Normally I like to finish reading a book before I offer a review of it,or for that matter,even comments about it.I think that it's nearly as bad judging a book by it's first fifty or so pages as it is to judge it by it's cover.The book I'm speaking of,just added to the "What I'm Reading" section of this blog is entitled "Jesus Was A Liberal-Reclaiming Christianity For All,by Rev.Scotty McLennan.


Now I would have to say,a book with this particular title is provocative to the point that it invites itself to be judged by the cover.I can just see copies of it being cast into the flames in church parking lots all over middle America,and some places in Canada as well.You couldn't necessarily accuse all kinds of Christians as being open minded.But many are,hence a book like this one which,even if you disagree with it's premise,clearly stated on it's cover,offers a perspective worth considering.

For now,I want to speak to a single premise made by Reverend McLennan early on in the book.But before we go there,I must comment on the title.This will bear some further discussion later perhaps,when I've actually read the entire book,but let me simply say,I think it's perhaps not a good thing to hang a label on Jesus,or anyone else for that matter.I consider myself a Liberal,and I know what I mean when I say that.But here is what political labels really accomplish:they justify the perception of the person doing the perceiving based on their own political views.So.for instance,when I say I do not believe in capital punishment,others,usually conservatives will react by saying"He's a Liberal."But,when I say I do not support abortion,others,usually liberals will respond by saying"he's a right wing,intolerant,bible thumping red neck"Somehow both sides miss the consistent pro- life leaning when they try to neatly arrange everyone into one of just two categories,based on the totality of what they think.And to be certain,not all Liberals,or Conservatives think the same things.I know that certainly applies to me.As a Liberal I'm constantly astonished at some of my more conservative beliefs.

Political and moral beliefs and the expression of them is a complex matter.Labels, I find are just too simplistic when applied to almost anyone.Imagine how much more difficult it would be to attribute particular political beliefs to a person who clearly transcends us all in terms of thought and view.We can take note of particular statements made by Christ,or actions carried out by him and from that, perceive those actions in a particular political light,but I would be hesitant to label The Living God in terms of human politics.After all,the greatest fallacies seem to stem from us forgetting who God really is.But I will look forward to seeing if Reverend McLennan can present a reasonable,if insufficient proof of his claim.

Now,as I said,I find I must take issue with a particular point raised early on in this book.That is,that it was,and is the "Judeo-Christian" position,throughout history that life begins at birth,as opposed to conception.I don't intend to take up the well known and entrenched arguments here,but I simply want to point out why I believe you cannot justify such a statement as being a Christian belief.And I will note here that McLennan says,to paraphrase,that just because one believes in life from the moment of birth,it does not follow that they were not"concerned with potential life."However,concern simply does not address the actual problem here.And the problem is that such an argument undermines the whole of Christian thought,the whole of Christian history as revealed in scripture.If life began at birth,and not conception,we ought to be able to apply that idea to the life of Christ.Yet that is far from the thrust of Christian belief.The whole telling of the Biblical story goes far beyond the idea of potential life as being a fetus.Christ was conceived of by an omnipotent God as a means to salvation from the beginning,such that we could receive that salvation either by looking forward in history,or back,as we do today,and believing in faith.His identity is revealed to us through prophecy that pre-dates his actual physical birth by hundreds,and in some cases thousands of years,yet is more than sufficient to establish his identity.All of scripture foreshadows the existence and purpose of Christ.Moreover,there is scriptural narrative of repeated attempts to extinguish the line of decendancy of Christ,again,from the beginning of recorded history.In each attempt,there is supernatural provision made to direct the purpose of God in establishing salvation,as revealed by the prophets and all of Biblical revelation.So clearly,Christ was considered a person,by God,long before his immaculate conception.It follows,then,that if we were to rightly claim that life begins at birth,we would be justified in doing,for medical or other reasons,what God's hand has prevented throughout Christian history,and the very salvation  which Christians regard as central to their belief ceases to be legitimate.Now obviously many people still believe that life begins at birth.Many are Christians.But,as for myself,I cannot sustain belief in that,and in the whole of scripture too.That building is simply not square.You simply must illiminate one side of that equation,either belief in life that begins at birth,or biblical belief.

