Food

Those of you who know me, know that I am not a diet person.  There are quite a few reasons for this.  First and foremost, I like food.  I like food, and I especially like dessert.  My husband always jokes that when we go out to eat, I choose the dessert first, and then decide what my main meal is going to be (and, truth be told, sometimes it isn’t really a joke).  I like all the stuff that is bad for me.  Chocolate.  Candy.  Chips.  Bread.  Meat.  Cheese.  Ice cream.  Pizza.  Fries.  Milk.  The occasional ginger ale.  You get the picture.  

As I have gotten older, I have become slightly more discriminating in my tastes, particularly when I am eating out.  For example, I rarely order dessert now because, and I say this without a trace of arrogance, the desserts I make are better.  I am sometimes more conscientious about considering healthier menu options like salads, because I have discovered that there can actually be more to a salad then just a heap of lettuce with a bit of something else thrown in.  As people demand healthier options, maybe restaurants have been forced to be more creative in their salad making, and lately, I have been known to pass up my go-to fish and chips for an interesting looking salad.  I never eat red meat in a restaurant (except for the occasional burger) because it is never done the way I like it.  I love salmon, and could eat it every night for dinner without getting bored. 

I have never been a dieter, and have never in my life gone on a fad diet.  No Atkins, no Paleo, no Keto, no gluten-free, no dairy free, no vegan or vegetarian (although for several years during Lent, we ate mainly vegetarian dishes in solidarity with those who have little food).  

So you might be surprised to hear that this spring, I decided to try a low sugar diet which was posted on Facebook.  (See it here.)  The meal plan for the 7 day diet was designed by a dietician using recipes from Chatelaine magazine.  The description of the menu plan said “This week-long low sugar diet aims to keep your energy levels high and your mood regulated by balancing blood sugar with the right combination of foods at each meal and naturally sweet foods that let you indulge in a healthy way.” Sugar, as you know, has been on the dieting hit list for a while now, and I was feeling guilty about my consumption of sugar.  I decided to jump on the bandwagon and see if, in fact, a week on a low sugar diet would make a difference to how I felt, both physically and mentally.
 

The overall result was that after a week on this diet, which I followed almost to the letter, including cutting out all candy and chocolate (I know, right?), I did not feel significantly different (healthier, more energetic, more alert) than I did before.  I did, however, lose 8 pounds.  That could be because I was almost always hungry.  I felt that the meals were not substantial enough.  I was always hungry at bedtime, and since there were no after supper snacks in the menu plan, I did not eat any.  I would start each day feeling very hungry, and frankly, a smoothie for breakfast did nothing to quell that gnawing hunger.  As to my mood, well, my dear husband would have to answer that question, but since I was hungry a lot of the time, I’m betting he didn’t see much of an improvement. 

I realized about halfway through the week that I do not actually use a lot of sugar in my meal preparation.  And now that it is just two of us eating at home, I do not make desserts as often as I used to.  Most of my sugar intake comes from my 2 cups of tea a day, and snacks and candy.

I learned that a diet like this one, with lots of fresh vegetables and snacks, is labour intensive.  There were not many “quick” meals, and even some of the breakfasts involved chopping, peeling, cooking, etc.  I missed my quick cereal out of a box breakfasts, and I found that I spent a lot of time every day doing meal prep for almost every meal.  

Diets in magazines like Chatelaine often seem to be quite urban-centric in the sense that many of the ingredients are either difficult (sometimes impossible) to find, or expensive -- or both.  I never did find any sprouted grain bread in my local grocery store.  I had to drive to Moncton to find some of the ingredients (cacao nibs, unsweetened dried cherries) at Bulk Barn, which is neither convenient nor cheap.  I could not get halibut, as it was out of season and when it is in season, it is very expensive, so I substituted salmon.

I missed potatoes.  And cheesy garlic fingers.  And milk.  And my morning cup of Earl Grey tea with one teaspoon of sugar.  The diet plan did not specify acceptable drinks, so I assumed that water and herbal tea were all that were allowed.  

Diets like this also seem to be missing components of what I consider a healthy diet (but I am not a nutritionist).  For instance, the medication that I take has a side effect of calcium depletion.  I am not an expert, but it seemed like overall, the amount of calcium-rich food was low. 

Some of the recipes were not very good.  The lentil soup was tasteless and if you have an issue with texture, like I do, not pleasant.  And it made an entire soup pot full.  I gave a large container to a football player, and even he did not like it.  

Tofu will never again happen in my house.  This point is not open for discussion.

This diet pushed me out of my comfort zone.  I tried some things I had never tried before, like peanut butter on apples, which I actually liked (yes, really, I had never had peanut butter on apple).  A few months later, I have made a few of the recipes again.  In particular, I really liked the Smoky White Bean Chili, the Beef Barley Soup, and the Apple and Walnut salad.  I would never have mixed nuts with yogurt before, but now I eat some form of the yogurt/blueberry/cherry/walnut mix almost every day, usually for lunch, and I love it.  I find that I am snacking (most days) with more healthy food, although life would not be worth living without the occasional bag of chips.  

It is highly unlikely that I will be jumping on another diet bandwagon, unless research suddenly shows that chips, chocolate and cookies are miracle foods, or unless I have to because of a medical condition.  But I have to admit that I am glad I tried this one.  It taught me a few things about my body and my attitude towards food.  

And now, I think I hear a chocolate mint Girl Guide cookie calling my name.

My latest obsession....

I have been very neglectful in attending to my blog this year.  I took a History course this past semester at Mount Allison which involved a major research paper based partly on archival or primary sources.  I got a bit obsessed with my subject, and everything else (and I mean EVERYTHING) was put on the back burner.  Then it was the usual end of term stuff, moving my darling daughter into a new apartment, trying to catch up with stuff that was neglected for four months, a visit from a friend, graduation, and yes, a slight bit of laziness.

