),
• it was practiced in China until 1953 (at which point China had a population of more than half a billion) it is still practiced in parts of the Middle East and Africa,
• it was clearly practiced without prejudice in the stories of the Old Testament - including the non-voluntary practice of levirate marriage (where you had to marry your brother's widow).

And of course there is the history of the Mormon church - currently 13 million people who know that polygamy was a part of the practice of the early Mormon church.

All of which means the reader of the article had to decide whether the author was ignorant or if he was deliberately presenting a distortion. Neither option is pleasant to contemplate.

What would it have hurt to say "I know we practiced polygamy in ancient times. I know the Christian church even had same-sex unions in pre-modern Europe. But the Christian church has always been a dynamic, changing force suffused by the Holy Spirit in order to keep God's plan for the world relevant and alive. Our branch of the church currently believes in holy matrimony as a sacrament which is intended to unite one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others."?

Of course, the problem is that the whole goal of the letter was to convince people that marriage has NOT changed and SHOULD NOT be changed. To admit that it has already changed, not only from polygamy to the current standard but also from religious sacrament to civil arrangement, would be to open up the argument to people who say "Yes, it has changed in the past and it must continue to change to reflect our reality."

I am drafting a letter to him. Not to the paper - I am not interested in publicly humiliating anyone. But the good pastor will have to figure out what he wants to do with the knowledge that he has been caught doing something which is against the teachings of his faith. Perhaps he will know the Sister Aloysius quote.

Folding Time

Half a year gone. Situations and events pleat the fabric of time. Or maybe a better metaphor is that of the hurdler, needing enough momentum to get over the hurdles, so even the spaces in between become a blur.

July was Youthwrite and the most awesome birthday, complete with fire alarms and a pinata and 60 kids out on the lawn in the middle of the night.

August was the death of my beloved little dog, Dextrose, and the hyper-life of the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival: the satisfaction of the lovely, low-key Etymology of Iroquois contrasted with the circus atmosphere of Pagliacci in a tent. And everything made more challenging when I broke my right hand in a cycling accident.

September was the month when Candas was away in Whistler and the challenge was to teach my college and university courses, get my research project done, look after the rental property, close the house deal, care for the dying cat and the living mother-in-law, and meet the obligations of my church job.

October was a blur which included the More Peas, Please cabaret. November was a blur with Vinok Worldance's Christmas Around the World on top of it. December also a blur, with the Coming of the Kings laid on top.

So many times I wanted to post, but there was no time to process what had been happening.

Still isn't.

Father's Day sentiments

I do listen to the sermons on Sunday. That doesn't mean I always agree with them, and certainly today's sermon was a puzzler. The text was the story of Abraham taking his son Isaac up the mountain with the intention of killing him. The sermon meandered through several things related to fatherhood: jokes, masculinity under fire from feminism, the father-son relationship, ancient Jewish teachings on killing etc.

It's the story that interests me. Why was that story told? In the passage, it suggests the story is the source of a common saying: "On the mountain, God will provide."

Here's the story in a nutshell: God tells Abraham to take Isaac up the mountain and sacrifice him. Abraham doesn't tell Isaac what's going on. They trek up the mountain to make a sacrifice, and Isaac want to know wher the animal is. Abraham tells him not to worry - God will provide. so they get to the top, and Abraham builds an altar. Then the tricky part: he ties Isaac up, puts him on the altar and raises the knife to kill him. An angel appears and stops him. And they find a ram caught by his horns in a thicket, and it's the ram who has the dubious honour of being killed instead of Isaac.

The story is yet another example of the completely dysfunctional lineage that is the central line of Christianity. Isaac doesn't exactly have a great time with his own sons later either.

So...that saying, "On the mountain, God will provide", what does it mean exactly? That you can be as abusive as you like, say God told you to do it, and at the last minute God will stop you from going the whole way and killing your kid? That when you go out on a limb in faith, and risk your nearest and dearest, God will bail you out?

