got an agenda?

if you're going to have an agenda, at least make it friendly.

this is the journal my friend Heather made me to take on my travels.

It seems to me that one of the worst inventions humans ever created was an agenda.  I have one.  You have one.  My neighbour has one.  So does yours.  They come in all colours, shapes and sizes.  Book form, electronic, or a calendar posted on the kitchen wall..... we live by our agendas.   Some don't share theirs AT ALL.  They keep it all tucked away in their brains and let it fuel their mission. They remind us of what we want and what we must do to get what we want.  They hold our schedules, timetables, deadlines, appointments so we don't have to think about them.  Those navigators are necessary to free up our minds in order to pursue pot of gold goals.  You know, some people even testify that their agenda is a Godsend.  hmmmm............ Can't live without an agenda. 

Isn't that crazy?  Can you see why I suggest they are the worst invention ever?  No.......... Well, here's more.  They drive our choices, our days, our lives and make us single mindedly blind to the agenda of another.  You see, my agenda is more important than yours.  Isn't that right?  What I want is WAY more important than what you want.  I know this for a fact because I have a full agenda.  Yours has gaps. In fact. I know most of your agenda and it's ridiculous! Who in their right mind wants those things???

So often I know my agenda clashes with yours, but since I need to be rigid in my pursuit to get what I want accomplished, I'm not really concerned what yours holds. Mine's more important than yours.  My agenda. All MINE. And the more I rely on it...........on the so VERY important items that drive my mission to succeed, to WIN, the more psyched I am to do whatever it takes.  I have absolutely NO TIME to get to know you..... I'm way too busy getting my needs met.

At night, when we finally collapse in a heap on the couch after a full agenda day........of pushing to get what we want, to be recognized with email accolades, coffee mug prizes and air mile bonuses for trips we never have time for; when we let our guard down as we sink into a soft landing pad after clashing with other people intent on jousting for their pie of the agenda pie....... silent reality hits just for a scary split second.  Alone, except for our selfish attitudes.  It is only then we have the opportunity to address what is really important in life, but oddly is missing on the pages of our agenda scribblings ........ love, friendship, compassion, serving others, connecting, sharing.  

Then we push that aside.... pffffffft to that!  WE've got better fish to fry than that mushy stuff.  Let some do gooder social work type deal with that crap.  Besides, I've got church services booked in my trusty agenda.  I can listen to that sermon on Sunday.  Same old, same old.......

Sadly, the gas tank is empty anyways.  After a long day of working our agenda, we have no energy left.   Too tired to reflect.  Too tired to look in the mirror.  Too tired to care. So, we uncork the bottle of wine and pour ourselves a glass to toast ourselves as we close the book on another day. 

Gee....it sounds like one hand clapping.

unfairness

Nothing, absolutely nothing burns my ass more than unfairness.  It is deceitful, immoral, inhuman, unethical, disrespectful, underhanded, and just plain rude.  When I hear of a situation someone has found themselves in that is clearly unfair and are having a tough time trying to rectify it, I can feel my rankled nerves fire up.  Push that button in me, and seriously watch out because no one, I mean NO ONE should be treated unfairly.

In my world, unfairness revolves around castrated systems.........made up of bureaucratic tapeworms that devour living, breathing human beings and spits out faceless cut outs whose forms fit certain policy garb.  One dimensionally shaped the same, void of feeling, and emptied of any unique story that may make them an exception to a rule, faceless cut outs are much easier to contend with than the real deal. Prejudged even before the person can open their mouth.  Prejudged even before there is a face to face meeting.....if one is even arranged, and if it is arranged, the balance of power is always, always TILTED, weighed down by rules and regulation ammunition, and preconceived myths.

Unfairness reeks of injustice.  It distorts perceptions by slapping judgemental labels on the nearest victim. Empathy is laughed at. There's no room for empathy.  It's for sissies.  But you know what?  Systems can't be unfair without human beings manipulating it right?  Systems are driven by living breathing humans who bleed too...... sadly,  humans who are afraid to deviate from the fear mongering policy manual.  Is that it?  Afraid to listen, afraid to help, afraid of reprimands if they risk stepping out of the assembly line?  Perhaps it just comes down to the fear of FEELINGS??

