Blog 60--Contradictions and Inconsistencies: The Stuff of Life

I’ve been gone for a week, camping with daughter Cynthia and her family and some other friends. The group was great for socialization and the river-side facility was great—and free for us!  But in the latter half of July, you can expect warm weather, not so cold that you shiver and have to put on layer upon layer, especially when there is a camp fire ban due to extreme drought. We broke up camp and returned disappointed to the coast at Kent, near Seattle. But there the heat was so intense that camping was just as uncomfortable. We broke up camp again and returned home in Vancouver, disappointed, not to say disgusted. All of which is to explain the extra long time between posts.  

Blog 59 is full of contradictions and inconsistencies. I know these terms are not exactly synonyms, but I will kind of use them as such in this blog. Notice how imprecise that last sentence is?  When I wrote this post, it was Monday morning and I didn’t feel like forcing too much precision on myself. So our topic for today is just right—for me and, I hope you can live with it. 

It happens quite frequently that my wife (Fran) and I catch each other in contradictions, the term now including inconsistencies as well. We usually acknowledge it, but the conversation often leans toward a negative attitude towards such things. It seems more virtuous to be consistent, even though as years have taken their toll, we are becoming increasingly tolerant of contradiction. Is that natural with age?  Or is it the effect of post-

modernism on us? That we’re veering away from the demands of strict logic?

At any rate, the previous blog was full of it. I agree and disagree with Pete McMartin; same for the VS editorial. And then I reject both of their approaches for not going to the heart of the matter. I was fully aware of it and was good for letting it all stand. Sloppy thinking could be another reason I could add to the above paragraph. Combining “sloppy thinking” with “reason” is surely an example of the very thing I am talking about.

I am a graduate of Calvin Theological Seminary (CTS) in Grand Rapids (MI, USA). It is a good seminary and I am proud of having graduated there (1965). I have given quite a detailed report on my three years there in our memoirs (Every Square Inch: A Missionary Memoir, vol. 1, chapter 12-- <www.Social Theology. com >. Once there,turn to the first entry on the Boeriana page.)

In terms of our subject for today, I wrote about how bored I would occasionally be in Systematic Theology (ST) classes. Systems are usually logically coherent entities. So, in these ST lectures the point was to fit the Bible and theology into neat logically consistent boxes. The result gave a static feeling. Everything stood still. Even God came out as a static being that is fully consistent with Himself, including even that most “illogical” construct of the Trinity. Sometimes I would get so tired of it, I would play hooky for a few days and spend my time reading other theologians. I especially liked the writings of professor Gerrit Berkouwer of the Free University of Amsterdam for the contrast between him and my CTS profs precisely because Berkhouwer did not construct such tight logical boxes; he was more open. 

Neither does God fit into our logical boxes. The profs did  acknowledge that when it came to issues of election/reprobation vs human responsibility. They had inherited that difficult conundrum from childhood and had grown up being comfortable with it. But somehow that mostly static view of God did not cut it for me.  Of course, I am talking the 1960s. I suspect that the atmosphere at CTS has changed like everything else in this world.

The emphasis at that time at least was on a God who tolerates only truth, truth being at least partially defined as logically consistent statements and intolerance for what we might call “gray” statements over against the plain black and white stuff.  I loved and still love the stories in the Bible that challenge that kind of static God in favour of a more fluid one. There is the story of the midwives who lied to Pharaoh in order to save the baby boys of the Israelites, but whom God blessed because of their courage (Exodus 1:15-22). Then there is the story of Samuel’s anointing David to be the next king. Samuel objected to God that Saul, the current king, would kill him for what amounted to a coup. Then God instructed Samuel to give a false reason for his coming to David’s town (I Samuel 16:1-3). God is described as repenting or regretting things He had done (Genesis 6:6-7; Exodus 32:14; Judges 2:18; I Samuel 15:11, etc.). At the same time, we also read in I Samuel 15:29 that God “does not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.” So, a very fluid picture of God under certain circumstances, though still faithful and trustworthy with respect to His people. 

So, I do not apologize for the occasional contradiction in my own life, including those in Blog 59.