How about an Alberta update? Henry Albertan gets a message from God, who in Alberta is something like a morphing of the Premier with an oil baron and an economist. The message is: Henry, you're in trouble. You're poor - or if you aren't poor now, you will be. You need to appease us by sacrificing your elderly, your children, and the sick. So Henry agrees to support God's decree. He doesn't question the damage done by resource extraction. He allows seniors to suffer huge rent increases, allows cutbacks to the education of his children, allows the government to make a mess of the health care system. But Henry has faith that in the end, God will provide.

But just like the original story, it's a false crisis. It's God who tells Abraham/Henry there's a crisis. Totally manufactured. But you're not supposed to question God. And Isaac is shushed for questioning his father (I'd have some questions if my father tried to hogtie me and sling me on an altar). And the only ram stuck in the thicket is the oil, and Henry Albertan is going to do the same thing with the oil that Abraham did with the ram: burn it. And nothing will have been solved, except Isaac and everyone else will have been abused because of Abraham/Henry's stupidity. And the cycle will continue into the next generation.

That's the sermon I would have preached.

Salvage

The view from our home office includes the bottle depot, a rundown old apartment building, the abandoned Golden Harvest Movie Theatre aka Wings Bar, and at the end of the cul de sac is the salvage op.

This is when you look past the skinny empty lot which is already home to a couple of guys this season (one of whom is Len - and judging from the shape of Len's nose, I'd say he's not the winner of most of his bar fights).

Today Richard stopped by to drop off the beautiful boxes which had housed the Dom Perignon and Veuve Clicquot he and Tracy had used to celebrate special occasions. We're probably the only house on the street that starts with the empties!

Richard looked up the street, eyebrows raised in disbelief.

"It's the salvage yard," I said. "Overflowing. Been like that for a few months."

"That's not right," he said. "You should be able to call the city and have that cleaned up."

I love Richard. He's smart, cute as a button, and has lovely manners. He can also be, by his own admission, naive.

I didn't tell him about Wayne stealing our aluminum ladder - about how you can't leave anything metal in your yard or it's likely to be taken to the scrapyard for a few pennies. It's convenient to have the scrapyard there - a trip to the yard can be combined with a trip to the bottle depot. Now that Wings is closed, and the Camelot Sports Bar, there are fewer local bars to spend the money, but these guys tend to buy Finesse pump hairspray at the minimart and drink it.

Not Len, so far. but he looks like he's headed in that direction. He's still enough in the world that he wants to see under the hood of our Jaguar. And he's taken it upon himself to kick out would-be squatters. Yay Len!

This whole neighbourhood is a salvage yard. And in the summer, this is what happens. The people overflow. They lie about in every empty lot, sometimes just soaking in the sun, other times too blotto to know where they are. There are fights.

One of my neighbours two blocks north told me she was hearing a party of hard drinkers in the lot next door to her house. She went out and told them she had a young boy in the house, and she didn't really like her boy having to see this. You know what happened?

This is why I love this neighbourhood.

The men politely apologized, right away, and packed up.

Just because it looks bad, and tumbles out into the streets, doesn't mean the castaway stuff - be it metal or people - has no value or understands no values.

Like Weeds

The spring weather has brought the dandelions, the chamomile, and a host of other weeds. Yes, it has also brought the violets and squills and tulips. Can anyone tell me why my daffodils come later than the tulips when almost everywhere else the daffodils come first?

I've been out in the garden, weeding, checking on the perennials. The miniature roses are back,having successfully overwintered for a second year. These are the cheap little roses you get at the grocery store as potted gifts. They've proven hardy here, and given the struggle I have with the David Austins, I'm happy to have them.

This morning there was a beer bottle in the front garden, and a flattened scuffed area. The little wire dog figure my other half put out to define the corner of the garden was lying flat. Someone had stumbled into the garden and dropped their bottle in the process. I didn't pick up the bottle - we have a regular procession of shopping carts headed to the recycling depot across the street. I knew it would be gone in a matter of minutes. So I straightened up the wire dog. None of the plants seems to have been seriously hurt.

Along with the weeds, we get an increase in outdoor neighbours. I hesitate to call them homeless; they have homes, but they don't involve houses or apartments.

