Martin Luther King, writing from the Birmingham jail where he was biding his time after being arrested for non violent civil disobedience had this to say about the difference between just laws and unjust laws. An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, …
I’ve been reflecting on the UK referendum results obsessively for the past couple of days. While most of my friends and colleagues voted to remain, I can also understand a little the desire to “leave.” What I find awful is the manner in which the Leave campaign used racism and xenophobia to generate support for its position. As a result we can’t really be sure what the actual decision was as the debate was caught in irrelevant issues and there seems to be a great deal of regret over it. What I love is internationalism. What I think needs to …
Bruce Cockburn is probably my favourite songwriter. I like to say that he’s my favourite psalmist too, because his somgs are like little prayers that capture the full range of human experience from drop-down-on-your-knees awe, to deep and desperate despair. Yesterday I found myself, as I do in times of reflection, going to Bruce Cockburn’s catalogue for some quiet mirroring. When you’re lovers in a dangerous time Sometimes you’re made to feel as if your love’s a crime Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight You’ve got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight. What …
It’s good to have Dave Snowden back from his treks in the Himalayas. He’s been a big influence on my thinking and practice over the past few years and his near daily blog posts are always rich, irreverent and practical. He is in the process of creating an important body of theory and practice that is useful even if the language and the concepts are sometimes a lot of work to grasp. The payoff from wrestling with his ideas is rich. Today he’s discussing “dispositionality” which simply means that making change in a system is much easier when you have a …
It’s a hoarfrost kind of day here on Bowen Island, kind of cold out and the ground is covered in snow, frost and ice. Sitting in The Snug Cafe having lunch when a weekend visitor comes in saying the he blew out his shoes hiking and all he has is flip flops. Nothing’s open. He’s a size 11. The six of us in the cafe were about to post on Facebook and the forum and make some calls when Will, the cook here, heads to the back and comes out with his pair of spare shoes. Fits perfectly. Stranger …