Sharing GOOD work

Throughout my education, I was always told how important it was to use descriptive words. Things couldn't just be good. They had to be superlatively so -- excellent, exceptional, favourable, great, marvelous, respectable, wonderful, etc., or I was falling down on the job as a writer. There are a couple hundred entries in the thesaurus that are better than good, I was told, and English teachers in particular sent me to Roget's often. 

Over the last while, however, I have come to a deep appreciation of the word good thanks to my Indigenous friends. They use the word good with deep respect -- walking the good road, appreciating good medicine, being a good person, sharing good things, offering good help. Good isn't just good for them, it is superlative in its own right, and why shouldn't it be? Is fantastic any better? Or just a fancier word for what's already good? My Indigenous friends have me thinking a lot about simplicity of speech and the simple goodness of good. 

My son-in-law, Landon, is a good person who does good work. He/they is a local social worker, smarter than I'll ever be, and uber-talented to boot (there I go with the superlatives again! But I'll stick with the masculine singular pronouns from here on). 

Recently, Landon completed his U of A Master's Thesis, which is titled "Who Cares About Us?": Insights and implications from survivors who reported hate crimes and incidents to organizations in Edmonton. It's good work that carries sixteen recommendations for organizations, three recommendations for police services, and seven recommendations for local, provincial and federal governments on how to help survivors when they report hate crimes and incidents. I'll use the word important for all those recommendations, which should be implemented everywhere. 

If a document of that size is a bit overwhelming, you can check out the executive summary and recommendations on pages 5-9 of the linked report. You can also click here to complete a short, free online training on the topic that Landon helped put together. 

After Landon defended the thesis successfully, another organization asked if he'd consider making his work into a documentary, which he did, simply because he wants to make the world a better place for everyone (and not everyone can wade through a thesis). Not only did he do all the documentary's filming and interviewing, but he spent many hours editing and writing music for it. 

Recently, To Be Heard was shown in a local movie theatre with two other documentaries, followed by a panel discussion around hate reduction in general. The event raised over $1000 to support the important work of StopHateAB. It was a very good evening, and we were glad we attended. 

Landon is a very thoughtful, articulate, and solidly good human being. You'll see him in the 20-minute documentary below, which is in the public domain on YouTube for everyone to learn from and share. Landon is the kind of guy who makes me want to use superlatives, but bottom line is, he's GOOD.

Sunday Reflection: We are all bread and wine

Today's reflection is brought to you by

1 Corinthians 10: 16-17. 


O Christ,
you are the cup of blessing,
you are the bread broken for us,
by us.

One bread,
one cup,
shared with all of humanity
so that we might learn
to be broken
and to be blessing
in spite of our brokenness.

So that we might learn
that we are all one body,
in union with
black lives,
indigenous lives,
LGBTQ+ lives,
unborn lives,
"other" lives that barely touch our own
but who, 

with us, 

are part of
one body,
one Spirit in You.

Forgive our blindness,

heal our hypocrisy,

and help us to change ourselves 

and our world.

Make us into your cup of blessing,
your bread broken
that the world might live.

+Amen

* * * * * * * 

Moodling here hasn't happened lately simply because the murder of George Floyd left me speechless. What can a white, middle-class, middle-aged woman possibly say in the face of something like that? Not much except that Black Lives Matter to me, always have, and always will, though I am aware that I live in a state of white privilege that belies that statement. If Black Lives Matter, how does my life show it?

When Donald Trump was elected, I couldn't bear to spend the next day alone, so I went to have lunch with some of my friends at L'Arche. We were five or six different skin colours around the table, and we talked about the racism my friends face here in Edmonton, and how Trump's presidency might "normalize" racist behaviours for those already leaning that way. The murder of George Floyd and Trump's behaviour since show that it seems to have come true. But facing facts, these injustices have been happening for centuries, probably because too many of us have felt powerless to stop them, and because we have been too comfortable in our own lives, where these injustices don't touch us often enough.

Clearly, the president of the U.S. favours the white having the might. But God has no favourites -- she and he made every one of us favourite children, equal in God's sight. And contrary to the holy pictures I grew up with, Jesus and Mary were brown-skinned Middle-Easterners. It's an awfully messed-up Christianity that insists otherwise! And it's time to change that. 

As I mourn for George and so many others, including our missing and murdered indigenous men and women here in Canada, I can't help but think that we're past time for those of us who have lived in a bubble of white privilege to be broken, to have our comfort and complacency overturned in a way that allows us to feel the deep hurts of those who have lived with injustice for many hundreds of years. It's our turn to break, to enter into the pain. To sit with those who are hurting in ways that we don't understand -- until we finally understand. To see every single person as a family member. To stop shaking our heads about injustice, and to actually make justice, to insist on justice even if it means we have to lose our comfortable lives in order to relate more fully with those who are being treated unjustly. It's our turn to become blessing instead of guilty bystander as injustices rage around us, because of us.

There are many organizations that are working to combat racism that need our help. We are called to become like Christ, which means to become the bread broken for the world, the cup of blessing shared with all. We can contribute our time, talent or treasures to anti-racism organizations. And we can reach out with love to all those who are facing injustices on a regular basis, simply by befriending, listening, and doing what we can to make change.

We are all meant to be bread and wine for each other. No exceptions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q77uRQxKDCY