The subject of my paper was John Hammond.  You probably have never heard of him, unless you are from Sackville or connected to Mount Allison University; or you might be familiar with John Hammond as the person who helped to establish the Owens Art Gallery, the oldest university gallery in Canada, or from Hammond House, the current residence of the University President.  You might also know that he designed the fountain in the Swan Pond and the gate posts in front of Convocation Hall.  If you are an afficionado of Canadian art, you might recognize Hammond as the artist who was known for his paintings of either foggy Bay of Fundy scenes, or majestic paintings of the Canadian Rockies.

So for those of you who are not in the know, let me tell you a little bit about this fascinating man.  He was a prospector on the Gold Coast of New Zealand, a member of the 1871 Geological Survey of Canada expedition, a member of the “Ladies’ Pets” platoon during the Fenian Raids, an adventurer who barely escaped with his life during the Boxer Rebellion in China, and he was possibly one of the most renowned Canadian painters of his time.

John Hammond was born in Montreal on April 11, 1843.  His father was a marble cutter, and Hammond began working in his father’s mill when he was only 9.  He also attended school in Montreal and apprenticed with two dry goods companies, likely in their drapery departments.  In March 1866, possibly looking for some excitement, he joined the Victoria Rifles of the Militia in order to fight off a rumoured Fenian invasion near Huntingdon, Quebec.  The rumoured attack never materialized, and after three weeks in the mud and rain, with no provisions, the “Ladies’ Pets”, as they were nicknamed, returned to Montreal, less five members who contracted pneumonia and died. 

Hammond and his brother Henry sailed to England in August 1866.  From there, they travelled to New Zealand on a clipper ship that was peopled by, as Hammond put it, the “dregs” of London.  In his memoirs, he wrote “Bare-fisted fights and knifings as the sequels of card games were daily and nightly occurrences.  The women were almost as bad as the men.  We were shut up on that ship for four months.” Needless to say, it was an interesting journey for the two young men, and I’m pretty sure they were glad to eventually reach Lyttleton.  They trekked overland and ended up prospecting for gold on the Gold Coast for two years, returning home in 1868 with not much to show for their efforts except some good stories.

Hammond was hired by William Notman in 1870, and the very next year, was assigned to travel as a photographic assistant with Benjamin Baltzly, a Notman photographer, as part of the first Geological Survey of Canada expedition to British Columbia.  Their mission was to survey and record the terrain of the North Thompson and Fraser rivers, from Kamloops to Jasper, in order to determine whether the Yellowhead Pass was a viable route for the Canadian Pacific Railway.  Hammond’s journal from this trip still exists, along with the diaries of Baltzly and Alfred Selwyn, who was the geologist responsible for the expedition.  They tell fascinating stories of their travels and the hardships they encountered.   There were many delays and problems along the way, mostly related to the late autumn/early winter weather and the impenetrable forests.  They were not able to reach Jasper, but did reach the Pass, and wasted no time returning to Kamloops.  When they arrived in the middle of December, after struggling through deep snow and icy water, they were dangerously low on provisions, had lost all of their pack animals to starvation or injury, their canoes had been destroyed or capsized, and they had rags tied around their feet and were suffering from frostbite.

After this adventure, Hammond returned to Montreal and his work with Notman.  Notman was one of the most well-known photographers in Canada.  If you have ever seen the iconic photographic portrait of Sitting Bull, it is likely the one that Notman took.  He developed cutting edge photographic techniques, including colourizing photographs, and creating composite photographs, where individual photographs were taken, and then painstakingly cut out and placed on a background to create group photos, sort of the original Photoshop collage.  Hammond’s job was to paint backgrounds and colourize photographs.

It must have been about this time that Hammond became serious about becoming an artist, as his earliest known paintings date from this period.  As a young boy, he had declared his intention to be an artist, and he mentions spending time sketching in his various journals.  He also married Sarah Acres in 1872.  After spending several years with Notman’s company in Montreal, Hammond was put in charge of Notman’s new studio in Saint John, New Brunswick, and the Hammonds relocated to Saint John.  Here, Hammond encountered Sir William Van Horne, who was to become his friend and patron, and who was instrumental in the establishment of the transcontinental railway system in Canada.

In 1884, Hammond left the world of Notman, and was hired as the new principal of the soon to be opened Owens Art Institute in Saint John.  The Art Institute was created at the bequest of a Saint John businessman, and Hammond’s first priority was to travel to Europe and acquire as many artworks as he could for the Institute.  When the Institute ran into financial difficulties, the collection was purchased by Mount Allison University and relocated to Sackville in 1893.  Hammond followed shortly after, becoming the first art instructor at Mount Allison, and the first head of the Fine Arts Department.

Although he lived in Sackville for the rest of his life, Hammond continued to travel widely.  He kept a studio in Montreal until about 1906, and travelled several times to Europe, where it is rumoured that he painted with Whistler and the son of Millet.  He received commissions from Van Horne to paint the western mountain scenery, and his paintings were hung in board rooms, railway stations, the Ontario Legislature, and the CP Hotels (such as the Chateau Frontenac), among other places.  His adventures were not over either; in 1900, he travelled to the Far East at the request of Van Horne, and recalled being in Canton at the beginning of the Boxer Rebellion.  He later wrote “The fastest I ever ran a mile in my life, was running for my life down a narrow street in Canton, during the Boxer rebellion, pursued by a rabble of Chinamen.  I got to my ship safely and for the next few days I was content to stay on board and study Canton, and the Chinese, from the deck.”

