Dec

2018

Nativity scenes

Every year, my old friend Kenn Ward sets up a Nativity scene in his front yard in Winnipeg.

Many of us have indoor Nativity scenes, often called a creche. And we never set the figures up exactly the same way each year. Joseph and Mary and the baby Jesus take centre stage, of course. But the shepherds, the visitors from the east, the animals – they get shuffled around, depending on what we feel is the essential theme of the story, this year.

Kenn has that problem too, with the bigger figures for his outdoor creche. “I never know quite what to expect,” he wrote on Facebook. “Usually one of the figures, or a group of them, insist that they have been neglected and deserve more prominence in the scene. There is often a clash of egos…

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Categories: Soft Edges

Tags: Bible, Nativity, creche

5

Dec

2018

Permission to let go

Author: Jim Taylor

“All the leaves have gone,” sang The Mamas and the Papas in their short but brilliant musical career.

Their words come to mind as I look out my office window. Joan and I planted a Japanese red maple out there, 20 years ago. All its leaves have gone.

Except for two lonely twigs that still have bright red leaves clinging to their tips. The twigs lash about in winter winds. But those last leaves won’t let go.

Perhaps I should go outside and say a prayer for the last leaves on my maple tree. So that they can let go too.

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Categories: Soft Edges

Tags: life, death, autumn, leaves, atonement

2

Dec

2018

While the planet burns, we bulldoze

Author: Jim Taylor

The space probe InSight landed safely on Mars last Tuesday. NASA is working on plans to send humans to Mars. When it happens, I hope NASA will include some real estate developers.

They would love Mars. It looks exactly like what they do to the earth when they’re building new projects.

Mars has no vegetation. No tree-hugging residents to protest about the destruction of their natural habitat. No cuddly animals to arouse the sympathies of sentimental do-gooders.

For over 20 years, I have taken my dog for walks on the ridge that rises to the east of my home. Although it doesn’t have palm trees and sandy beaches, it’s about as close to paradise as I can imagine. Knee-high grass grows wild among the pines. Sunlight filters through the branches, illuminating the local sunflowers. From a rock bluff, I have a view along the 160-km lake that fills the Okanagan valley.

But a developer – I could name the company, but any other developer would do the same – bought that ridge.

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Categories: Sharp Edges

Tags: mission, global warming, subdivisions, bulldozers, Mars, wasteland, IPCC

28

Nov

2018

The goal of true community

Author: Jim Taylor

We had just arrived in the Okanagan. We moved in, unpacked, and went church shopping.

The first church we tried was Winfield United. The service itself was, well, so-so. Solid. Perhaps even stolid. Nothing exciting, but nothing offensive either.

Then, on our way out, Marg Kyle grabbed me. “We need you in our choir,” she insisted.

I’ve been singing in that choir for 25 years now.

In the church — and I guess in other contexts too — we talk a lot about community. We value community, even the virtual community supposedly offered by the internet.

And yet we often get it wrong. A seniors’ care home is not automatically a community. Neither is a housing sub-division. Both can become a community — but that will depend on the relationships of the people who live there, not just on living in close proximity.

And having a million followers on Twitter or Facebook does not create a community either.

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Categories: Soft Edges

Tags: transcendence, community, choirs

25

Nov

2018

Think twice before saying something offensive

Author: Jim Taylor

Harjit Sajjan is a Sikh, a man with brown skin, a full beard, and a turban. He’s also Canada’s Defence Minister.

An unnamed member of Canada’s Conservative Party posted a Facebook message with a photo of Sajjan and the caption, “This is what happens when you have a cabinet based on affirmative action.”

I haven’t heard much opposition to affirmative action recently. (Clearly, I move in different circles from the person who posted the message.)

Affirmative action is a process for righting past wrongs. For admitting more Black or indigenous students to universities, because they were previously discriminated against. For hiring more visible minorities on police forces. For promoting more women to management positions.

So when newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in 2015 that his cabinet would be 50 per cent female, there was shock. Fear that cabinet members would be appointed for their gender, not their competence.

In fact, Trudeau’s affirmative action didn’t stop with gender equality. He also included non-Caucasians in his cabinet. Among them, Harjit Sajjan, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan.

The Conservative party’s Facebook post reveals that some of its members still object to affirmative action.

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Categories: Sharp Edges

Tags: Conservative Party, Justin Trudeau, Harjit Sajjan, affirmative action, racist, Facebook

Jim Taylor's Columns - 'Soft Edges' and 'Sharp Edges'

Nativity scenes

Permission to let go

While the planet burns, we bulldoze

The goal of true community

Think twice before saying something offensive

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