We were looking at a house a couple of blocks away - a really nice reno - and in the empty lot beside it there were four people leaning up against the wall of the adjacent apartment building. They were slumped there in their dark clothes, enjoying the spring sunshine. They called out to anyone who went by - not because they wanted anything in particular, but because they were feeling good. Spring has arrived and there's enough money for beer and someone had dragged a small mattress to the lot, so they didn't have to sit on the hard ground. One of the men had slumped down far enough that his head was the only part of him propped up by the wall. The position was the sort of thing you'd have to be drunk to tolerate.

And all four of them were drunk. Their faces were bloated by drink and too much sun (and perhaps the swelling from the most recent fight).

It's going to be a hard sell, this house, with that as the view.

On the way home from the Vietnamese restaurant I saw another man passed out against the north wall of the tiny carwash that serves the city vehicles. He was slumped down the same way as the man in the lot - so only his head was held up by the concrete, and at an angle that had me thinking how much I would need my chiropractor if I ever took up drinking in a serious way.

While I am watching this, and hearing the occasional groaning of our pipes as the homeless come for the water, a friend of mine is sending me e-mails urging me to protest against a proposed gravel pit in the west end of the city. The e-mails are full of exclamation marks!!!!! and dire warnings of what evils will befall the entire city if the gravel pit is permitted.

And of course the campaign invokes THE CHILDREN. We must think of the children.

Yes, I believe children have the right to be loved and secure. But I resent having children used as a sentimental button for every issue that comes up. In this case, the threat to the children is unclear. It seems there will be an increase of truck traffic on the main road in the area, and this poses a threat to the children. I'm not sure why. If children play on this already-busy access road, then the parents haven't been doing a very good job.

The residents are up in arms about the danger to the environment - conveniently forgetting that their own housing developments were plunked down relatively recently in the same sensitive area. They warn about the pollution of the river - although they can't say WHAT would cause the pollution in the process.

I sent a message back to my friend. I pointed out that the NIMBY attitude (Not In My Back Yard) displayed by the local residents is the same thing that has meant the highest concentration of halfway houses, harm reduction facilities, facilities for the homeless etc are put in MY neighbourhood because the good citizens everywhere else block the zoning. And no thought was spared for the children in MY neighbourhood. The burbs are busy saying "We don't want this sort of thing in OUR enclave." So it's not about the children - it's hardly ever about children - but about property values.

But the children in my neighbourhood are a lot like the adults in my neighbourhood: poor. So they have no clout. And they are surrounded by excellent object lessons every time they walk down the street: drink too much, and it'll be YOU lying in the vacant lot with your head bashed and bloated.

It would be nice if the residents who are worried about the gravel pit would stop and think more globally. Maybe the gravel pit is the way they can contribute to the good of all. And if it means teaching their children to play safely and have a healthy fear of moving vehicles, then that's a bonus. They should be teaching their kids those lessons anyway.

The Room Out Back

Yesterday the insurance company finally got the old Honda Civic towed from our parking space off the alley. I hadn't realized how much it was weighing on me, seeing the car every time I looked out the back windows.

The car was rear-ended August 29th. For much of the winter it has been a dwelling for Wayne, one of the marginalised people who drift about downtown Edmonton. I think I evicted Wayne 4 times this winter - and there were so many reasons why Wayne had to be evicted. The weather is too cold here in Edmonton to survive in a car that isn't running. Wayne smoked crack and had a drug habit that involved injectables - so there were candles, matches and lighters in an extremely flammable environment. The car couldn't be secured because the frame had buckled and a window mechanism had broken - so locking yourself inside was not an option. And the guy up the street is ready to beat up anyone he thinks is hanging around, stealing stuff.

Four weeks ago I took all Wayne's stuff out of the car, shoved it in orange trash bags, and told him he had to leave. Anything he didn't take with him would be thrown out. What use does a homeless man have for a broken X-Box? It didn't even have a car adapter! Some of the stuff is scavenged, some of it might be stolen goods. Wayne took some of the stuff, but a week later the garbagemen took the rest - five bags of it.

Two weeks ago, Wayne was back in the car. I tried to secure it better, and I posted a No Trespassing sign. Made no difference. So I took all the stuff out again - new stuff. There were several blankets, three sofa cushions, clean and dirty workclothes, women's clothing, tools, drug paraphernalia, and three battery-operated vibrators. Wayne had been entertaining a girlfriend.