In 1900, Hammond’s wife died of tuberculosis.  Two years later, he married Katharine Jeannette Stark, a music instructor at Mount Allison.  They had a daughter, Katharine, born in 1907.  Hammond retired from teaching in 1919, but he continued to paint and exhibit widely.  He was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art, and locally, was the honorary president of the Sackville Art Association.  Hammond was a deeply religious man, and one biographer wrote that his paintings were a reflection of his character: a “combination of strength, gentleness and sincerity.”  Van Horne called him one of the greatest painters in Canada.  Hammond died in Sackville in 1939; several years later, his paintings were reportedly sold at a yard sale, and there are many homes in Sackville which are graced by a Hammond painting or two.   He designed several houses in Sackville which are still standing, as well as gardens, the fountain at the Swan Pond and the gates in front of Convocation Hall. 

My research project focussed on Hammond’s earlier life, specifically, the Canadian Geological Survey trip of 1871, but I hope to do some more research on this fascinating man in the coming months.  There are little bits and pieces of information about him scattered across Canada, but, surprisingly, there is no really comprehensive biography.  In the meantime, if you are in Sackville over the summer, you can visit the Owens Art Gallery and see the collection which Hammond acquired in 1884-85 for the original Owens Art Institute, as well as one or two classic Hammond paintings which are on exhibit.  The Canadian Gallery at the National Art Gallery in Ottawa also had a Hammond on permanent display, although they have reorganized their exhibit for Canada 150 celebrations, and I am not sure if it is still there.

Hammond was probably the “first Canadian-born and trained painter to paint and photograph the Canadian Rockies from the mouth of the Fraser to Kamloops and so on up to the Thompson and the Yellowhead Pass.”  He is best known for his paintings of the Bay of Fundy on one side of the country, and the Rockies on the other.  This summer, if you travel on VIA Rail from Jasper to Kamloops, you will pass through the very same route that Hammond travelled in 1871 with the Geological Survey.   In this year celebrating the most recent 150 years of the political entity of Canada, it somehow seems fitting to learn about Hammond, an adventurer, teacher, and artist whose work aesthetically ties the country together from one end to the other, just as the railroad does.

Post-Christmas sentimentality.... *sigh*

This year's new ornaments

I finally got around to packing up the last of the Christmas decorations yesterday.  I am usually relatively late doing this task because I love the Christmas season and I like the way our home looks with its seasonal decorations.  As I have previously established, I am not much of a decorator, and we are not overly elaborate, even at Christmas, so things just kind of blend in.  However, when there are more needles on the floor than on the tree, and cobwebs start forming on the nativity scenes, it is time to pack things up for another 11 months.

As I have done for the past couple of years, I took stock of things as I was putting them away.  If you know me, you know that I am a sentimental person, and it is difficult for me to part with things.  However, I tried to look critically at our Christmas things and I weeded a few things out, things that hold no particular sentimental value other than that we have always had them.  I am proud to say that I have half a shopping bag of items that I can live without. 

My most favourite Christmas decoration is our tree.  We have a lot of ornaments.  A LOT.  The year my husband and I first met, we tentatively exchanged Christmas ornaments, cheap and wooden, which we bought at the downtown Eaton’s store in Winnipeg.  The next year, we were planning our wedding, and the tradition continued.  When our children were born, we included them; my mother also made them ornaments every year until a few years ago.  Everyone has a theme: my husband’s is polar bears, our son’s is sheep, our daughter’s theme is angels, and birds for me.  Occasionally, we stray from the theme, but the point is that because of this tradition, we have a lot of ornaments.  One day when our kids each have their own homes, their ornaments will disappear from our tree, and it will seem very bare. 

We have a real tree, and recycle it when we are done.  We need a big tree with lots of branches, of course, and some years we tend to overdo it.  One year, we cut our own tree, and brought it home to discover that the tree that looked

quite reasonable out in the tree lot with the other trees was actually too big for our house.  We cut the top off and installed it as best we could, but as well as being too tall, it was also extremely fat.  It was so fat that it almost totally filled the double-wide doorway from our kitchen to our living room.  After it was all decorated and lovely looking, we were playing a rousing game of Dutch Blitz in the kitchen, and we heard an almighty crash.  It was our tree.  It had not really fallen over since it was so fat at the bottom.  It was more like a loud, fast rollover.  Fortunately, only one ornament was damaged, but it was not destroyed, and it still sits on our tree every year.

This year’s tree was wrapped when my husband bought it, and once we got it inside and unwrapped, we discovered it was shaped like a scalene triangle, rather than the ideal Isosceles shape (in an aside, I think maybe that is the first time I have ever used anything from grade 11 geometry...).  In other words, it was a lot fatter on one side than the other. It was duly decorated and of course looked beautiful. 

I love our tree ornaments and all that they represent.  There are, of course, those first ornaments that my husband and I exchanged when we were “just friends” and which now represent so much more: a life shared together and a relationship as a family that has endured and evolved.  There is the handmade ornament that commemorates our first Christmas together as a married couple, and ornaments for the first Christmas of each of our children.  There are our very first ornaments, blown glass trees, birds, and bells and red plastic hearts, which we bought the first year we were married at Stermann’s, a linen shop across the street from our apartment in Westdale and augmented with other ornaments from Eaton’s in downtown Hamilton.  And there is the wooden snowman ornament that belonged to my husband when he was a child.

The vast majority of our ornaments are handmade, many of them by our children.  Like the googly angel with a photo of our daughter’s head on it, made at school or church. Or ornaments that our son made out of craft foam sheets.  The many ornaments we made together over the years represent hours of laughter and fun spent around the kitchen table.  Many years ago, we made those cinnamon applesauce ornaments with cookie cutters; this year, they finally started to go mouldy, and I had to throw them out.  We have ornaments made by kids from our “extended” families, like the cardboard Christmas trees with coloured rice glued on to them.  Every year a bit more of the rice falls off, but after 6 years, they still survive.  There is a paper star ornament made by a Danish exchange student.  We have lovely creations by a former student who lived with us for a school year.  And there are the many ornaments that my mother made, or I made, or others made, and are treasured and admired. 