The French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) coined the famous Latin phrase “Cogito, ergo sum,” meaning, “I think; therefore I am.”  It expressed the idea current among philosophers at that time—and still for some ordinary folk even today—that the essence of a human being lay in his rationality, his mind. If you know something—and that means you are thinking, you have a mind-- well, then you must be a human being. Something like the touristy trend of thought, “It’s three p.m.; hence this must be Victoria.” Taking off from there and following a radically dangerous step into the almost forgotten country of Latin, I would like to suggest, “Contradicio; ergo sum,” hopefully meaning something like “I contradict; therefore I am.” It does not define my essence, but it does make me feel just a bit more comfortable. At least, it gives me a vague permission to contradict myself—of sorts.

Post 59—The Metro Vancouver Translink Plebiscite

Pete McMartin of VS was really upset when the citizens of Metro Vancouver rejected a slight additional tax to pay for Translink expansion (July 4, 2015).  He wrote a scathing column, using such strong language that a few days later the paper published an editorial openly disagreeing with their man (July 9, 2015).  Well, yes, they can’t afford to overly insult their readers as if they are bird brains. This is how McMartin describes his neighbours:

They’re resistant to change. They abhor densification. They’re conventional in their sensibilities and they’re highly dependent on the automobile. More importantly, they’re not just dependent on the automobile, they prefer it.

I would love to quote him for the rest of this post, but it might be illegal? So, a summary of his vitriolics has to do it for us. 

The excuse many use for not taking transit is that they would if it were near and more convenient. That, he charges, is an outright lie. He daily commutes by bus in less time than it takes a car, but the bus is seldom more than a quarter full. They voted “no” about a system they have never used and have no idea how well it works, whether good or bad. It does not occur to them that the system reduces the pressure on the road and thus those still driving also benefit from the subsidy. They reject a mere .5% tax hike subsidy for Translink, but think nothing of the subsidy of billions spent on roads and bridges that are forever inadequate and clogged. 

Though Vancouverites tend to see themselves as a special breed in a world-class city, McMartin finds that “we’re nothing special.” Our city “is like a hundred other cities. We can’t see past the ends of our driveways, much less into the future, and we don’t want to. The No side didn’t win the plebiscite. The car did.”

The subsequent editorial denied McMartin’s negatives and  insisted that the negative vote was the result of public mistrust of the Translink administration. Furthermore, while the No vote rejected the extra subsidy, it is already having a positive effect in that a movement has been created towards better and more efficient governance of Translink, including the firing of some of its top executives.  The Sun editorial supports the idea of moving the service from the Province back to Metro authorities, where it was a few years earlier, but snatched away by the Province.

Deep in my heart, I largely agree with McMartin, but he expressed himself too offensively for most people. I confess to enjoying his vitriolic. It is largely right on, not because people are ignorant so much as selfish, which leads to contradictions. 

I also largely agree with much of the editorial, but find that their its solution is superficial.  Some years ago, the provincial government took the service out of the hands of Metro authorities, who number over 20, each with its own agenda. It was difficult to move forward with so many strong-willed politicians at the table. To now return Translink back to these same authorities would be to set the clock back and restore the former blockage.

I believe that the basic solution is to amalgamate all these 20+ jurisdictions into one as, I understand, was done in Toronto.  The current makeup of Lower Mainland jurisdictions is nothing but ridiculous, absurd. It serves as a model for how not to organize local government. As long as we are so ridiculously fractured, it is unlikely that the Translink problems will be solved. 

Do I have any hope for this direction? Unfortunately, not at this point in time. Such a move  needs a popular movement to push it forward, something of which I see no sign at the moment. But surely, if we have been smart enough to organize our current Metro setup, we are also smart enough to realize that developments have overtaken that model and rendered it obsolete. Every progressive movement eventually spends itself and needs to be replaced by something more relevant to the succeeding newly developed contemporary situation. 

In closing, I do want it understood that it is not the current Translink mess that has brought me to this conclusion.  Behind this long-standing opinion is my rejection of  this selfish politics on the part of politicians, which is, I believe, the basic reason this clumsy system continues to exist. So, now we have to go back even one more step—overcome selfishness and personal or local ambition at the expense of the larger community. Remember the title of this blog: “My World—My Neighbour.”  We’re back to basic Christianity that’s open to the world and to the concerns of others—your neighbours.

Post 58--The Personal--The Flushed Treasure

       

In the last post I diverted myself from the intended topic to an article of human interest, at least, of this human’s interest!  Today I’ll try to control myself and stick to the intended subject. When you’re done reading, you can judge for yourself whether or not I succeeded. 