We all have biases.  Mine is focused on unfair practises. I have no time for them. I will fight them. I will go to bat for anyone I believe is getting the shaft, who needs someone to be their designated hitter. No problem.  However, my emotions often get the best of me because of how much I am triggered by unfairness venom.   Most of the time, I don't care.  I can figure it out after the wrong has been righted............ or at least we've given it our best shot. 

Yes, I can see the big picture when it comes to the overarching reasoning behind needing structure, guidelines, rules, laws.  And Yes, I can sometimes/barely work within a system if I have some respect for it.  I'm not a pushover though I have advocated in the past for people who turned out to be frauds.  But, I do react too quickly sometimes when I see a Samson and Goliath scenario playing out. 

Today, unfairness poisoned the air all around me.  It festered and laughed hideously while jousting with a firepoker. It pissed me off!  As much as I have learned how to manipulate unprincipled actions into submission, I do know how to play the game, how to stretch the sides of a policy, how to talk nicely and even bomb it with love. Sometimes though, I slip up and let my anger lead the way.  Today, I let it rip!  On purpose.  Because I could. I punched the lights out on unfairness.  Tomorrow round two.  Bring it ON.  I'm not finished.

Yes, today was a good day.  I got an emotionally charged cerebral workout while teaching someone how to stand up for their rights.  Empowerment should never be overruled by a human driven system made for cut outs.

the fear and loathing decade....

For some reason, I completely missed the fact that we are about to hit a New Years milestone.  It took being surrounded by year end lists, when i realized a whole decade had scampered by.  Could that be?  Has it really been 10 years since we all fretted over a massive Y2K meltdown that was supposed to trample over the wires and ways of computer technology?  I guess so.  Gee, I still had a little one in diapers back then, and now he's out of my arms, having travelled to Costa Rica to attend a month long international village for 11 and 12 year olds!  I also had a little girl who rarely left my side and clung to me like a baby Koala.  Now, she's juggling work and school and her network of friends. 

I've been driving backwards since I learned that we're about to stamp this decade as complete, allowing the events which will define it to filter up.  And the more I thought about it, the more I could see how easily this collection of 10 years could easily be labelled "the fear and loathing decade......"  Events beyond our control, were foisted upon us and thrown into our lexicon and lives so radically that we are still reeling and dealing with them, the most obvious being the events of September 11, 2001.   Though terrorism was not a new concept, it truly became a personalized one as the fear factor ratcheded up to hyperventilation mode.  All of a sudden, it felt like we plummeted into a global cat and mouse, hide and seek game with evil.   We watched our leaders puff out their chests and make pronouncements about catching Bin Laden and his boys...... to eradicate Islamic fundamentalism, to target underground cells of disenfranchised Muslims through brute force. 

Bin Laden still rules the game of hide and seek. 

We have grown in awareness and weariness as the decade tick tocked away.  Afghanistan, Iraq, bombings in Indonesia, Bali, Spain, London, weapons of mass destruction were never ever found.  War children, extreme poverty, natural disasters where thousands perished despite the ability to prevent it through early detection.  Our anger increased as we learned of serious hot spots around the globe where violence and brutality against other religions, children and women. Patriotism was used shamefully to guilt many who expressed their opinions against the violent retaliatons.  Politicians continued to stumble and sputter while we became more aware of the smoke and mirrors they held up.

Sadly, Islamic terrorism reared its head again on Christmas day sending the airline industry into a tailspin.  Airports are full of weary angry people desparately trying to get on a plane to seek escape.  Flying will never, ever be the same again.  Our sense of safety will never be the same again. 

