Snippets of Wisdom

While sitting with my feet up, sipping coffee, my summer reading snuck up on me and caused me to ponder several facets of living. My cottage weekend was visited by words that packed a punch. Literary missives linger in my resting spirit. In my $8 bargain book by Julia Keller entitled, Sorrow Road, I uncovered priceless wisdom.

With some personal experience of death, I found that Julia’s character, Darlene, early in the novel, voiced aptly the mixed emotions felt by grievers:

Darlene was still grieving her father’s death … [She] was stunned, angry, turned inside out with the kind of despair for which there was no antidote. Grief was something you simply had to get through, howsoever you could. Grief was brutal, and it was cruel, and it lasted as long as it lasted. Grief could turn even the calmest, most poised and rational person into an emotional mess. And when grief was mixed with guilt, the guilt that burned and surged and twisted inside you because you so futilely wished you’d done more for your loved one, wished you’d stopped in more often and paid better attention when you did, wished you’d hugged him just once more during that last visit, and told him just one more time that you loved him, although, God help you, you did not know it was going to be your final chance to do that, to do anything –” (Page 20).

Julia Keller has the talent to capture the raw emotions felt by many people struggling following the death of a loved one.

Ms Keller in her writing blended incidences of sorrow with humour. I found myself chuckling as I read the quick retort, "As a friend of mine used to say, there is only room for one God. And the job's already taken." (Page 89) It was a useful reminder for myself.

Memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer’s are growing concerns in today’s aging population. Bell, one of Sorrow Road’s memorable characters, uses a striking metaphor to describe memory and it’s lost. 

Bell felt a gradual recognition of memory as more than simply an assemblage of known facts and mastered capacities and recalled experiences, and more, even, than personal identity, but as the very tent pole of life, every life, the solid vertical rod at the center of things. When it collapsed, the fabric gathered in folds around your feet; if the wind blew, everything was swept away. And the wind was always blowing. (Page 123).

I find it indeed true that memory is that “solid vertical rod at the centre of things”. Many of us painfully witness as memory, that solid vertical rod, collapses and robs those close to us of their hold on life.

The above heartfelt references clearly show that Julie Keller has an excellent expertise in expressing emotions and creating stunning mind pictures. She uses descriptive language with creative skill and talent. She is an author who has sent me, a reading addict, looking for her other books.

Nancy Wales, CSJ

 

Sorrow Road by Julia Keller. New York: Minotaur Books, 2016

‘BEE’ careful in being BEE friendly

Recently, on a car trip from Calgary to visit friends in Hay River and Yellowknife my travelling companion and I made a lunch stop in High Level, Alberta. While waiting for my soup and sandwich I picked up the local coffee news, the Muskeg Buzz. I came across an article in its Heard Around the World section titled, “Cheerios Will Send 500 Wildflower Seeds for Free to Save Bees." This piece encouraged readers to sign up for free wildflower seeds to plant to help save the honey bee. Maybe you have seen the TV commercial on the same topic. Currently, General Mills, maker of Honey Nut Cheerios, is focussing audience attention on the plight of honeybees through their corporate initiative, ‘Bring back the bees’. Their campaign, ‘Bring back the bees’ highlights the vital role bees and other pollinators play in food security, the economy and how bees and other pollinators face decline.

“Pollinators are critical to our ecosystems. Insect pollinators, both wild (e.g., many species of bees and moths) and domestic (honeybees), are in serious decline due to the combination of habitat loss, disease, pesticide exposure and climate change. These pollinators are responsible for an estimated one out of three bites of food that people eat, which is worth billions of dollars to the North American economy. Pollinators ensure the reproductive success of plants and the survival of the wildlife that depend on those plants for food and shelter.”*

A significant part of General Mills’ campaign is partnering with the Canadian, P.E.I. seed company, Veseys to offer free packages of wildflower seeds for planting. Last year, the 100,000 seed packages Veseys expected to give away went in a matter of days. The seed company scrambled to get another 100,000 packages to General Mills. This year’s projection is that General Mills is going to be giving away over 100 million seeds to Canadians.**