I explained in the last post that we are experiencing serious drought in BC that started with a thin snow pack on the mountains and continues with reduced rainfall ever since spring. Our reservoirs are running unusually low. Not sure I should say “dangerously” low, but at least enough that the media talk about it every day and authorities are imposing rules for restricting the use of our water.   

            

An article by T. I Crawford and Kevin Griffin in the VS (July 8, 2015, p. A3) gives some interesting residential water stats and advice.  As to stats you may find interesting: The average Canadian household uses 340 litres of water daily, of which 30 per cent or 102 litres goes to the toilet. The average older toilet uses 12 litres a flush; the newer models, half of that. Even if this post does not get much beyond the toilet issue, if you act on it, the post will have served its purpose. 

The big toilet issue is, of course, that flush. Is it really necessary to flush after every use? Our family lived in Nigeria for 30 years; our kids grew up there till they went to college. During their early years our flush system was entirely manual, with the water coming out of a raised drum that was filled by some students who need jobs or, rather, money. So, we developed a culture of only an occasional flush, when it really could no longer be avoided. Later, we moved to the city with a complete water system, but often without the water!  Again, severe rationing was the name of the game: only when intolerable. 

When we parents found the toilet flushed, we would sometimes holler it out in shock, “Who flushed the toilet?! Why?!”  I know, it sounds ridiculous, but go live some time in a less well-equipped country and you will understand. The problem arose when we would come “home” to either Canada as in BC or the USA as in MI for a break, where there was water everywhere. Then, when someone had not flushed, I might get annoyed and yell, “Who didn’t flush the toilet?!”  And then we’d go back to Nigeria and fall back into the reverse routine! This was enough to create serious psychosis in our poor MKs! It’s a miracle our MKs (Missionary Kids) came out of that ordeal relatively unscathed.

Upon our permanent return to BC, we could not get used to the extremely wasteful use of water we ran into at every detail in our lives. By now the kids were gone and we decided to stay with the non-flush routine even in BC, though not as strenuously.  I remember discussing water usage with our BC friends and we might confide our flushing habits. They would be shocked and act horrified. We’d quickly move onto another topic!  We learned to avoid that subject altogether.  Embarrassing for us; disgusting for them.

But, ah, Griffin to our rescue in the VS. Apparently we are not the only ones, for there is this well-known little ditty that goes:

“If it’s yellow, let it mellow.

  If it’s brown, flush it down.”

Griffin advices we follow this ditty.  Thank you, Griffin. I no longer feel alone!

Another trick Fran, my wife, and I practice is to place a bottle with sand in the tank. That reduces the water by a bottle each flush. Just imagine how much water will be saved by this painless method for every toilet just in the city of Vancouver!  Go ahead. Get yourself a good-sized bottle, fill it with sand, and place it in your tank. Then go your way and forget about it, but each flush spells a save. We tried two bottles, but the tank was not big enough. 

Well, it’s time to get our mind out of the gutter. Just one more item about toilets and we move on: Make sure there’s no leakage. Griffin suggests you put some food colouring in the tank to see whether it shows up in the bowl. If it does, you should repair. Another Griffin bathroom tip: Turn off the tap while you’re brushing your teeth or shaving. Same with washing hands. 

I am amazed that this needs to be said at all. In some public male bathrooms there are notices above the urinals instructing men step by step how to wash their hands. I guess it does need to be said! How immature have we become?  Perhaps I should devote a post to how to properly wash your hands!  Come on. Give me a break. 

To finish off our litany on water preservation, I will summarize a few more of Griffin’s tips and let it go, at least for today.  I do expect there will be more about this liquity treasure in the future, but I don't want you to get bored with the subject.

Shower—Replace shower head with a “low-flow version,” take shorter showers, and shut it down while you’re lathering your body with soap and shampoo. Then turn it on to rinse. 

Kitchen tap and water—Wash food items in a bowl and then rinse, instead of keeping the tap running.  Use left-over dishwater on your plants and make sure the tap does not leak. A leak can cost 280 litres a week or 14,560 litres a year or 291 50-gallon drums wasted. Allow that leak throughout your 80 years and you’ve wasted 23,296 drums of precious water.

