Blog # 65…January 2017
Well here we are, moving further away from the millennium - people
born that year old enough to drive and have a generation named after them.
I’m not in that generation but somehow feel that we’re all
in this together. Many forces divide us
- haves/have nots, old/young, black/white /brown/yellow, nationalities or
religions pitted against each other, opposing ideas about how to live;
competition rather than consensus all are the
order of the day in some quarters anyway. At ground level, in families, difficult
situations which could be made more comfortable if people were able to reach out to
comfort each other - the mature and intelligent thing to do. We can only write our
own scripts, but that’s what’s important anyway.
And yet, there are so many inescapable life forces that
unite us, the inevitability of birth and death touches us all. A number of
artists who died this year gave us the gift of a gracious goodbye…Leonard Cohen
spoke of “running late… the bar closing”. David Bowie sang with courage from
his death bed. Gord Downie continues to muster his strength to bring native
issues to our attention as well as showing us how to leave life with grace. The
Edmonton Arts council is appointing its first Artist in Residence for cemeteries,
with a warm and inviting studio space to welcome people while they mourn loved
ones.
In its many forms, art makes us feel less alone. For me, two of the most powerful words in our
language are “Me too”. How my heart
warms when someone says that after I express how I’m feeling. Art in its
various forms also helps articulate our feelings, writers give us the words to express ourselves, make us
more comfortable with the issues because we have a handle on how to engage in
conversation with people who share our feelings…or don’t.
A very important book by Canadian physician Danielle Martin
has just appeared – Better Now: Six Big Ideas to Improve Health Care for all Canadians. She feels it’s important
not to be defensive; our system is good but needs fixing and we shouldn’t be
content with the status quo. Very useful
to arm yourself with this information for the next time you encounter a Yank
(or anyone else) yelling about the wait times or how our system is a commie
plot.
And at the risk of seeming tangential, I want to finish with
a shout out to the Cubans and the Americans who share uncertain futures in the New
Year. So, “Y soy Fidel” to those brave
and proud Cubans and to our next door neighbours … “You don’t know what you’ve
got til it’s gone.”