Memoir/introduction part two/things.

Every memoirist thinks a lot about how the world has changed,I think.It's part of the whole memoir process.With that being said,I find it helpful and necessary to make this list,far from complete,of things that hadn't shown themselves in the world when I was young.That was in the days before:Ipods,Iphones,Itunes,Facebook,Youtube,email,Google,Kijiji.Craigslist,SUVs,microwave ovens,photo radar,frozen pizza,ATMs,tasers,cell phones,usb chords,DVD players.CDs,Blue Ray,bug lamps,The Green Party,space shuttles,Mars probes,GPS,,space saver tires,drivers licenses with photos,garage door openers,self serve gas stations,ornate running shoes,personal heart monitors,daycare,seniors daycare,doggie,daycare,dog training collars,dog parks,pooper scoopers,rubber dog turds,humane mouse traps,security cameras,key cards,satellite radio,apps,fish finders,colored duct tape,computerized car motors,twitter,Tickle Me Elmo.Cabbage Patch Kids,metal baseball bats,fast food drive throughs,online university,online gambling,online dating,online porn,online anything,police helicopters,football replay,rap music,privatized liquor stores,radar detectors,check cashing outlets,self serve checkouts at the grocery store,Mega malls,mega churches,praise courses sung in those mega churches,e readers,smart phones,smart cars,Google Maps,nail guns,crack,meth,prozac,viagra,red light cameras,global warming,portable toilets,internet cafes,cruise control,airport security,fanny packs,telephone solicitors,airborn traffic reports,AIDS,ADHD,fetal alcohol syndrome,west nile fever,lyme disease,mad cow disease,Snooki,Justin Beiber,New Kids On The Block,Taylor Swift,Michael Jackson,chemical castration,Dr.Laura,what would we do without her,bless her soul,Dr.Phil,Steve Harvey,Ellen,Oprah,Geraldo Rivera,Maury Povich,Judge Wapner,Judge Judy,and,of course Jerry Springer,Rush Limbaugh,Al Franken-no relation to franken foods,Don Imus,Howard Stern,Jaws,Close Encounters,Star Wars,Nightmare On Elm Street,Silence Of The Lambs,The Little Mermaid,Harry Potter,American Idol,,Dancing with the stars,Ice Road Truckers,Mayday,Wild Hogs and of course,my favorite,Swamp people.Well,in truth there were swamp people when I was a kid,but I never saw any because we didn't live anywhere near a swamp and they never ventured into town,except perhaps on Halloween.In those days "Hillbilly Handfishing was something that involved a trench coat and a dimly lit part of Centenial Park,or at least that's how the romours had it.

That's a partial list and I'm sure it will double in size before I die because people have the audacity to keep inventing things the world managed to get along without less than sixty years ago.I do like the idea of dumping a lot of Viagra into the fishing hole though.I cuts way down on lying for some reason.If I were an inventor,I might get in on the act myself...looking at all these TV personalities and"reality"shows it sure seems as if TTN would be a great place to start.Trailer Trash Network.Seems like a good idea to me with the way the worlds going.

memoir/introduction part1/a cast of characters.

