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Working on my list

Darren’s weekly musings

May 24^th -30^th

Ticking things off my list

I am sure that many of you know that I am in the midst of big transitions right now.  There are lots of things on my to do list:  satisfying visa requirements, closing off my work with Asbury and West, Southwest Presbytery, Toronto Conference and the United Church, going through my gathered treasures (ie. junk) that I have accumulated over the years, saying good bye to friends, thinking about starting at a new church, new house, new city, even a new country.  It seems like a daunting list, and then you have to add all of the regular things that I do each week and you might wonder how I might possibly get them all done.

All of us have certain points in our lives when things get busier then others.  An emergency comes up and suddenly you have to make some changes to a carefully planned out schedule.  A few changes to routine later and it is easy to become overwhelmed.  

There are a few ways to handle such a situation.  One, is that you can have a meltdown.  “I can’t handle this.  It is just too much.”  This method of dealing with too many things does have a few benefits.  Suddenly you are not the only one feeling upset.  Others feel upset as well.  But that is not a good thing.  And the amount of work that you have to do does not decrease.

A second way of handling a situation of being overloaded, is to pretend to be superman or superwoman.  You try to do so much, tax unknown resources and hoperfully manage to do not a bad job at all.  But one can only do this a few times in life.  If you pretend to be superman or superwoman too often, you suddenly find that you are all too human.  Your body or your mind begin to this overexertion and you begin to show the physical signs of this over use. 

The healthy way of dealing with too many things to do, is to do your best to get through it while realizing your limitations.  Try to do one task at a time.  That way your list slowly gets smaller (I can’t bring world peace today, but I could write that letter to a friend).  Know yourself- know when you have to ask for help and understand what you can handle and how much you can handle.  Prioritize those things that need to get done today, those things that can be done tomorrow, and those things that can wait until next week.  Make sure that items are not permanently stuck on the do next week list.  Laugh knowing that the situation will return to what passes for normal soon.  

Making my A to Z list, Blessings.

Seeing through my eyes

Darren’s weekly musings

May 17^th-23^rd

If you could see through my eyes

In the play and later the movie, Driving Miss Daisy, Hoke is a personal driver for Miss Daisy, a somewhat cantankerous, high-strung woman.  The play shows how Miss Daisy does not want a driver at first.  She uses any excuse to get rid of him.  But Miss Daisy’s son is adamant, she can’t driver herself and she needs a driver.  Slowly, over the course of thirty years, a bond begins to form between Miss Daisy and Hoke.  They develop a friendship.  Hoke becomes her trusted companion.  Towards the end of the movie though, we learn that Hoke has developed cataracts.  Miss Daisy tells her friend that he should no longer be driving with his eyes.  Hoke replies, “How can you know what I see if you can’t see through my eyes?”

And that is what I want to talk about today- our perceptions- and how we see the world.  We can’t see through anyone else’s eyes.  We don’t hear with someone else’s ears.  We don’t feel with someone else’s sense of touch.  Take for example this weeks weather.  After some warm days last weekend, we are experiencing much cooler weather right now.  Some people I observed out the bus window yesterday were dressed as if it was mid January.  They had winter coats on and gloves.  And they didn’t seem to be dressed too warmly. Other people were in short sleeves and shorts.   And they weren’t shivering or looking extremely cold.  It seems people’s perception of yesterday’s weather varied.

You know I love music.  Almost all types of music fill my soul with great joy.  But certain music that my son like fill me with confusion if not outright dread.  In turn, I am sure my Neil Diamond music fills him with confusion and dread.  It is all in the matter of perception.

Travelling in other parts of the world, one can see that people have differing tastes in foods.  I might eat something that I consider very spicy.  Someone else will find it very bland.  Our perceptions are very different.

I think our perceptions also vary when we talk about certain words.  I remember a conversation I had last year with someone who came seeking advice.  In the midst of my mostly listening, I said to the person that they seemed to be looking for justice.  I used a term that is used often in the scripture.  God is God of justice.  We are told that justice should flow like a mighty stream.  That is the church’s view of justice.  In my mind, this person was seeking that justice.

The person coming for advice though had a very different view of justice.  They grew up in a country where the court system was extremely corrupt.  Justice for them was tinged with bias, with bribery, and lack of fairness.  They could not have anything to do with justice.  They didn’t want a God to be God a justice, because justice was so unfair.  I learned that people perceive words very differently.

