The single greatest indication that the world has changed since Tuesday is the idea that Americans no longer have to sew a Canadian flag on their backpacks to get respect in Europe.   If you really want safe passge, sew an Obama logo on instead.

From Patrick Moberg

Oh hey it’s you!   Hey honey!   Look who’s back!   Man, we’ve missed you.

How have you been?   We’re okay…we’ve been thinking good things for you the whole time you’ve been away.   Looks like life’s had it’s way with you.   Ouch.   Where’d you pick up those scrapes?

It was hard when you first left. We were so there with you when you had your big shock.   It was hard to watch you get angry like that.   You hurt a lot of people you know.   I mean we knew we’d be safe, y’know we’ve known each other a long time, but it was really hard to watch you go through that.   We didn’t take personally all those things you said about us.   You were angry, acting rash.   And now look at you…tired, hungry, hurt and you look like you’re out of money too.

But look, it’s good to have you back.   We really have missed you.   Things haven’t been the same since you’ve been gone.   I knew if we kept the candles burning for you, you’d come back.

Come on in and take a load off.   Have something to eat.   Take a few days and then we can help you think about how to make things right again.   Lots of people are gunning for you right now.   You look like you could use a few friends.

I believe you when you say you want to change.   It’s not going to be easy, but if you need our help, we’ll give you a hand.   Who knows?   Maybe the tables will be turned someday!

Alright, take it easy now…you’ve had a long trek to get here.   Go slow.   Get some rest.   We’ll talk more in the morning

Man…it’s good to see you again.

I was listening to a dharma talk by Steve Armstrong (listen to it here) on working with the defilements of the mind.   He begins the talk by quoting the Buddha who says that the pure mind is radiant and bright and that everything else is the result of being visited by defilements.   In Buddhism these include greed, aversion and delusion.

Less important than the dharma content of this talk though is a line that Steve Armstrong said that zinged home with me.   He said that when we sit down to meditate, we should not expect to have a “good experience” but rather, we should understand that this is the place where we meet the mind’s defilements head on.

That really resonated with me.   It seems an important feature of any practice that one recognize that the reason for practicing is to meet challenge, difficulty and frustration.   In that sense any practice becomes a dojo, a place of training.   In meditation we sit to discover how our mind works and to work with what we find.   In my own martial arts practices of taekwondo and warrior of the heart, it is about confronting physical challenges and fear.

And it made me think about what it means also to be a practitioner of conversational arts.   Many of the places I work are difficult places, and I can see now that what makes me a practitioner is that I willingly choose those places because they are hard.   That is where I practice, and the practice is learning to use the social spaces between us as people to make good happen in the world.

Practice is not a retreat from the world, it is confronting your sharpest edge.   Work, for me, is like that too.

I had dinner with Hanns and Marlene Skoutajan tonight here in Ottawa.   Hanns was the my minister at my church when I was a teenager and he was largely responsible for supporting my call which was at one time to join the United Church of Canada as a minister.   He was also responsible for introducing me to church politics and structure such that I decided not to pursue my career for that employer.

Hanns and Marlene were a particular anamoly in my upper middle class neighbourhood, where they stood out as the most visible members of the New Democratic Party I knew.   They, along with another mininster at our chruch, John Lawson, were my introduction to progressive politics and it is largely to them that I owe my political consciousness raising.   Here’s an Op Ed he wrote last month for the Ottawa Citizen. on alternatives to appeasement. You can see that he is unwavering in his commitment to peace.

The name of our church was – wait for it – St. James-Bond United Church, so named because it was the result of a merger between St. James Presbyterian and Bond Street Congregationalist back in the early days of the United Church.   The congregation itself folded up in 2005 and the building was torn down.   At the corner of Avenue Road and Willowbank in Toronto there is still a great hole where this formative structure in my life once stood.   As a gift to me tonight, Hanns gave me one of three bricks that his son saved from the old church.   While it seems at first glance like a whimsical gift, I told Hanns that I would receive it as a deep symbol of the foundation that he gave me in life as a spiritual teacher and a teacher of activism in the world.

The most enduring teaching I have from Hanns comes from the benediction he used to give at the end of every service on Sunday.   Hanns told me tonight that the benediction actually came from another very well known progressive United Church minister Cliff Elliott by way of Marlene who brought it home one Sunday.   It goes like this:

Go into the world with a daring and a tender heart.   The world is waiting for you.   Go in peace and may all that you do be done because of love.

That continues to stand as a deep motto for me to this day.