As I was clearing out the car, a couple came by. "Oh, you're clearing out my Uncle Wayne's stuff, eh?" The woman who said it didn't seem the least bit surprised.

"I've told him he can't live here," I said. "I've told him several times."

"Wayne's kinda stubborn that way. Shit happens. He snoozes, he loses," she said, and the man with her grunted. "Does he got any good clothes in there? Any women's clothes?"

I pointed to the growing pile laid out on a tarp in the lot next door. "Wayne wear those?" I asked.

She laughed. "No, he had a girlfriend but she took all his money and dumped him. He's not too smart that way."

Wayne's niece and her boyfriend rummaged through the debris of Wayne's life. I left them there. I knew she would tell him to come and get his stuff, if he was going to.

Wayne showed up again at some point in the night. He left a blanket, a lighter, and a pillow on the back seat. I threw them on the pile.

A city crew came and cleared out the stuff. Someone thinks it's a city lot, and they do all the maintenance.

Then, one night later, I saw motion in the car. I put on my coat and boots and went out there to confront Wayne again.

The back door was unlocked. I opened it and addressed the form huddled under a white comforter.

"Out. Out of the car NOW! You cannot stay here," I bellowed, using my stentorian operatic voice.

There was a mumble, and the figure pulled the comforter closer. I grabbed the edge of it and pulled it off, throwing it over the car into the empty lot.

It wasn't Wayne. And the figure lying there wasn't alone. There was a man lying on the seat itself, and lying one the floor behind the front seats was a woman.

I ordered them out. The man struggled and made it out, but the woman was stretching an arm out to me and asking for help.

"You don't need my help," I said. "You got in there without my help, you can get out without my help." She had a round, puffy face, and she was reaching out with one arm and saying she needed help. Her male friend was walking down the alley and he turned around and hollered:

"She's only got one arm, eh."

Which was true.

She couldn't get up without help, not from where she was wedged behind the seats of the car.

"You knew that," I called out, "and you left her here? Get back here! You help her out. She's your friend; you help her."

And he did. And she was swearing at me. I've gotten used to this - that the men of the streets usually cooperate but the women get violent and abusive.

Anyway. The car is now gone. I feel sorry for it. It had been so well cared for by the previous owners, and we were prepared to care for it too. At the end it had been smashed, ripped up, smeared with egg and wax, the mirror ripped off, and it stank of alcohol and survival.

Current Currants

Finished off the last of the cherries today - looking out at the frozen grey blocks of downtown Edmonton. They weren't as flavourful as the ones we picked off Bev's tree summer before last - these had made the long trek from another country, and I suspect they ripened along the way.

Bev lives in New Westminster, BC. Her cherries grow on a mature tree which shades much of her backyard. On a sunny day, those fruits shine and twinkle. I don't know why this took me by surprise - in the back of my mind I think I attributed the shine on grocery store cherries to some kind of micro-coating or waxing or...but, no, that amazing gleam was put there by the creator.

Of course even Bev doesn't get cherries in late January. These were from Chile. When I was in the store today, I found that a lot of the fruits were from Chile at this time of year. So I just did a quick online search to see what fruits might be native to Chile.

I found a report that showed there were 15 varieties of currant considered native to Chile - "native" in this case meaning they can be traced back as far as the 19th century. Of those 15 varieties, guess how many are cultivated, according to the report?

None.

Either that means Chileans aren't terribly interested in currants, or it means that Chilean fruit growers are focussing on the non-native species to sell to the international market. And why not? How many species native to Canada form the backbone of our produce exports? Many of our plants were brought here. (Oh, yes, we have Saskatoons - nasty gritty berries with more reputation than flavour, in my estimation.)

I can't allow myself to get obsessive about native plants and biodiversity. I'm too excited by the thought of the frangipani growing on my windowsill, the holly in my garden, my tender roses (no doubt completely ruined by the extended cold snap we've been having).

So why do I worry about the agricultural exports of Chile? Why can't I just eat the cherries and be thankful they don't have to go by a slow boat, or that my only option in the winter is preserves?