Mother was short and heavy.Religious.Father was slim,neither tall nor short.Emaciated in his later years.Everyone called Mrs.West,"old Granny"She taught sixth grade and ruled with an iron hand.She used the strap a lot.Kenny lived down the street at house #59.The first best friend I remember.He moved to Lewisville before we started school..I met the girl across the street by having a rock fight with her.Her name was Karen.She had an older brother and a huge doberman named Brandy.We used to ride Her dog like a pony."Grandpa was a carpenter,he built house stores and bank..."And he said he built ships.He also built an outhouse with as much care as it took to build any house.Howard was a large boy and his father a large man.A policeman.Uncle Bill was a mountie.Peter was the first new boy I met in grade one.His head looked like an egg.Robin was a toddler when he threw a whole room full of toys out the window and into a snow drift.His father drove an eighteen wheeler.Randy Hopper was a Sunday School teacher.He had a very red face.Mr.Wiseman was another Sunday school teacher,who was nearly blind.They called Patrick"Rabbits."He lived down the street and had a lot of brothers and sisters "Because they were Catholic"His sister and another girl were hit by a car one night.The other girl died.Ann and Pierre,and later their twin brothers lived across the street next to Karen's house.Mr.Duffy lived on the other side of Karen.Sometimes he would use an arc welder in his garage and light up the whole street.Robin lived on street over and was what was then called "retarded"We were not allowed to say"retarded."My parents knew a couple called Don and Linda.They had two older kids and lived in the West End.They were divorced,then Don died in a fire.Uncle Ernie ran an Esso station and store at the top of the hill in Canterbury.No one called Randy retarded,but he was never quite right.Big as a rhino,mean as a snake.He could be your friend,but he turned on a dime.Patricia was a ten year old flirt with long blond hair.Mrs.Johnson was a nasty old woman who treasured her own misery..The Clarks lived beside us and owned a store on St.George Street.Their kids were Suzanne,Nancy and Danny,all older than me.There were some tough kids who lived on the other side of Mountain Road who stole kids lunch money at school.Grandmother Davis was short and had a very sharp tongue.Mrs.Sherwood lived on our street and taught school.Everyone said she was nasty.My sister said she was sweet.Mr.Cormier lived beside us.He fixed televisions and worked long hours in his garden.Mr.Brooks was the church pastor.He was old,tall and very kind.Brad lived behind my grandmother Graham.We played together when we were small.He bit me on the hand once.He was there when I fell down the steps at his house and split my head open.There was a lunatic who lived near my grandmother,but no one called her that,until I got older.Laura was a cousin who opened a store in downtown Canterbury.I didn't like her children when we were small.Mr,McMillian was a school vice principal.We never saw eye to eye.His wife was a teacher and school librarian.My grandfather Davis lived in a large rooming house in Pugwash.There was an old woman there who could imitate bird songs and crow like a rooster.Art lived in Springhill,and taught me how to play golf.His wife was Eileen and her father was Ed.He liked to watch the ocean.Mr.Grant lived in a summer cottage close to ours.He once told me he'd seen a UFO.Aunt Roseanna moved around a lot.From Nova Scotia to Alberta and back.Her husband was a loud little Dutchman.My Grandmothers brother married Americans and lived in Maine.Uncle Clifford and his wife lived in Fredricton on Charlotte Street.He worked at the university.My great aunt was Anna English and her husband was Fred.She had TB when I was small and lived in a sanatorium.I asked her a question about God once.Her and Fred were religious and loved children.My grandmother may have had ADHD.She never stopped moving.The red headed kid was a pervert.A man with a fiddle came to our house every Saturday night.His name was Don Messer and he came via the TV.Uncle Fred Davis lived in Germany for a while.I never knew his family well.There were many barbers at the barber school,but they all looked alike.I looked like them too after they cut my hair.There was an old security guard who tried to chase me away from the hospital.Jeannie was a border at our house.She married a man called Ray who worked at the CNR shops.Her father was murdered by a man named Alan Legere.Old Jimmy ran a candy store in Springhill.He was Greek and loved seeing my father.I visited a barber in Springhill once too.We stayed at Mrs.Bantings house when my mother worked.I was standing with her in the driveway once and saw some ball lightening.Her children swore a lot and she fought with her husband and got angry when her son Robin threw toys out the window into the snow.Another neighbour,David was a bully.There were a lot of bullies about but I don't remember most of them.Father McKee was my hockey coach.The bullies would be mean to Robin,the "retarded"boy,but many kids were nice to him too.Dana was a gunsmith.My father was best man at his wedding.Anthony liked guns too.He was french and maybe even part Indian,though people never said so.My father brought people home from work for a meal sometimes.Sometimes even hitch hikers.One of them stole his car and abducted my sister once.Susan got a bad head injury the year before I met her.Her family owns a hardware store.The Harris family moved into Karen's old house.Their son Dick fixed furnaces.An art teacher once kicked me out of class and,to this day I don't know why.Ted was a friend of my father and he could fly planes.We went up for a spin with him one time.I met a couple of Rabbis once in Montreal.They asked me if I believed in God.My father bought a red trailer from an old French couple when I was small.The old woman spoke no English,but gave us some cookies.Mrs.Banting died when I was in grade one.Mr.Baxter was my teacher in grade two,then Mrs.Cale in grade three.She was tall and wore an enormous bee hive.In grade six my teacher was Mrs.West.She was fierce,but I liked her.Mr.Cohen was my seventh grade teacher and he was a bit of a buffoon.He gave me a hard time when I missed a day for my grandfathers funeral.In grade eight I had a notorious teacher.Malcom Ross.Thats the same year the pervert started hanging around.And the policemen were killed,and their killers sentenced to die,then had their sentences commuted.Then a little girl named Michelle disappeared and was never seen again.Everyone thought we were going to Hell in a hand basket.I searched for her with a man named Ray who lived across the street from us.Ray was a brute of a man.Holly was a girl I walked home with sometimes at noon.She was a plain girl who worried about older kids sneaking up behind us and mashing peanut butter sandwiches in our hair.We would play kick the can on the way home.Mrs.Foster worked at the bank with my mother.So did a woman named Rita.She had a beautiful samoyed dog that I liked to go play with.There was an old man who delivered milk in an old,old green truck.Old Charlie ran the Co-op in Fox Harbour.Norman Murray sold cars and my father worked for him for a while.Grandfather Graham was thin and almost stone deaf without his hearing aid.He smoked a pipe,chewed tobacco,and read Western novels and detective magazines.He hardly ever spoke.And there was more than one lunatic that lived on their street.My friend Steven was a Jehovah's Witness.A kind,decent kid but so very different.Never hung out with anyone from school when school was out.And there was a little girl that used to walk past our house on the way to school.When I first saw her my heart skipped a bit.She was wearing pigtails and that was in 1967.And when I last saw her,well,my heart skipped another beat.

