Isn't it a wonderful world...

A few years ago, when my daughters were still playing soccer, Suzanna played against a team from the most ethnically diverse part of our city. My neighbour's brother, who has spent a lot of time in India and Asia, was standing next to me when I commented on the fact that every player but one on the opposing team had black hair. He turned to me and said, "Won't it be a wonderful world when people no longer notice things like that?"

This past weekend was the American Football Superbowl, when the two top teams played for the championship trophy, and advertisers pulled out all the stops to make commercials for their products that people will remember. A certain cola company's ad (click here to see it) has received a lot of negative attention because it took a national hymn and, while lines of the song were translated and being sung in the languages of different nationalities, it showed gorgeous images of people of those nationalities participating in life in the United States.

One of the really beautiful things in our world is the diversity of its people. Our different cultures, languages, beliefs and traditions give the world such richness and beauty. For a long time, my part of North America was pretty homogeneous, but in the last twenty years, things have really shifted, and now it's unusual to go through a day without the sound of a different language or accent in my ears, spoken by someone with skin colour different than mine. Coming from a bilingual country that is becoming more multilingual by the day, I think the sights and sounds our immigrants bring from their lands of origin are exciting, appealing, and expanding the hearts and minds of long-time Canadians, most of whose families originated in other lands, too. The fact that these more recent immigrants have been brave enough to join us in the Canadian multicultural mosaic, to learn yet another language and live in a different and much colder land, this time of year(!) fills me with admiration and appreciation for their resourcefulness and resilience.

We are all brothers and sisters, and isn't it a wonderful world when we can sing the same song together, even if our languages are different?!

Simple pleasures... and making music

One of my favourite things in this world is making music, doesn't matter what kind of music it is. Singing a round, playing guitar, beating a drum, it's all good. What's better is when there's a whole group of people playing and singing together. I'm not one to sing solo, but I love duets and harmonies. Did you ever notice that participation is way more fun than just listening? My favourite musicians are those who come up with easily singable choruses, or leave spaces in their harmony lines for people like me to sing, or who invite their audiences to sing along.

Music is good for the soul in more ways than I can count. It carries emotion, memory and joy like nothing else. My parents both came from musical families, and they've never stopped making music. Some of my early memories include "sing songs" with rooms full of people and my mom's brothers playing piano and guitar. I remember asking them and my dad to sing "Blue Spanish Eyes" for my decidedly un-Spanish dollie! And they did!

When Mom and Dad gave my sister and me 12-string guitars for Christmas 30 years ago, we didn't know that we would enter into the sing-a-long tradition. My youngest sister plays piano, and the three of us have played for a few dozen sing songs over the last fifteen years. Recently, my daughter requested a sing song for her birthday, and a half dozen of her school chums were initiated into the tradition. Will it continue with the next generation? I hope so.

It doesn't take much to make music. I'm not a very talented guitarist as I never took lessons, can't play a bar chord to save my life, and rarely practice, but in a pinch I can lead a group of kids or adults in singing "I am a Pizza," or "Let It Be," and thoroughly enjoy the process. A lot of us sing in the shower with only the sound of water as accompaniment and enjoy that, too. Unfortunately, somewhere along our lives, too many of us lose the small child's ability to sing completely un-self-consciously -- and the joy that goes with it.

Making music is magic, an endorphin-producing pleasure that should happen more frequently than it does. A European cell phone company capitalized on this idea, and invited a crowd of people to raise their voices in Trafalgar Square -- a mega sing song. I love how everyone enters into the spirit! Why not sing along and up your endorphins on this winter day?

My first L'Arche AGM

As my husband picked me up from the L'Arche Annual General Meeting tonight, he asked how a such a meeting could be conducted in a community of people "with and without disabilities." And I had to laugh and say, very well.

True, you'd probably never see anything like tonight's meeting at the corporate level, but then again, I imagine AGMs in the upper echelons are usually enough to put anyone to sleep. No one slept through this one! It was a celebration of the past year's events and achievements, joys and trials in the L'Arche Edmonton community, and the community members certainly didn't yawn through a boring agenda or sit on their hands!

The voting community members - with and without disabilities - were given orange cards to hold up when it was time to vote, and they did so with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Previous minutes and financial statements were approved, board members were elected and re-elected, and auditors and solicitors appointed, all with a waving of the cards. The chair's report and the financial reports were brief and to the point. Then the community leader asked each of the six homes to participate in her report, and participate they did -- with skits, songs, slide shows and dancing.

Corporate AGMs would be a lot more interesting if they followed the L'Arche model. Everyone present tonight witnessed a wonderful summary of a year in the life of our L'Arche community, and the infectious joy of the actors, singers and dancers made it a meeting I will never forget.