SARS, Swine, Bird......FLU!!!!  We became paralyzingly fearful of the pandemics which reared their gut wrenching illnesses which spread as fast as a sneeze in flight. Warnings became the order of the day.  Toronto became a pariah.  It took years for that city to regain its reputation as a tourist town.  We take this fear and loathing issue as well into the next decade, though many of us are now innoculated.  For the time being. Don't you wish you owned stocks in hand sanitizer and face mask making companies?

Politics has also added to the brewing fear and loathing felt in the pits of our collective guts. Has any politician maintained their full integrity?  Leadership tanked globally.  Lets hope it was just a bad gene pool??

Walls went up........a barbed wire prison the size of a city was the "answer" to an eternal war of hatred.  Piracy off the coast of Somalia.  AIDS killed.  Warlords maimed. We became consumed by raging talking heads........on the left and on the right who believe in their own brilliance as they rant on and on and on throughout the mainstream media and in our newer forms of sharing news and editorials.  Most of the best known blogs are lightening rods for nasty loathing and skin crawling opinions.  Scandals, fraudulent business schemes and blatant conflicts of interest ran rampant during this decade.  If the 70's was the ME Decade, then the first decade of the 21rst century has to be called the ME ME ME decade.....

It's a sad, sad state of affairs we are pulling into the next decade.  Reading about the background of the latest terrorist, who came from a well respected, well off family........ who was schooled in International schools, I was struck by a gut wrenching fear that on most days I can keep some control over.  Why?  Because despite the fact Bin Laden and his boys have targetted disenfranchised humans in war torn African countries and in poverty stricken neighbourhoods filled with angry young men with no future, it was a privileged radical fundamentalist who had chosen that direction, who had consumed the hatred, who tried to blow up the plane flying from Amsterdam to Detroit. It made me realize just how doomed we really are, and how we are basically held hostage to their sneaky tactics to kill. No one is safe. 

Fear and loathing............sadly, it will continue long after we put this decade to bed.

Tomorrow, I will take on another angle......... Because as much as it has been an emotionally heaving 10 years, in a negative sense, it also was one that has beautiful blooms too.  It was bad, but not all bad.  

gimme shelter....

How does someone living in the land of plenty end up living in squalor down by the river? How does a human being grow up only to be discarded, abandoned, invisible and forgotten? I took these photos of a small outdoor nesting place for a few homeless people in the city of Fredericton. Located down by the edge of the Saint John River, so close to the Delta Hotel that you could shoot your spit and it would most likely hit the bricks. Haves and Have Not's residing as neighbours. The Have Not's know it. The Haves are oblivious. The neighbour on the other side? The Lieutenant Governor's mansion. Nice......

The area is referred to by government and community organizations, and the media as "tent city." Its hardly a city when you compare it to the excessively enormous shanty towns and makeshift communities under overpasses in larger centres. But, it is what it is....a home for the homeless, the transients......the human beings who have either chosen to live outside rather than in, or who cannot and will not abide by the rules of the local Shelters.

If you were walking quickly, or biking leisurely along this portion of the Trans Canada trail, chances are you wouldn't notice the hidden pathways leading to small clearings where human beings have congregated. Summer fauna overlaps the entrances and keeps the secrets behind the leaves...... sort of. Attention has been given to the handful of homeless people by a locally formed committee that was set up to "deal" with the issue. Deemed as dangerous and unsafe due to mental illness, addictions, lawlessness, there is an urgency to rectify the "problem" by finding alternative living arrangements.

There are some who want to use strong tactics to get these "filthy dirty addicts..." out of the city altogether. Put them on a bus.... move them to another town. Get rid of the problem. Quick and clean...resolve the issue by pushing it on. This "approach" reeks of impatience and disregard. No time or interest in finding out why another human being has fallen so far down and away from "functioning in the community" or being "self-sufficiently independent," these strongarmed bureaucrats see them as an issue that needs to be managed. No time to be curious or to see how beneficial it would be to connect in some way with these Tent people in order to learn WHY and WHAT HAPPENED...... They probably spend more time discussing what colour their new office furniture is going to be than truly caring enough to take the time to understand the individual human beings who have fallen.

