Consider, Poverty

I Beg to Differ

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Reading the column “Does Jonathon Van Maren Speak For The Faith Community” there are several points I must disagree with Mr Archer on.

Foremost is the fact that whatever Van Maren and his acolytes may be, they are clearly and undeniably NOT Christians. They cannot even be said to be christians.

Van Maren and his acolytes are like those who claim or are said to be christians, who harangue people with their raving diatribes about the need to keep Christ in Christmas when they should be focused on getting Christ into Christian, into themselves, into their behaviours, into their lives and into their souls, their essence.

Van Maren quotes from the bible and evokes God as the authorities for his pernicious teachings, malignant ideology and repugnant behaviours. While that may allow him to claim to be a Biblian or a Goddian it has nothing to do with being Christian.

Being Christian requires one to base how one lives on the teachings of Christ, a reality that most of those who like to label themselves Christians forget or more likely ignore or live in denial of.

Why “… forget or more likely ignore or live in denial of”? Christ taught not just through his words but through his actions, the way he lived his life. He did not judge, or hate, was about forgiveness – no matter what the trespass – about sharing with those in need [and not simply the crumbs left after one had all the luxuries and toys one wants), he was not about things and possessions but people’s needs, about loving thy enemies, about not throwing the first stone, about loving thy brothers (fellow man) as thyself, about doing unto others as you would have done unto you.

In other words: struggling to live the teachings, the actions, the life of Christ requires a great deal of those who seek to be Christians. It is far, far easier to call yourself christian than it is to be Christian.

Mr Archer questioned why the leaders of the Christian community are silent on Van Maren and his acolytes. The answer is that those he refers to as the leaders of the Christian community no more practice and live as a follower of Christ (and thus are no more Christian) than do the preponderance of those who lay claim to being Christian.

Which is undoubtedly why Ghandi observed: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Christianity exists only where it is practiced. Tao of James

Mr Archers second major error was in calling Van Maren and his acolytes bullies. They are not bullies who bullied. They are thugs who assaulted – traumatized – children with pornography (obscene [abominable; disgusting; repulsive, depraved ] drawings, photographs, or the like). Thugs whose actions make them child abusers.

Recall that child abuse includes the emotional mistreatment of children. So any act or series of acts of commission that results in harm, potential for harm, or threat of harm to a child is child abuse. These acts can occur in schools or communities the child interacts with.

The images Van Maren assaulted and caused harm to the students with were more traumatic and potentially damaging than simply exposing himself to the children would have been.

Worse, Van Maren and his acolytes committed this act of assaulting the students minds for their own self gratification. The only purpose for placing their pornography where children would be assaulted by the pornography was to attract attention to and for themselves. The kind of ‘look at me’ attention grabbing behaviour one would expect from the 5 and 6 year olds Van Maren and acolytes assaulted with their pornography attention grabbing display.

Van Maren and those who helped him perpetrate his harmful and abusive treatment of the children should be charged with child abuse and have their names placed on the appropriate local, provincial and national registries of Child Molesters.

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A little Background

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I was born in Toronto Ontario and raised just west of Toronto in Georgetown.

I studied mathematics at the University of Waterloo and Commerce at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

I articled with Coopers & Lybrand and passed the Uniform Final Exam and became a Chartered Accountant. Over the 25 years of my career as a Chartered Accountant and businessman I held  positions of increasing responsibility acquiring a broad and varied set of skills and knowledge.

I moved to Abbotsford two decades ago because my brother needed someone he could leave his children with while he attended the 6:40 AM Attitude Adjustment meeting at the Alanon Club. My brother is an alcoholic who had been through treatment several times. After his last trip to treatment he had found the key to his sobriety – and has been sober ever since – was daily attendance of the 6:40 AM meeting. He was divorced with custody of his two young children and needed a responsible adult he could leave them in the care of while he attended his meeting – a meeting that was key to his sobriety.

His big brother, the kids uncle, the Chartered Accountant fit the bill of responsible adult to a tee and I moved to Abbotsford. When my brother remarried his second wife was from Newfoundland and one of those who really want to return to the Rock. When the family moved to Newfoundland I stayed in Abbotsford.

As I walk the path of recovery in mental health I can look back and see I had had mental health issues throughout my life. I had been raised in the ‘you suck it up and deal with it’ tradition so I did just that; I coped and coped until I couldn’t cope, couldn’t function. at all and broke.

The downward spiral that started when I was not able to cope any longer ended with me homeless and on the streets of Abbotsford. Fortunately for me I had taken my first steps on the path to recovery and Wellness, am goal oriented (Obsessive Compulsive behaviour does have some advantages among all the problems it causes) and was able to continue my journey of recovery.

It was a journey that was both life changing and eye opening, filled with new knowledge, understanding and change.

The truth is that although homelessness was not the way I would have chosen to Change myself, who I have become and the joie de vivre I have found means that if the only way to who and where I am now was through homelessness – so be it.

Among the changes was the writer inside being set free and I began to write to share what I was seeing and learning about the realities of homelessness, addiction, poverty and mental illness because the reality was so different from what I had ‘known’ before experience taught me differently.

The pointless waste of money and resources on doing things the same old way over and over as if expecting the results to be different (AA’s definition of insanity), when knowledge, experience and best practices have shown what actions produce recovery drives the Chartered Accountant in me crazy.

It was the waste brought about by the bad operating and financial management of the City of Abbotsford by mayor, council and staff aggravating the accountant in me that directed my attention to the way Abbotsford is managed.

I originally actively opposed Plan A because I considered the need to upgrade water and waste disposal infrastructure the priority mayor and council should be focused on. It became clear as we learned more about Plan A that it was a bad plan period and should not be proceeded with because it would have negative financial consequences for Abbotsford for years.

I choose to live in Abbotsford because I like the city, have friends, connections, things that need to be accomplished and purpose.

Because of that I have a vested interest in the way the city is managed, its financial health and the effects those have on citizens.

I don’t like what mayor and council have done to my city. I believe the way Abbotsford is managed needs to change drastically if our community is to thrive.

The one point I heartily agree with Mayor Peary on is that if you don’t like the way the city is run, run for council and change the way that Abbotsford is currently mismanaged.

Issues, Mental Health, Poverty

Perfectly Rational, Totally Irrational

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Having been a Chartered Accountant the financial, planning, management and leadership skills and abilities, together with experience, gained over a quarter century on this career path have proven useful in a broad array of areas and ways.

It does however, come with a few drawbacks I never would have anticipated having to deal with.

My income is fixed, has been fixed at the same level for the last 5+ years; my living and working expenses are few, straight forward and over the years have been creeping or leaping upward – a reality all Canadians are having to deal with. Have you checked the prices of yachts lately?

As a matter of mental wellness I have avoided putting pen to paper to draw up a budget. This decision is not about being in denial after all:

Reality does not care what you want to be true, it does not care what you believe to be true. Reality simply is. Tao of James

It is a decision about dealing with the reality I live with – depression, anxiety, panic and a propensity as an adult child of alcoholism for self sabotage.

Unfortunately with the fixed nature of revenue (income), the few expenses left after years of paring away expenses (haircuts, clothing, food, etc) and the fixed nature of many of the remaining expenses (insurance, phone, internet) budgeting and cash flow statements/analysis are so simple I can do them in my head.

Or more accurately I cannot NOT do budgets and cash flows in my head and so the train wreck that is the financial reality of my future is a constant and unavoidable awareness in my head. The slippage for phone and internet bills already has me slipping a few days later in paying them every month, with the point in time when I reach the point the services are terminated because I am too far behind inexorably moving nearer and nearer.

I watch the numbers unwind as more expenses must be shed until the point where revenue is sufficient to pay only the rent and I become in effect a prisoner in my home, unable to go anywhere except by walking. Which as a result of physical limitations and the pain that results from these limitations, places a maximum distance on travel of 100 – 200 meters.

Of course without food or the ability to obtain food the ability to pay the rent (at least as long as it does not go up) is rather moot. You can live homeless, you do not survive long foodless.

The inability to NOT have this awareness of budget and cash flow and the approaching ‘economic collapse’ and its (without a significant change in personal financial reality) inevitability has demanded and occupied space in the continuous awareness area of my mind.

I seem, at least for now, unable to put this awareness aside and focus on getting on with life.

Instead I find myself wanting to get out from under the stress, wishing that my ‘stuff’ was in storage and I could ‘solve’ the approaching time when economic reality exerts its negative consequences on my life by moving out from under the looming crash and into my car.

Circumstances had me living in my car before so there is no fear of the unknown, I know what needs to be done to survive living in your car. Indeed services added since I was last living in my car make living in your car simpler and more doable today.

In a way living in your car simplifies your life because you have to focus on doing what you need to in order to survive.

At some point either a rent increase or the need for food will force me out of my home and either into my car or onto the street.

There is a great deal to be said for choosing when, rather than waiting until there is no choice (based on the experience of having reached that no choice point).

Ironically a move to the car improves cash flow as one loses the $375 rent portion of revenue but gains the cash difference between the $375 and actual rent paid.

One of the real advantages for me of having a fixed address is internet access, an access that will in the near future be lost as it is the next item on the chopping block of financial expenditure reductions necessity. Which means internet access must be obtained at the library and the major incentive for struggling to preserve having a ‘home’ ceases to exist.

When the only use made of home becomes as the place one sleeps, is the money spent on gas to drive ‘home’ and the money spend on a ‘home’ that could be available for keeping the car in shape and running or to meet emergencies, a wise use of extremely limited financial resources?

Consider as well that I have no land line phone service. My only phone is a cell phone which is not only mobile (a service seeming designed for those with non fixed address) but provides email and messaging.

There are other points one can cite in support of choosing to join the growing community of people in Abbotsford whose automobile has become, among its other attributes, their home arguably a perfectly rational choice.

Yet friends, mental health professionals and others maintain that even thinking about abandoning my home, moving into and living in my car is totally irrational thinking.

Which is what I would be telling someone else if they were thinking of surrendering and moving into their car. That they needed to keep working and plugging away at things and see what develops or happens to change their financial circumstances (employment etc).

But watching the numbers and the future unroll in my mind makes the struggle with depression, anxiety and the urge to panic an ongoing, daily battle complicated by an ongoing struggle not to give into an act of self sabotage.

Living with mental illness and the quest for mental wellness is enough of a challenge on its own.

I really don’t need the additional headaches and stress that come with constant awareness of the budget and cash flow realities and the inevitable negative consequences of this financial future.

At times the urge to panic, to escape is overwhelming – no matter how irrational those actions would be.

I really wish……but then……

Reality does not care what you want to be true, it does not care what you believe to be true. Reality simply is. Tao of James

Some days, to many days, running down the middle of the road trying to pull my hair out and screaming Arrrggggghhhhhh seems so appealing – and so rationally irrational.