There are poignant ornaments, such as the wooden sheep my dad made for my

son’s first Christmas.  My dad is not alive any more, but we feel his presence when we hang that wooden sheep on the tree.  And the beautiful pear

ornament, handpainted on watercolour paper by a former Mount Allison student who suffered a devastating head injury and had to learn how to paint again.  The pear was one of her first projects.  And this year, a glass matryoshka ornament, which reminds me of my long-gone grandmother; she always had a wooden matryoshka on her shelves that I loved, and it reminds me of my Mennonite heritage. 

Our tree has ornaments that remind us of time spent together in other places, like the paper geisha girl from Japan, where we lived for 4 months in 2000.  And the wooden bison from a Manitoba vacation which included a potentially scary encounter with some real bison in the national park, and the glass ball filled with sand and beach treasures representing a myriad of wonderful times on P.E.I.  And of course, recently added, an Ottawa REDBLACKS Grey Cup ornament

(adapted from a keychain).

Another decoration that we all love is a tree ornament, but it doesn’t actually hang on the tree.  It is a really cheap tin Christmas tree that whirls when you push in a handle to reveal a plastic Santa in the middle.  It probably cost a buck or two.  I think we have had that tree for at least 25 years.  Every year, we think it will be its last Christmas, but it survives.  It might survive us all.

Two of my favourite ornaments depict the Holy Family.  One is a cross-stitched ornament that I made, and framed in a tiny grapevine wreath.  The other was purchased from Ten Thousand Villages, a fair trade organization, and is carved from olive wood from the West Bank.  The wood is gorgeous, and the figures are graceful and evocative.  Apart from its religious significance, it has a great deal of political symbolism too... created in a region which should represent peace and tolerance but instead is filled with conflict and hatred.  I say a prayer for peace every time I see that beautiful figure.

What are your special ornaments?  What do they represent to you?
 
They are only objects, I know.  But for me, they hold so much meaning, love, and symbolism.  I am grateful for every person and every memory that they represent.

The Whole Damn Fire

It’s late, and I’m tired.  I have been having trouble settling for the past few nights, with my mind focussed on the news out of Aleppo.  So this will probably not be a very polished post.

I usually love Christmas. I love the decorations, the baking, making or shopping for the right Christmas gifts.  I love the lead up to the day, reflecting on the age old traditions of the Christian church.  For Christians, the season of Advent leading up to Christmas is one of preparation, of anticipation of the hope, love, joy and peace of the season, and the birth of the Prince of Peace.  Even for people who do not celebrate the religious aspects of the season, there is a sense of excitement and anticipation.  The decorations, the lights, especially in big cities, the special events, all create the “holiday spirit” with which we are so familiar in our society.

This year, however, I am struggling with the idea of Christmas. Instead of feeling hopeful and joyful, the overwhelming realities of our world are causing me to feel despair.  News broadcasts bring stories of violence, poverty, and now, daily, the horrifying and distressing news out of Aleppo, where civilians broadcast their goodbyes via social media in the wake of the violent war there.

Last year, Syria and the plight of its refugees was very much in the forefront of the news, and in my life.  I posted here about the efforts of my town to sponsor a Syrian family.  We were excited and busy with preparations for our family.  Since then, we have welcomed two families to our community.  But a year ago, Syria, the refugees, and the realities of the world were still very abstract and faceless.  It was something that was happening somewhere else, and did not affect us personally.

A year later, and the story has become so much more personal.  Now I know people who lived in Aleppo and Syria, who fled their homes and arrived in Sackville with all of their worldly possessions in four suitcases, whose family and friends have also fled their homes, have died, have drowned in the Mediterranean.  The situation in Syria is not so abstract any more, because now it is the story of real people with faces and names that I have come to know and love. 

Yesterday, I decided to start some Christmas baking, and I turned on some Christmas music.  One of my favourite albums is Steve Bell’s “The Feast of Seasons.”  On it, he sings  “I Heard the Bells.”  It has never been one of my favourite Christmas carols, but today, with thoughts of Syria not far away, I found myself listening and appreciating it so much more than I ever have before, especially when I heard:

    And in despair I bowed my head;
    "There is no peace on earth," I said;
            "For hate is strong,
            And mocks the song
    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

I had to stop what I was doing when I heard that.  It sums everything up for me right now.  Longfellow wrote the poem on which this carol is based during the American Civil War.  His son had been horribly injured, and his wife had died tragically.  He felt deep despair, maybe similar to what I am feeling.

We have been at this crossroad before in recent history.  Bosnia.  Rwanda.  The Holocaust.  All situations where hate was strong enough to prevail.  In all of those cases, “The World,” the powers-that-be, the politicians and diplomats and military forces, had the knowledge and the power to stop what was coming.  They did not, however, have the will.  I fear that it is the same with Syria and Aleppo now.  Many people have opined over the past few days that Aleppo will become another name synonymous with Bosnia and Rwanda, yet another moment in history that will mark the failure of The World to avert catastrophe.  We, The World, had the opportunity to avoid this.  We chose not to.

I wish I were powerful enough that I could intervene in Syria and in other places in the world that are ruled by hatred and violence.  I wish I were rich enough to make a difference in the lives of all who are refugees and displaced persons.  I am neither.  I am an ordinary person, in an ordinary town, with a pretty ordinary life.  The fact that there are nations and people who do have the ability to make a difference, but choose not to, fills me with despair. 

And yet, in the midst of despair, there are signs of hope.  The two families that our community has sponsored to date have brought so much joy to those of us who have had the privilege of getting to know them.  Our lives have been changed by their presence, and I am a better person for knowing them.  Their hope and faith in their search for a better future give me hope.

There are young adults all around me who are engaged, both globally and locally.  Only yesterday, my BFF’s youngest son celebrated a short but very successful fundraising venture for cancer research by shaving his head when the goal of $15,000 was reached (he actually raised almost $16,500, and donations are still coming in).  My daughter is passionate about social justice, and is searching to find the right career path for her to work with children or young adults who are somehow disadvantaged.  My son wants to coach high school football and be a teacher, and influence children in one of the most profound ways.  Our university students are learning and sharing about the issues of our world, and I hear the passion in their voices as they discuss and argue and set out, determined to change their world.  They bring me hope with their lofty ideals and their awareness of the world and what is wrong in it.