A dream

I don't often write about dreams because it takes me such a short time to forget them,unless of course I write them down as I did this morning.I don't really impart any interpretation to this particular one,but then again I haven't really thought about it at length either.In fact I'm really not convinced that dreams have any real meaning,but they are truly interesting things to consider from time to time.

I am in a strange land.It's green with grass,but not leafy.It's cut everywhere with small crooked ravines.I am laying down rails and cross ties for a railroad,but as soon as they are in place they fade away.There are indistinct figures of animals and birds about.The land is very hilly but not mountainous.And a man appears in the dream.He is short and stout with huge arms.Over his left forearm he has several horse shoes looped.He is pointing at a building and saying something I cannot understand.The building is a place where cheese is made,and it's the only building anywhere on the land.I can walk towards it but it moves farther away.The mans presence seems malevolent.And there is a sense of being in the land but somehow separated from it.

Grafitti,Toronto.

Photo Essay/After The Stampede

Going home.

Hi everyone.This is my first attempt at a photo essay and it is entitled "after The Stampede.It occurs to me that there is a sense of loneliness all around after an event like the Calgary Stampede,just a few hours after the last people have left and a few moments before crews start tearing down.So I took these pictures on my cell phone camera.You will notice I am hopelessly addicted to online photo editing.I'll likely get over that but for right now,when I have a hammer,everything looks like a nail.