There are others who sit across from the strongarm types who are quick to say...... Give them housing. They bark out their politics to anyone who will listen .... the issue is not enough affordable housing. The government doesn't have enough affordable housing!! Oh yeah, if only we had a place to park them that would solve the problem, now wouldn't it? hmmmmm......... no. It's not that simple. It also isn't that simple just to pour money into a bottomless pit with no foundation either. Housing doesn't make a home.

If we had all the money in the world, would the issue of homelessness be solved?

Homelessness is a symptom of a much larger systemic problem where one social service department or agency works in a silo providing their goods, while another offers up another package of goods and no one communicates effectively. Communities don't get off scot free either. Its not just a "problem" for the public sector to manage! Everyone plays a role because it isn't an "issue" that has to be solved. It's not a "problem" that has an easy fix answer like some math equation.

A person living on the streets, or down by the river, or in a tent in the woods, on a park bench, in a car, under a bridge, may have a handful of people whom they receive some form of assistance from. Social assistance, food, methadone, addictions counselling, shelter options, medical assistance. Sadly, not one of those helping frontline people have the capacity within the confines of their job description to fully assist this human being. Why? Time. Work constraints. Designated roles and responsibilities don't allow for it. Lack of genuine political will. Lack of financial resources. Community fear. Bias.

So, the perpetual problem continues...... and every now and then when the neighbourhood raises their ire, or when the Queen comes to town the issue of homelessness hits the front page of the local newspaper. Then, it dies down.......... becomes invisible and the human being Have Not's are lost beyond the margins, away from any attention.

Autumn is now here...... and the nights are colder.

what is it all about?

Another Canadian soldier died today from a homemade bomb of hatred. A married father of three daughters. A man who was an elite human soldier from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry..... Corporal Nicholas Bulger. They played an interview with him on Canada Day and he spoke of how different it was to be in Afghanistan because he sees how much of a difference our Armed Forces are making. He stated that he saw it when he watched the children play freely when they once weren't able to. "When you look into the eyes of the children, you get a different perspective...." he said. A different perspective.... we could all use a bit of that kind of insight.

I think he saw human universality. He could relate to those children because it connected him to what he knows and sees here, on his home turf of Canada. It was obvious that it touched his heart with inspirational motivation, and in turn it touched me. I connected to this soldier because I was able to see and hear him ..... I heard his emotions .... heard his human-ness. And because I connected from my heart, I am saddened by his passing at a deeper level. I understand what he meant.

One Canadian man died today. 5 other soldiers were injured from the same blast. They were all members of Brigadeer General Jonathan Vance's technical team who toured sites with him, protecting him, reacting to any threats, responding to violence. Every death of a soldier is sad no matter what side of the trench he/she is on. Every death of an innocent victim is sad. Every death from the suffering of conflict is sad.

Violence prevails on every corner of our planet in some capacity or another. It's been there from the beginning of man, which makes me acknowledge to myself that we all have the potential to be violent. Even if I choose not to be, I still have it in me. Everyone does. So, what is it in a person to allow the violence to surface? What lies underneath the ACT? What is it that feeds hate which in turn flames a war? The only thing I can think of is a festering fear.....a fear so intense and so unresolved that it ferments in its own seething irrationality.

What do you fear the most? What are you most frightened of? It's good to know. It's important to consider what it is you fear and why...... AND how it impacts your choices and how you see others, both in your own neighbourhood and beyond. You can't work on those fears if you won't even begin to take a look at them. And they will fester....and they DO impact your choices and your lens. No one is exempt from this.....

I have been haunted by the photo Paul posted on his blog this week.....a man holding a mortally wounded child in blood stained clothes, his body contorted in death... his innocent face striped in his own blood. Maybe before this boy was injured, he was able to somehow get lost in some form of play? Even under those circumstances? I don't know.