Yesterday, my daughter and I packed bags for our town’s Christmas Cheer programme.  The generosity of people who donate gifts and money for struggling families in our town gives me hope in the face of global despair.

I mentioned to a few friends that I was having trouble getting into the Christmas spirit this year.  One person told me that now more than ever, the world needs hope to triumph over despair.  Another friend reminded me that each person can only do so much, and that I can be the one drop, one light, and one friend for the people around me.  Maybe that’s what hope is, the realization that while those of us who are ordinary mortals can not change the whole world, we can change the spaces around us.  I might be powerless on a grand scale, but in my spheres of life, maybe I am not as powerless as I feel.  

I saw a quotation that reads “It’s OK if you fall down and lose your spark.  Just make sure that when you get back up, you rise as the whole damn fire.”  I have fallen and lost sight of my spark temporarily, although I know it is still there.  When I get back up again, I want to bring the whole damn fire.  I want to make sure that in my life, and in my spheres of activity, right will prevail over wrong, and hope will triumph over despair.  In this season of hope, joy, love and peace, I want to be reminded, like Longfellow was, that peace on earth and goodwill will triumph.  I want to be regenerated, re-energized and made ready to burn brightly.

So maybe it won’t be a Merry Christmas in the same way it has been in the past.  Maybe I will be more deliberately thoughtful and grateful about things I take for granted, and about the things I need to change in my own life in order to make my world more just and peaceful.  I hope it will be a Christmas when we, individually and collectively, take up the challenge to be the whole damn fire and to be the change our world needs to ensure that what is right is what wins in the end.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
    and wild and sweet
    The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
    Had rolled along
    The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
    A voice, a chime,
    A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
    And with the sound
    The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
    And made forlorn
    The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
    "For hate is strong,
    And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
    The Wrong shall fail,
    The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

A Tale of Two Grey Cups

A few days ago, I returned home from my second consecutive Grey Cup weekend.  The Grey Cup is the championship game of the Canadian Football League.  Like the Superbowl, only Canadian, and better.

Last year’s Grey Cup, my first, was in Winnipeg.  This year it was held in Toronto.  My team, the REDBLACKS, who employ my son, played in both.  This year, they won. That’s right.  My son is now a member of a Grey Cup championship team. 

Having been to the Grey Cup two years in a row, I feel that I am now a veteran Grey Cup attender.  Two very different cities, two different stadiums, and two unique experiences. 

The Game, of course, is the centrepiece of the weekend, but the days leading up to The Game are also fun.  Events such as the CFL Players’ Awards, the VIP Tailgate Party and Empowering Women and Community through Sport Luncheon are included if you have lots of money to spend, but for me, one of the real strengths of the CFL is that the VIP experience is actually not where it’s at; in my opinion, it is the mingling of CFL fans on the streets and in the more accessible events that makes the Grey Cup Festival what it is.

One of the things I love most about the CFL is its relatively small size.  There are only nine teams, and many of the players have played for more than one of those teams.  Other professional leagues like the NHL and NFL have many more teams and players, and correspondingly huge numbers of fans; their stadiums and arenas hold many more people than CFL stadiums.  For instance, in 2015, the highest average attendance for games in the NFL was in Dallas, where the Cowboys attracted 91,400 fans to every game.  The St. Louis Rams, who attract the smallest crowds, averaged 52,400.  The CFL, by comparison, had an average attendance ranging from 31,500 in Edmonton, to Toronto’s 12,430 (but Toronto is a bit of an anomaly in terms of CFL football).  The whole atmosphere of the CFL is intimate.  And you really feel this intimacy, this feeling of family at the Grey Cup.

Last year, I flew from Ottawa to Winnipeg via Pearson International Airport in Toronto. Frankly, I was astounded to see people wearing various team clothing greeting each other in the Toronto airport like long-lost friends (Ti-Cat fans hugging Argo fans???).  Listening to their conversations, it became clear that they had not seen each other since the previous year’s Grey Cup.  It seems as if there are a lot of people who attend each Grey Cup, no matter which teams are playing.  And it doesn’t matter what jersey you wear.  If you’re wearing a CFL jersey, you instantly become part of that CFL family.

This year I took the train from Ottawa to Toronto, and was seated beside a Calgary Stampeders fan named Ken.  He was probably in his 70s, and he was on his way to his fifteenth straight Grey Cup.  We chatted off and on for the trip, and then went our separate ways.  Over the course of the weekend, I randomly ran into him twice more: once at the Grey Cup Festival headquarters, and then at The Game itself, where he was sitting about ten rows directly in front of me.  Both times, we greeted each other with hugs, as if we had known each other much longer than our five-hour train ride. This is why I love the CFL.

Each team hosts a party.  Some of the parties happen every day of the 3-day festival; other teams have a single afternoon or evening event.  Some are free, and others have cover charges. 

Only in the CFL can you attend an annual party for a team that has never actually existed.  Last year, we decided that since we are Maritimers, we had to pay the $20 cover charge and attend the Atlantic Schooners party.  Who are these Atlantic Schooners, you ask?  In the early 1980s, Halifax was awarded a conditional CFL franchise.  The organization hired coaches, sold preliminary season tickets, and came up with a name and branding that would represent the four Atlantic provinces.  Unfortunately, funding to build a stadium of appropriate size never materialized, and the ownership group had to withdraw its franchise bid in 1983.  I am told that every year since then, the Atlantic Schooners have hosted a party at the Grey Cup Festival.  Their mascot is a lobster (of course), and their two mottos are “Still Undefeated” and “Keeping the Dream Alive.”  Some day, Atlantic Canada.  Some day.