 

And then there’s that outdoor stuff you can do, but we’ll let it go at this. From here on, use your imagination. There’s all kinds of small and not so small steps you can take to preserve this precious life stuff.  The bottom line is: Keep your imaginative eye on that reservoir high up on the mountain from which all of us draw. It is not a bottomless pit! And think of your neighbour.

In closing and on a lighter note, figure out the mistake in the “Kitchen tap and water” paragraph above! Where do the figures mislead you? Well, at least I stuck to my announced topic today! Give me at least that much credit!

Post 57--"Precious Resource" Revisited

The California drought gets plenty of media attention, not only in CA itself but also in other jurisdictions, certainly in BC. Our BC interest in the subject is due to the sharp increase in the price of  CA-grown fruit and vegetables that we consume in our province. We are confronted by the CA situation every day as we look for bargains in the local vegetable market just around the corner from us. It’s not a pretty scene for us seniors who are on fixed incomes nor, I’m sure, for working parents with growing children.

But as we speak, we have our own drought in BC to cope with as well. We depend for our water on two sources, snow on the mountains and plenty of rain forest precipitation. This year, we are short on both. Snow was so sparse that ski resorts had to occasionally shut down, a most unusual situation for us here.  And while we could somehow afford to truck in snow from more than a 150 kilometres away for the winter Olympics back in 2010…. Yes, truck in snow!  Ever heard of that?  Usually if there’s snow trucking to be done, it’s to get rid of it. Not in 2010. We had to truck it in! Imagine! And all that expense just so a few—probably less than 200?—die-hard winter sports activists can have their moment of fame after spending most of their lives on a few snow-oriented acrobatic exercises. Was that worth all that expense? That’s for another post someday.

Sorry, got so carried away about that snow trucking—pun intended—that I  didn’t even complete that sentence. Left you in the snow, so to speak. While we managed to pay for trucking snow for the Olympics, we couldn’t this past winter. What does that tell you? Could we draw the conclusion that the Olympics and its economy are more important than the daily lives of ordinary citizens under routine circumstances?  At any rate, the point is we got a lot less snow last winter with the result that there is less snow to melt and fill up our reservoirs.  For winter sport enthusiasts as well as for the tourist industry, it was kind of a disaster, while the rest of us enjoyed a very mild winter, milder even than we are accustomed to in the south-west of the province.  Alas, now we are paying for it, literally.  We are short of the precious stuff. 

Added to that fiasco—not sure “added” is the right word here—is the greatly reduced rain fall in spring and summer. We’ve just had gorgeous weather and lots of sunshine, but, again, no rain, no water. The only thing we have more of is drought. What we also have more of this summer is fires, forest fires over the top, throughout much of Western Canada. We always have forest fires in the summer, but this year all budgets have been far overspent and an unusual number of communities evacuated.

One of the worst features of the current fire scene is that, according to reports, many of them are caused by humans. Some by careless smokers who stupidly—and I use that word advisedly, for my daughter has forbidden her children to use the word—throw their butts (note the double “t’s”!) out of their car windows. Should these people be hanged, as a display along the Princeton Highway some decades ago used to “advocate”?

Others are lit intentionally! Not just one or two, but a large number of them! Can you imagine anything more fiendish than that? I am reminded of our RV trip to the far Canadian north, when we had a long and amicable chat with a couple of Aboriginals. They told us that their summer employment mostly consisted of fighting forest fires. What about summers with only a few fires? we asked. No problem. They would just light them!  Not having walked in their moccasins, I would not apply the term “fiendish” to them. I have no idea whether any of our 2015 fires are from Aboriginal arson or not. Of course, political correctness being alive and well in the country’s media, they would not likely report such if it were. 

All of the above was to lead me into the subject of water preservation. Stream of consciousness led me to and around the subject but not into it. With my apologies. Call it a human interest post, if you like. But I really should get into the preservation thing before all our water gets used up! So, that will be next. Or should I say “That should be next?  See you there, but don’t wait for my instructions re. water preservation. I’m sure you can think of some ways yourself. Do it! Now! We’re in a precarious situation.  Think of ten small ways in which you, yes, you, can reduce your use of water and then do it.  