The man is carrying this young one (his son? his neighbour's son? his nephew? a stranger to him?) along the drydirt path beside the wall that keeps them in and away from basic necessities, in the line of fire. Violence prevails. It prevails on both sides of the wall only the humans within the cement fortification have no choice but to attempt to survive as prisoners, as sitting targets of violence. Innocents suffer. There are no words.

What fear feeds this hatred? What anguish sucks the marrow out of love? Frightened of the other? Is that it? War and violence stem from our incessant fear of someone who is different? Different religion, different culture, different way of interacting in this world?

I read a story Jean Vanier conveyed about a Jewish woman named Etty Hillesum who died in Auschwitz at the age of 29. In her journal after she had been yelled at by a Gestapo officer, she wrote: "I felt no indignation, rather a real compassion and would like to ask: 'Did you have a very unhappy childhood, has your girlfriend let you down?'"

There she was in a place of living Hell, but she had an abiding belief that each person is a "house" where God resides. She believed that every single person had the potential to carry the mystery of God within the essence of being able to love and to be loved. Through that lens, she saw the beauty in every individual. Etty Hillesum, Vanier wrote, is one of the people who has influenced him the most. I bet Etty projected a calm sense of kindness and compassion as her approach to combatting the hatred fueled in the hearts of the Gestapo who ruled Auschwitz. Through believing in compassion.......one always feels forgiveness.....

I wish we could teach this. I wish we could believe in the power of compassion and kindness....of empathy. I wish we could live by the belief that all human beings are loved and can love. If we have the propensity to be violent, than we all have the propensity to be loving. Right?

We could erradicate the fermentation of irrational fears and turn it into wine instead. Wine to sip and share...... If we really want to. We have to start at looking at our own fears....! Then the very idea of making a bomb wouldn't even be considered. Then maybe walls would come down and little boys could play within the safe haven of their peaceful neighbourhoods. Then we wouldn't continue to mourn the loss of human beings struck down by the violence of wars. But how? How do we turn this world around so that people stop spitting venom and hatred at one another? I think it begins by looking into the eyes of the other. Just like Corporal Nicholas Bulger did with the Afghanistan children. It changed his perspective.
It can change our own. When was the last time you truly looked into the eyes of another human being? It may make all the difference.

______

This week's prompt at Sunday Scribblings is "human." To see more contributions, check out their blog.

shameful entitlement....

Ana left her home in the Philipines not because she wanted to, but out of desperation. Her husband was hurt in an accident on the worksite. There was no money and no option. She had to find work to keep her family afloat and the only way to do that was to move to a country far away and far different than the climes of her home....Canada....to look for work as a live in caregiver. She knew many others from her village who had made the trek and were working full time for families with room and board covered on top of a salary. They left with the same goal....to save all their money to send home to their destitute families, with the dream of eventually move them to the land of milk and honey.

With very little in personal possessions and a pocketful of hope and enough money to pay for a plane ticket and a few days accomodation when she landed, Ana hugged her 5 children, her husband and boarded a plane. She had no idea what she was getting herself into. She had no idea when she would see her children again. Left in the care of her own mother, including a toddler she had just weaned from her breast, Ana held onto her faith with all her might, and tried not to look back.

As soon as she arrived on foreign soil covered in ice and snow she had never seen before, she was quickly embraced by other Philipino women who took her under their wing and arranged for her to be registered with a government agency. Soon, she was hired to look after an elderly woman who had just been released from the hospital after death defying surgery. She was frail and weak after years of alcohol addiction, and had lost much of her desire to live. Dementia was setting in as well. Unable to attend to her own personal care, Ana was the sole person responsible for this woman's well being. Unbeknownst to her, Ana soon learned that this woman's husband also needed attention as his health too was deteriorating from Alzheimer's and recent hip replacement surgery which didn't heal properly.

The woman who hired Ana and oversaw her hours of employment and paycheck was the daughter of these two needy people. She took her own responsibility seriously, so much so that she chose to hold her power over Ana at every waking moment. Knowing that Ana had to live and work in Canada as a caregiver for three years before she would qualify for any type of immingrant status, this boss woman took advantage of the fear instilled in Ana. Condescension and powermongering were the chosen tactics. Passive aggressive threats were common. Ana was coerced to believe that she should be grateful completely to her new employer, even though she was never given a day off for months until some intervention from other family members took place. And even then, she paid for their voiced concerns when they were too far away to protect her.