So we paid our cover charge, believing that we would receive a lobster roll as part of it, only to discover that we had to pay extra for the lobster roll, and the Keith’s (Maritime beer) that was being served at the bar cost almost as much as the cover.  They had a live band playing mostly Great Big Sea covers, and they were pretty good.  Ironically, the band was actually from Regina, if I recall correctly.  This is why I love the CFL. 

Next, we hit the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ party.  We didn’t actually pay the cover charge to go in, as it was spilling out into the hallway, and we had no trouble hearing their live music.  Rider fans are unique, even for the CFL.  I’ve been to several regular season games over the past years, and it doesn’t matter whether the Riders are playing or not, I always see at least a couple of fans dressed in their Rider green.  They show up at all kinds of sporting events: NHL games, the Olympics, curling.... you can always pick out the Rider fans. So we had our obligatory photo-with-the-crazy-Rider-fans taken, listened to some of the music, and moved on.  This is why I love the CFL.

We attended the REDBLACKS team party, an afternoon event at a local pub.  It was very crowded, an experiment, perhaps, to see what the fan base would look like for this new franchise.  It was just a little bit cool, being Winnipeg, but also being Winnipeg, regardless of the frigid temperature, the party spilled onto the outdoor patio.  This is why I love the CFL.

Winnipeg held a joint Santa Claus/Grey Cup parade (Toronto did not).  We stayed well past the point where we could no longer feel our fingers and toes, and left while the parade was still in full swing.  Winnipeg also had a dramatic procession of the Grey Cup on game day from Festival headquarters at the Convention Centre, to the Forks.  Fans took turns carrying the Cup.  When we got to the Forks, the Cup was put on a helicopter and flown to the stadium.

My first experience of a Grey Cup was a thrill.  CFLers were visible all over the city.  I admit, even though I am a mum of grown up children, I went a little fangirl crazy, especially when Travis Lulay, the quarterback of the BC Lions, sat down for breakfast a few tables away from me, and when Mike Reilly, the Edmonton quarterback, sat at the table right behind me with his family at lunch time.  I am pretty much a lifelong CFL fan, and it is just a little thrilling to see these stars up close in real life. 

This year, the atmosphere was a little bit different.  The sports market is very competitive in Toronto, and the Grey Cup did not have the same all-encompassing influence that it did in Winnipeg.  For example, the hotel where we stayed had no idea what the Grey Cup was and could not help us with any information about the Festival or The Game – despite the fact that one of the teams playing in the Grey Cup was staying at the same hotel!  The Game was not even listed on the Events calendar that the hotels receive.

As it got closer to Game Day, though, there were more people on the streets wearing CFL gear.  We shared several serendipitous moments with other fans, walking for several blocks with fellow REDBLACKS fans (that I had never met before) and discovering our mutual connections to the team.  (I also ran into some of them later in the weekend). 

This year, my darling daughter was able to join us for the weekend (last year, it was my son’s best friend).  We spent Saturday afternoon at the REDBLACKS team party, another crowded event (I think they will need a much bigger venue next year) and then headed down to Festival HQ.  There are all kinds of fun drills and competitions: the obstacle race/footwork course, throwing the football for accuracy and speed, and trying to catch a pass in midair while jumping into a big pile of foam blocks (and then trying to get out again).  Last year in Winnipeg, we dressed up in shoulder pads and helmets, and were filmed running out of the “tunnel” onto the “field” at the beginning of the game.  If you are so inclined, you can also be a TSN anchor person, or go into the virtual huddle and hear the play calls.   

After some friendly familial competition (where I am proud to say I actually held my own), and some live music on the outdoor stage, we headed in to check out some of the parties, but not before running into a friend of ours, Andre Durie, and some of his Argonaut teammates.  I love that you can “run into” someone you know at a Grey Cup event.

The Atlantic Schooners did not have any live music when we passed by their venue.  In fact, it sounded a little bit like they were having a trivia night.  So we passed. 

Surprisingly, the Roughrider party was also a little bit downbeat from what it was last year.  So we moved on.

The Argonaut party, in The Shipyard, was rocking, with a cover band, the Dwayne Gretzkys, providing live music.  Good vocals, good instrumentals, and a nice variety of music, with different band members taking the lead.  We found a table, got some refreshments, and settled in for the evening.  My daughter, being the social one in the family, ended up on the dance floor, and immediately had fans from various teams hugging her and welcoming her to the floor.  I think she probably made a dozen new friends in the space of ten minutes and received invitations to a few tailgate parties.  That’s my daughter. 

Having received some advice about the best parties to attend from my Stampeders friend, late in the evening (or was that early in the morning?) we headed over to the Spirit of Edmonton party at one of the downtown hotels.  Ken was right.  You need to be there well in advance of the party.  When we arrived, the line to get in was up two flights of stairs and down the hallway, and it was late/early, so we did not stay.  Next time, we will know better!  (We also missed the free Calgary Stampeders pancake breakfast, but that's another story).

And The Game!  The centrepiece of the weekend and the season!  Last year in Winnipeg, it was so cold that I spent most of one quarter and the entire halftime trying to track down some hot beverages.  This year in Toronto, it was mild and the lineups were not half as crazy.  Each stadium is different; Investors Group Field in Winnipeg is actually a bowl, and is deceptively large; it feels like a college stadium in size.  BMO Field is beside Lake Ontario, with a view of downtown Toronto, and has great sightlines.

This year’s game was made more exciting by the fact that our team won!  And it was dramatic.  I will resist the temptation to rehash the game, as that information is readily available elsewhere (like here and here), but the shoestring tackle by Abdul Kanneh to prevent Calgary from scoring a touchdown and then the overtime bobbling touchdown catch from Henry Burris to Ernest Jackson (two of my favourites), were mind-bogglingly thrilling!
 