At first glance, this initiative seemed like a super-duper, winning idea to me. The intent to highlight the plight of the honeybee is wonderful and taking steps to address its dwindling habitat is to be applauded. With a little research I discovered, however, the method chosen to accomplish their goals has been called into question by Paul Zammit of the Toronto Botanical Gardens.***

Zammit bases his concern on the fact that all plants should not be planted in all locations. The free package contains a mixture of seeds some of which are non-native and perhaps even considered invasive in the location where they are being sent. The horticulturalist is quick to add that he likes that the campaign is getting folks like us talking about pollinators such as bees and supports the campaign efforts to urge us to take the opportunity to facilitate pollinators in our own backyards, balconies and outdoor spaces. However, his over-riding message is to take the ‘bee careful’ route to wildflower planting. Paul Zammit recommends first checking with our local flower societies or flower supply stores to select native flowers best suited to our locale in creating wildflower habitats for the bees in our neighbourhoods.

View https://youtu.be/JgZ-DLesdAU for other ways to help pollinators in your community.

Adding to your bee trivia ... did you know?

• Bees have terrific colour vision, that’s why they love showy flowers. They especially like blue, purple, violet, white & yellow.

• There are over 20,000 species of bees around the world!

• Bee species all have different tongue lengths that adapt to different flowers.

• The honeybee’s wings stroke incredibly fast, about 200 beats per second thus making their distinctive buzzing sound.

• A honeybee can fly for up to 9 kilometers and as fast as 25 kilometers an hour.

• 1 in 3 bites of food we eat is made possible by bees and other pollinators who spread the pollen that crops need to grow. That includes many of our favourite foods like apples, almonds, coffee and of course, honey.

Nancy Wales, CSJ

*Ontario Nature
**Seeds Given away in Cheerios promotion may be problematic, horticulturalist says – CBC NEWS posted March 26, 2017
***Seeds Given away in Cheerios promotion may be problematic, horticulturalist says – CBC NEWS posted March 26, 2017

A Way to God

In his new book A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey (2016), Matthew Fox writes from the perspective of not only knowing and corresponding with Merton, but also with an admiration of Merton’s readiness to be continually learning and growing.

A Way to God references numerous quotes from the writings of Thomas Merton linking these with his own writing as well as other well known authors such as Meister Eckhart, St. Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Carl Jung and D.T. Suzuki. Fox points out, “It is important to see the evolution in Merton’s thinking that Suzuki and Eckhart brought about – It was only later, and with the help of Suzuki, that Merton truly entered into Eckhart’s creation-centered worldview”.

This is a very insightful book which clearly explores the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality – the Via Positiva, Via Negativa, Via Creativa, and Via Transformativa. These Four Paths assist us in grasping the depth of Merton’s journey.

Valerie van Cauwenberghe CSJ

Matthew Fox on Thomas Merton

If you haven't read it yet, rush out and get a copy!

Many of you may have already read this book, since it was first published in 2009. A copy was given to me by a friend a few weeks ago – and my recommendation is that if you haven’t read it yet, rush out and get a copy immediately! 

I knew little of Guernsey and the other Channel Islands, other than a memory of reciting them off in school geography lessons many years ago - Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney and Sark – but this book will certainly bring to light a picture of Guernsey and its people at the time of the German Occupation during World War II, and the aftermath and attempt at recovery and stability in 1946.

The story is comprised of a series of letters exchanged between Juliet, an aspiring young author, the members of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and other local residents, and her friends.  Jumping from character to character and incident to incident, we are introduced from one Guernsey inhabitant to another and so are given a crystal-clear picture of the individual personalities, their acts of heroism during this time of war and occupation, their fearlessness, kindness, and their struggles. 

The letters merge to give us a book will make you laugh.  It will also make you weep, sometimes with sadness, but often with tears of joy at the reminder of the strength of the human character through tragic and difficult times, the survival resources that can be mustered, and the essential goodness and hopes of the human spirit. 

Guest Blogger: Margaret Magee, Administrative Coordinator, Federation of Sisters of St. Joseph of Canada

THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY
By Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows