Monthly Archives: December 2008

Consider, Homeless

Generosity = ?

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Watching the 11 PM news on Christmas Days as the last minutes of the Christmas Spirit Season ticked away had me pondering the concept of generosity and what generosity truly incorporates and embodies.

In the 2 – 3 weeks before Christmas the news was full of reports of “generosity”. Christmas Day the television news had video and stories of the homeless and hungry being served their Christmas dinner. The front page of the local paper had a picture and story of Christmas dinner being served, with the local politicians et al photographed demonstrating their “generosity” by serving meals to the homeless and poor.

On Boxing Day bringing out cookies brought groans of “oh no – more food” from the homeless who have been so stuffed with food over the past few weeks, their stomachs are full to the point they have no room even for sweets.

The homeless have also faced the “generosity” of being given so many gifts that they need a pack mule to carry everything around with them.

Yet as we move into the New Year of 2009 the homeless and poor will be hungry and in need of gifts once again, but alas “out of luck”. Until the 2009 Christmas Spirit Season opens again and “generosity” is once more a required must do.

So what is generosity? Is serving Christmas dinner or donating a gift to a Christmas bureau generosity?

Or is true generosity something that lives within a person, practiced and reflected in that person’s behaviour 365 days a year – not something switched on for the three weeks before Christmas and put away on the day after Christmas – Boxing Day, the High Holiday of Greed.

Consider that the politicians photographed serving Christmas dinner to the homeless have the ability to take the lead in ending homelessness. Yet year after year they have chosen to make excuses, shuffle paper, point fingers – but not to bestir themselves to create a single bed for the homeless or to provide leadership to end homelessness.

Ponder the question of whether loading the homeless down with gifts to the point they cannot carry it all is generosity or thoughtless behaviour? Would it not be more beneficial to the homeless if this largess was spread out over time? Of course that is neither as publicly visible nor as easy, requiring time and effort beyond the Christmas season generosity window.

One of the casualties of having embraced greed as the economic, operational and philosophical base for our society is having lost the understanding of what generosity is; as we become more self-centred and significantly less generous, except where required or it is politically correct.

What type of society we want for ourselves, our children and our children’s children?

Do we want to continue to have the kind of society we have built with greed as the economic, operational and philosophical underpinnings?

Or do we want to nurture the flickering flame of generosity into an incandescence that lights and enlightens our society?

Generosity does exist, lived and practice by some members of our community.

One of the meals served on Christmas Day was on a small bit of parkland on Gladys Avenue. It was a little late being served because it was first necessary to bring in a front end loader to clear the snow in order to be able to set up the tables, chairs and serve the food.

While this meal was served on Christmas Day it was not served because it was Christmas Day but because it was Thursday and Christmas just happened to land on a Thursday this year. There is a group of individuals who have been serving dinner on Thursday nights come sun, rain or snow.

Ironically, in light of the season, they were serving food to the homeless in the snow and cold because none of the three organizations calling themselves Christian in the area are willing to allow them to use their premises, for the winter months only, to provide shelter from the weather to the people being served dinner.

Ironic that with all the cries about the need to keep Christ in Christmas it seems to have been forgotten, or the understanding lost, that it is not about one day or even a short-lived season but about keeping Christ and the spirit of generosity alive in our hearts and behaviour through the entire year.

As the blank pages of the New Year unfold, what will you choose to write upon those pages in 2009?

Caveat emptor, Federal

Never … until politically convenient.

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Once again Stephen Harper and his Conservatives have demonstrated that their espoused principles are subject to change when ever the principles become inconvenient to adhere to; that promises made by Harper and the Conservatives are worthless in the face of political expediency or advantage.

$2,347.200.00 per year is the minimum cost of Mr. Harper’s patronage senate appointments to party faithful. $2,347.200.00 is merely the direct salary costs and does not reflect any of additional costs or the cost of perks for the 18 new senators.

Watching Mr. Harper and the Conservatives tap dance and try to spin this policy reversal of convenience serves to make it ever clearer that Mr. Harper and the Conservatives are business-as-usual politicians worried only about their own power and re-election.

Watching the bizarrely grotesque behaviours of all the politicians sent to Ottawa in the recent election makes one thing obvious.

That if we want real change in the way parliament behaves it is up to Canadian citizens to find and elect MPs who are not representatives of any political party; MPs who answer to the people they represent and not to an autocrat or political party; MPs who will have to answer or explain their decisions directly to the people they represent.

This may well make for “messier” governance in parliament and take more effort on the part of voters, but our current politicians have made it clear that this is the only way we will get rid of business-as-usual politics and get MPs focused on doing a good job and addressing the real issues facing Canada instead of worrying about their personal ideological agendas, power and re-election.

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Wishing …

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Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2009, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make Canada great (not to imply that Canada is necessarily greater than any other country), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:
-This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal.
-It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting.
-It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.