Every two weeks Ana sent home the majority of her paycheck. And every two weeks, she was allowed to leave the house for 1/2 a day reprieve. After a year of this treatment, one of the other family members, who wasn't legally and rightfully supposed to be involved in the day to day goings on in his own parent's home, demanded that Ana receive enough time off to return to the Philipines to see her family. This "intervention" was held over Ana's head and held as a deep anger grudge by the woman in charge.

What kept Ana going was the knowledge that she was appreciated and loved by the other family members who had no legal recourse to help her, but were always just a phone call away. What kept her going was her family in the Philipines whom she loved dearly and who needed her to make the money to allow them to live and eat and survive. What kept her going was the prospect of a better life one day in the near future.

Over the course of two years, Ana, who was hired to look after one aging and needy person, cared for two demanding dependent people with many needs and accumulating health issues. On top of that, she cleaned and cooked. She shopped on her days off, ran errands too without the luxury of a vehicle to use and dealt with anything in the home that needed attention or repairs. Near the end of her tenure, their health issues became more and more grave. Visits and repreives were offered whenever the other family members of this elderly couple could fly to her assistance, but in between those times, she was on her own. It was stressful, debilitating, and inhumane what she had to endure. And there wasn't a damn thing anyone could do about it to change things because the person in charge was the person in charge who was the power of attorney. The continuous threats were harsh and unbelievably unforgivable.

There is much more to this story, but I can't find the words yet to finish it. It was one of the worst experiences I have been connected to and it haunts me to this day. One day, I will write out all the sordid and sorrowful details of how badly this woman was treated, but not yet. Today, beautiful Ana comes to mind very vividly, two years after my in laws passed away because of the recent story in the news about Ruby Dhalla, Member of Parliament from Ontario who is still in the process of trying to clear her name and reputation after two very brave and very scared women from the Philipines came forward to describe how they were treated by Dhalla and her family while they were employed by them to care for an aging parent. Like Ana, they were threatened and expected to work like slaves.

I am sickened by this story because it hits too close to home and has dredged up raw pictures in my recent memory of a time when I was powerless to do anything about it. I know how difficult it would've been for these two caregivers to come forward knowing full well that it might be the end of their dreams of remaining in Canada and bringing their poverty stricken families to live here. I know full well how the "system" works and how quickly they could be sent straight home, left off in the margins by the people who should be working for the government to make sure they are treated with equality and dignity and respect. I know how many threats they have endured already, as the shining star beautiful Liberal MP scrambles to save her ass from political annihilation.

I wholeheartedly believe the women and what they described.....I wholeheartedly believe that they were forced to do work they weren't hired to do, they were forced to listen to a Ruby Princess who grew up fed on sugared slices of entitlement talk down to them, yell at them, and demand they hand over their passport. I bet there were threats to call the Immigration office, and to ruin their reputations with the government agency who originally referred them. This, I'm afraid is commonplace in the world of Philipino caregivers. For them to come forward and testify at an inquiry created overnight by a hungry government willing to take advantage of a faux pas of the opposition is one of the bravest actions I've heard of in a very long time.

Ruby Dhalla? Bollywood is calling you again. I'm sure they will have a part for you as Princess Entitlement. Your time as an elected official is up. And your dream of becoming leader of the Liberal party has evaporated. Oh, and if you need an assistant or someone to play the role of lady in waiting in your next film? I've got just the right person for you. She too thrives on the flavour of entitlement. The two of you are meant for one another.

As for Ana's old boss? She forfeited her family and she will never be invited into my house again. Ever.

You know what makes me hold my head in shame as I shake it back and forth? These people have no inkling...NO INKLING that they have done anything wrong. In fact, they consider themselves victims. It makes me want to vomit.