Hoke is very wise in Driving Miss Daisy.  We don’t all see things the same way.  Things that I take for granted, these things are not perceived the same way by someone else.  I am wrong to think that others sense the world that I do.  I need to realize that my perception of words, sights, and sounds are unique to me and that others don’t share them.  Blessings

Baltimore and the Brushes

Darren’s weekly musings

April 26^th-May 2^nd

Standing up for good

"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything." - Albert Einstein

Like many of you, I have watched the riots that are taking place in Baltimore this week.  But I think missed in the news of the week were the stories of two homeless men who were brutally murdered in Winnipeg.  Their only crime was that they were homeless.  The killer seemed to think it was fine to kill these folks because they lived on the street.  The killer did not find worth in their lives.

A few weeks back we heard about the murders of university students in Kenya.  Gunmen went through the university and killed any student who could not recite verses of the Qu’ran.  The dead students, almost all of them Christian, were felt to be expendable by the extremists.

The women who went missing on Robert Picton’s pig farm in BC were someone’s child, sister, wife or mother.  They were targeted by Picton because they were poor and worked on the streets.  Picton took advantage of their vulnerabilities and murdered them because he thought they were without value.

Many people, people who I would call judgers, place values on others because of their ethnicity.  In this way of thinking a Cambodian might be more important than a Peruvian.  Some judgers place values on race.  Some judgers place values on a person’s gender or sexual orientation. Judgers see certain jobs and professions are valued while other jobs are vilified.  Other judgers value the opinions of those who dress to certain norms all the while disregarding the opinions of those who dress alternatively.   For these judgers there is a certain pecking order and everyone is pegged their place by whatever prejudice the judger uses.  This way of thinking to me is wrong.  It is evil.  It is meant to bring disharmony to the world and not unity.

The other night, I watched some of the local Baltimore tv newscasts on line as they reported on the riots.  One newscaster was quick to condemn all of the rioters as criminals who were intent to destroy his city.  He too was a judger, tarring all people with the same brush.  However another newscaster quickly jumped in.  He said that yes a few of the protestors were only there to commit mischief for mischief’s sake.  But many of the people out there were protesting peacefully.  Many were concerned about police relations with the black community.  Many loved their city.  The other announcer was the voice of reason in the midst of hate.  May we all come to realize that we are not just homogenized parts of the groups we belong to  but that each person is to be valued and loved for who they are.  Blessings.

Who do you say I am?

Darren’s weekly musings

April 19^th-26^th

Who do you think I am?

This morning I heard an interview with a man who was talking about the racism that exists in our society.  The myth is that in Canada we have no racism.  The myth goes even further, given that Toronto is the most multicultural diverse city in the world, that Toronto must be the most accepting city in the world.  But the man being interviewed said that since he is black, he gets followed around when he goes into certain high end stores- just like he can’t be trusted.  He has been refused entry to clubs in town- and it was just not one random act, he has been refused entry on many different occasions.  And he has been stopped by police several times and carded, just because he was black.  The man said he felt like a prisoner in his own community.  He says without a doubt that racism exists in our city.

I remember working as a scrutineer in a very close British Columbia provincial election.  I dutifully took my seat behind the deputy returning officer and polling clerk.  I had done this kind of volunteer work before and was obeying all of the rules.  The scrutineer from the other main party was a teenage girl.  She had not read all the rules.  When people came to our booth to cast their vote she would say to me, “Oh that person is very well dressed.  Therefore they must vote this way.”  “That person is in raggedy clothes.  Obviously they vote this way.”  I told her to stop doing this as our role was merely to observe the vote and we were not to talk about various political parties.  Eventually, she was reprimanded by the deputy returning officer.  But this young girl had figured that she could size up who people were, what they were all about, and who they would vote for just by the way they dressed.  Levis wearers would vote one way.  Vera Wang wearers would vote another in her mind.

When I speak, I speak as Darren.  It is wrong to think that because I think a certain thing, all people from my home town of Moose Jaw will think the same thing.  Because I voice my opinion on a certain subject, it is wrong to think that all left handed people, or all people from Ontario, or all United Church ministers, or all 51 year old gay men with Austrian, French, Scottish and Cree heritage think the same way I do.  The young girl at the voting poll that day was so wrong.  You cannot judge others by what they wear, by what colour their skin is, by what accent they speak with.  People are more than the sum of their parts.  Our society must stop using assumptions based on perceived differences to judge others.  We need to  end practices like carding that presume guilt on the basis of skin colour.  Blessings.

New home of my weekly posts

Since I won't be at Asbury and West after June 30th, this will be the new site of my weekly musings.