After the game, families and friends were able to go down on the field and celebrate with our team.  There were fireworks and confetti, and tears and excitement.  And lots of hugging.  We eventually made our way into the locker room shortly after the traditional champagne spraying, where the hugging and excitement continued, this time through a thick haze of cigar smoke.  The music and dancing continued on the bus ride back to the hotel for the celebration party.  There was more champagne.  And some food.  And photos with the Grey Cup.  And more hugging. 

The highlights of this year’s Grey Cup for me?  Well, the win, of course.  And experiencing it with both my kids.  And running into former students from Mount Allison University, sometimes randomly (like our waiter at the REDBLACKS party).  And running into our friend Andre a second time just before The Game, after he searched us out to give us one of his signed jerseys (Thank you, Andre.  We are presently negotiating custody arrangements for The Jersey).  And meeting new people (I’ll be looking for my Stamps friend Ken next year) and finding connections between players and people you actually know.  And talking to CFL legends (like Pinball Clemons and Henry Burris) and legends-to-be and “hanging out” in the same space and chatting with the Grey Cup champions, who also happen to be my kid’s friends and coworkers. 

Next year?  The Grey Cup will be hosted in Ottawa.  It will be a time, as they say out east.  I am excited to see how Ottawa will compare to these two experiences.  It is a venue with a lot of potential for excitement.  The stadium and the area around it will be filled with CFL fans, and it will be an extra special celebration in the nation’s capital for the nation’s 150th birthday.  Hopefully it will be extra special for our family too, and we will ALL be able to experience it together.

This is what we’re made of, and all of this is why I love the CFL.
 

The Morning After....

I had not planned to write about the US election on my blog.  After all -- not my circus, not my monkeys.  And I think I probably expected, like many of you, that sanity would prevail, and there wouldn’t really be anything to talk about.

But the events of the past 24 hours, and the election of Donald Trump as the next President, have left me utterly shocked and shaken to my core (Disclaimer: I am not a huge fan of Hillary Clinton either but if I had had to choose...).  Waking up this morning and hearing the news, I literally turned the radio off and rolled over to go back to sleep in the hope that it was a dream and when I really awoke, the news would be different.  When that didn’t work, I lay in bed looking out my window to see if the sun would actually rise today.  (It did, and it was a fairly spectacular sunrise, as most mid-autumn sunrises on the edge of the marsh are).

I know millions of people will be writing about the election results, and probably all of them will have many more profoundly insightful things to say than I do.  But for me, part of the process of writing a journal or a blog is for my own personal benefit, to try to unravel the deep mixed emotions of events or issues, and create some sense out of chaos, at least for me.  So here I am, drinking some Fort Henry Black Powder Tea, which, given its origin, seems rather apt, and pondering the aftermath.  (I bought the tea this summer at Upper Canada Village, which partially commemorates the Battle of Crysler Farm during the War of 1812.  The tea is heavily smoked and I think of campfires on the battlefield when I smell it).

Like you, I have listened to the news, followed the fallout on social media, and tried to make sense of what happened south of the border.  I have felt deep despair, fear, a loss of faith in humanity, and yes, even a little loss of faith in God.  And it isn’t even 10 a.m. 

There are many questions as to how Mr. Trump could be elected and how every single pundit and pollster could have been so devastatingly wrong.  There is a lot of analysis out there right now, probably much of it inaccurate.  I saw one graph which showed that Trump was basically elected by white men and women (I think the statistic was something like 64% of white men voted for Trump); every other demographic voted for Clinton.  Another person commented that the results indicate that there are many Americans who are closet racists, misogynists, etc. who were too timid to indicate their real choice (Trump) to pollsters but not too timid to actually vote for him.  One Facebook friend reposted a tweet that said “What I learned on Election Night: Being a racist, bigoted, prejudice [sic], lying sexual predator is still more acceptable than being a woman.”  Van Jones, a CNN commentator, calls this election a “whitelash” – backlash against eight years of having a black president.   There is a lot of talk about how the mostly white voters who supported Trump feel dispossessed in a politically elite system that ignores their anxieties and realities.  

Personally, I feel a great deal of despair.  I do not understand how anyone who claims to care about humanity can vote for Trump.  To me, he is the epitome of a man who represents everything anti-Christian, anti-humanitarian, selfish, greedy.... I could go on, but you have read it all before elsewhere.  I am fearful for Americans of colour, women, gay and lesbian people, immigrants, Muslim Americans, children and anyone else who belongs to vulnerable populations. 

I am fearful for my own nation.  Before we get too complacent as Canadians, let me remind you that we had Stephen Harper as our prime minister for 10 years, and let’s not forget the divisions, distrust and discriminatory policies that characterize his legacy.  We are not immune to Trump-ism.  Even in my own small town there are people who are openly proud to do whatever they can to generate hatred, fear, suspicion and division, and who loudly proclaimed their support for Trump and all he represents. 

I could go on.  Like many of you, I am experiencing so many feelings this morning.

However.... In the midst of all the negativity, and all the options for choosing disgust, despair, and grief, I began to see glimmers of hope.  Several people posted ways in which they would try to find light at the end of what seems like a very dark tunnel.  One of my facebook friends, a very wise young woman, posted the following:

“What I'm telling my kids:
In America, they have had some tough years. Many citizens are tired, broken and afraid. They weren't sure who could best help them so they picked. They may have made a mistake.
And, because we are friends and neighbours, we are here for our friends even when they made choices we don't like.
Our neighbours may have a tough road ahead. They need us more than ever.”