A lonely lemon.

Stampede montage

                     .

                                        Ghostly Haulers.

Morning after-Midway.

 Gate Ticket    










                                                                            
                                                                                                                                        

Centennial.

                                                                         

Just last night,everyone was a cowboy.

Colossal leftovers                                                                  

Empty ponies,empty bleachers.

Bike and volunteer shuttle bus.  

                 

Sunrise through a Stampede banner.

The Stampede.

                                                                                                                                                                                       

                                                                                             

A New Place to Roost.

Firstly I want to apologize to all four of the people who read the piece I wrote on Calgary and The Calgary Stampede a few days ago.It was a low quality,lousy piece of writing and I'm amazed that anyone bothered with it.I wasn't happy with it ten minutes after I'd written it.

What I have to learn to do is to be more real.You see,I was raised to say nothing at all unless I could find something nice to say.By natural inclination,I am adaptable and tend to like to respond to my immediate surroundings in a positive way,and believe that things could always be worse.Indeed they could be but that doesn't excuse my lying,even if that were not my intent.So once again,my deepest apologies and I promise to try to have a bit more respect for anyone who reads my blog in the future.

So let me tell you how I really feel,keeping in mind that my attitude tomorrow may or may not be the same as it is right now.I've caught myself saying so many times in the past few weeks "man,I hate this city."And I well and truly do,I may as well tell the bare faced truth.It doesn't seem to matter if I'm waking up in the morning or going to bed at night,looking at the skyline or watching someone drift down one of our rivers on a raft,taking the train or walking,I just have no heart for this city,and I wonder why I ever came back here.

I don't want this to sound like sour grapes or a self indulgent pity party,but that's the way it is.I arrived here some three months ago with money in my pocket,rented a room,which are in short supply and then ended up being locked out of that room because my room mate failed to pay the rent.Never mind that I paid my rent.I found accommodations following that,but they are far from acceptable and certainly not sustainable in the long term.I also had a guitar when I arrived and one that was kept here for me by a friend during my eastern sojourn.Both of those are apparently gone since my old room mate cannot be found.They are with all of my cds and the majority of my clothing,not to mention much of the personal writing I've been doing over the past three years.I did manage to escape with the clothes in my back pack which are at least sufficient.Life's tough,then you die.I just didn't count on going to Hell before that happened.

During my time in this infernal city I've endured harassment,theft,flooding,a deliberately set fire,a lay off,default on pay that was owed me,crackheads banging on my door at all hours of the night,unjustified accusations of racism,and the garden variety intolerance of some Albertans for anyone who was not born and raised here.Well,guess what.I no longer have the energy for any of this.I simply do not have enough blood in my body to satiate the energy sucking vampires that are all too common in this city.It's time to find a new place to roost.

I've decided,and to be honest,it wasn't even that hard of a decision,to move west come the end of this week.Give Vancouver a try even if I have to crawl,which is a distinct possibility.Nevertheless,if I were to admit it,I simply hate it here and I just don't see how living in a city I hate is worth the effort.If it doesn't work out,I guess I can come back but I'd prefer not to think about that for the time being.

All of that writing I did about Calgary being an ok place...I take that back.All my readers saw right through that anyway.This is a boom town,like San Fransisco in 1849.A great place to work,but a miserable,low down,mean spirited,unfinished and dirty place to live.And,in point of fact,I don't recommend that you come here even to visit.

Yes,I'm possessed of a very poor attitude tonight and it may change tomorrow.In a way I hope it does,because I hate having a poor attitude.But,in truth I can still see myself looking around at this city tomorrow or next week or next year and thinking how much I hate it here and how I'd really rather be anyplace but here.So it's time to move on hopefully this time for good.And while I do have some very dear friends here,to whom I apologize for knocking their city and whom I will greatly miss,I will not miss the city itself.Good riddance!

Maybe I'll have to give my head a shake.I'm not sure how much of this being more real I can handle.