Post 56—Introducing the Metro Vancouver Alliance (MVA)

Douglas Todd of the Vancouver Sun (VS) recently introduced the above Alliance to his readers. Though the Alliance’s address is only about four blocks from my residence, I had not heard of it before. It is my guess very few people had heard of it, but now that Todd has widely publicized the organization, it is my hope that many people will support it and actually join it via whatever organization they belong to. Actually, the Alliance is abundantly celebrated on the internet with many websites devoted to it. Go check it out for yourself, but be sure you include “Vancouver BC” in your search, for it is an international organization with more than 60 similar ones in various countries. 

We humans have a sad history of surrounding ourselves with fences to separate us from other humans. We do this in a myriad ways. We are born within some of these fences as, for example, tribal or national borders that clearly mark us as different from the people on the other side of the border, but often as better than them as well.  We may be born within religious borders that separate us from other religions or even from other denominations within the same religion as, for example, Protestants vs Catholics. Or, even within Protestants such as Reformed against Anabaptists. Or between organizations based on faith and secular ones, though that distinction, popular as it is and representing the common sense of our day, is a secular myth based on secular delusion.  

Now there is nothing wrong with borders per se. I doubt that we can live without them. They represent diversity within the human community; they enable diversity and they protect diversity. Vishal Mangalwadi, an Indian Christian philosopher, argues rather convincingly that national and tribal borders, for example, are willed by God.  In an age of intolerance in my birth country, The Netherlands, Abraham Kuyper argued for a radical political and social pluralism in which each party or grouping has a legitimate place around the table, including your most vociferous opponent, enemy even. I fully endorse that kind of pluralism that makes room for both borders and diversity within and across borders.

Right, there is nothing wrong with borders per se, as long as the people within one set of borders can tolerate, respect and cooperate within another set of borders. And that is precisely the aim of MVA. It is not to erase the borders so much as to encourage the folk on one side of the border to cooperate and improve the society within which the various groups co-exist as neighbours. The MVA includes a fairly wide range of religions, social groupings and labour unions who, after carefully listening to each other, have selected four issues to work on in its catchment area: transit, housing, living wage and social isolation. As a citizen of Metro Van, I can assure you these are indeed hot buttons in our community that seriously need to be addressed. They are not the only ones. If given the chance, I might have selected one or two additional ones, but, heh, just for an extremely diversified group like this to have agreed on four is itself a huge achievement.

I am deeply interested in all four issues, but today will concentrate briefly on the living wage issue. Deborah Littman, introduced by Todd as the “lead organizer” and a Jew, explains that among the “faith communities” interest in this issue “goes back to Catholic social teaching on the value of labour.” (I think she means within Christian faith communities.)  According to Todd,  the group has convinced the Vancouver City Council to “commit to a minimum wage of $20.68 for all its workers and contractors.”  According to Tara Carman in the next issue of VS (June 30, 2015), Mayor Robertson intends to offer a proposal to this effect this very week. MVA plans to be there with a “living wage rally” outside City Hall. Good for them.

Though in principle I fully support such a move, I do hope that those who have to make the final decision will have all the facts at their command and not simply act out of “leftist” idealism. Carman reports that Vancouver’s Fraser Institute has discovered that such a move “reduces employment for low-wage workers by 12-17 per cent.” It may be one thing for governments to pay such wages, but when it is imposed on business, problems arise. “Employers respond by cutting back on jobs, hours, and on-the-job training.” 

Justin Trudeau, the current leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, has just been quoted to insist that environmental issues like oil pipelines should be decided not on basis of idealism so much as on factual evidence (VS, July 2, 2015). I would hope that the final decision on living wage will similarly be based on factual evidence—and I do sincerely hope also that such evidence will indeed support a positive decision, for too many workers and their families make do with wages that simply do not meet their daily needs.  It appears that New Westminster, a member of Metro Vancouver, has already moved in that direction without the negative consequences having showed up so far. That is hopeful.  

Continuing the mixing idea of the last posts, this one has turned out to be yet another example of mixing religions with both the self-described secular community and with "worldly" affairs. Actually, such mixing happens all the time and should happen, for neither religion nor the world thrive when separated from each other.

Thank you, MVA.  I encourage my root church, the Christian Reformed Church, to join the movement as has the other denomination of which I am an “adherent,” the Baptist Church, already. 

This post is based especially on these articles in VS: (1) Todd, “Metro Vancouver Alliance builds bridges and makes things happen,” 29-07-2015; (2) Carman, “$20.68/hr: City looks at paying all staff and contractors a living wage,” 30-07-2015. With thanks to both.