I saw an article on Huffington Post written in response to a school principal that encouraged adults to find positive teaching moments for children in the wake of a Trump victory.  To promise to protect our children and assure them that democracy is not dead.  She wrote: “Tell them... that you will honor the outcome of the election, but that you will fight bigotry. Tell them bigotry is not a democratic value, and that it will not be tolerated at your school. Tell them you stand by your Muslim families. Your same-sex parent families. Your gay students. Your Black families. Your female students. Your Mexican families. Your disabled students. Your immigrant families. Your trans students. Your Native students. Tell them you won’t let anyone hurt them or deport them or threaten them without having to contend with you first. Say that you will stand united as a school community, and that you will protect one another. Say that silence is dangerous, and teach them how to speak up when something is wrong. Then teach them how to speak up, how to love one another, how to understand each other, how to solve conflicts, how to live with diverse and sometimes conflicting ideologies, and give them the skills to enter a world that doesn’t know how to do this.”  (You can read it here).

And I remembered the final vision of Jack Layton, which he shared with Canadians just before his death a few short years ago:

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world."

I am still in shock and despair.  But as many of you have chosen to do, I make a conscious decision to choose love, hope and optimism.  I cannot change the outcome of this most unsettling US election, but I can choose how I react to it.  And I choose to take steps that will change the world – at least my small part of it – for the better. 

Two years ago, Canadian Foodgrains Bank posted this prayer, which is so appropriate for today and the coming days.

May all I do today
be for the healing of the whole
May all I do today
mend this broken world
May all I do today
bring blessing on the Earth
May all I do today
be for the good of all
All I do today
~ Jan Novotka

Let’s decide to heal the whole, broken world, with love, hope and optimism.

I am soooo stressed....

My Facebook feed today reminded me that around this date in 2007, I was invited to be a guest columnist for“Through Stained Glass” in the Argosy, the student newspaper at Mount Allison University.  I think it is still pertinent, so I have updated it a bit and post it here for your reflection. Keep in mind I wrote it for a university student audience.... (and please forgive me if I have messed up any statistics.  I am not a good mathematician, but I did check everything at least twice).

I have been feeling very stressed lately. Our family is expecting guests from out of the country for Thanksgiving weekend, and we are in the middle of painting our living room. Last weekend, we went to Lennoxville to watch our football Mounties play against Bishops. We couldn’t find a hotel room in Montreal the night before our flight back because Tiger Woods was apparently in the city  (who knew so many people followed golf?? – we ended up sleeping in the airport). You likely feel stressed about other things – the assignment that is due and hasn’t been started, studying for midterms, whether you did anything you should regret on the weekend. We all complain that we live very stressful lives.

I have also been researching and thinking a lot about poverty. The week of October 14-21 was designated as the Week to End Poverty, and the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is on October 17. At the turn of the millennium, heads of state, charitable and non-governmental organizations, church groups and ordinary people agreed that poverty could be at least reduced, and that extreme poverty, defined at the time as living on less than $1US a day, could be entirely eliminated. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a set of eight achievable goals which, if met by the target year of 2015, would have gone a long way to easing the lives of millions of people around the world (see http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/goals/). However, in 2016, it seems that there has not been much tangential change in easing poverty; the UN page dedicated to the MDGs has been linked with the UN Development Programmes page, and there is no longer even any mention of the MDGs on the UNDP page.

Statistics show that in our country, 1 in every 5 children lived in poverty in 2013. To put that in perspective, in Sackville, with its school age population of approximately 1000 children, that would translate into approximately 250 children, here in our own backyard, who live in poor families. That’s equivalent to almost the entire population of our elementary school. In Canada, the annual income of the richest 10% of families rose by almost $30,000 between 1993-1996, and the annual income of the poorest 10% of families fell. Our Parliament passed a resolution in 1989 to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000. Instead, over that decade, the child poverty rate in Canada rose by 21.7%, and at the turn of the millennium, there were almost 1.3 million children in Canada living in poverty (that figure in 2016 is now well over 1.3 million). In our indigenous populations, the child poverty rate in 2013 was 40%. The most vulnerable families are those headed by a single parent, and most of those single parents (80% in 2011) are women.  In 2011, these moms earned about 50% of the income that male single parent families earned, a median income of $21,200 compared to $43,300 for men.  Canada has the 30th largest wage gap between men and women out of 145 ranked nations in the world, despite all our attempts at gender equity. And it is worth noting that all of these statistics are skewed way out of proportion if we take into account whether people are indigenous, visible minorities, mentally or physically disabled, or seniors.  We have not come a long way, baby.

That morning in October 2007, I started to make a list of what absolutely needed to be done, what should be done and the little things I wanted to do before my company arrived. It was a long list. I started to feel very stressed, even hopeless. Then I thought about what I had learned about poverty. And I realized that my stress is a luxury. I remembered that my son and daughter would be fed a nutritious supper that night, after they got home from their publicly funded, universally-accessible education. My husband has a job that means we don’t need to worry about the necessities of life. We could afford to paint our living room. We actually have a living room to paint. I realized that I had no right to feel so stressed and hopeless about such insignificant things as whether my house would be clean by the weekend.

The poor, around the world and right here in Sackville, know what it truly means to feel stress. They wonder how they will get enough nutritious food for their children. Sackville’s poor families worry about how they will afford school supplies and winter coats and boots for their kids. They worry about how they are going to pay their rent. They worry about their children’s health, their children’s mental and social well-being, whether they should go to the Food Bank or not (and what their neighbours will say if they do). In developing nations, some families actually have to consciously choose which one of their children will live. The rest of their children will slowly die before their eyes, simply because they only have enough food for one child. That is stress. Next to that, my stress is selfish and meaningless.

In the time it has taken you to read this article, if you’re a fast reader, about 150 people in the world have died from completely avoidable, poverty-related deaths. That’s 25,000 people who will die today. Locally, over 200 families in Sackville will make use of our food bank this month.  In 2014, the Community Association’s Christmas Cheer programme provided food vouchers, toys and gift baskets to 607 individuals in Sackville, 160 of them children.  Still more families will go unnoticed.

If you are walking past the chapel (or a church) this week, go in and sit in the silence for a moment, and say a prayer for the poor in our community and in our world, as the sunlight colours your world through stained glass.