Wednesday March 10, 2010
Inevitable progressions
By Jim Taylor
Among the bigger B.C. lakes, Okanagan Lake is unique. It has no major river feeding it.
Perhaps for the same reason, it has no deep bays. When sudden storms lash the lake, boaters have few natural places to seek shelter.
So regional authorities built a “safe harbour” in Okanagan Centre, just south of my home.
When I first saw it, it had a breakwater, and not much else. Boaters launched fishing skiffs and light runabouts by backing their trailers down the gravel slope into the water.
As time passed, the regional government rebuilt the breakwater with bigger pilings. They installed a concrete launching ramp. They paved the roadway. Regimented parking spaces replaced anarchy.
And last summer, a commissionaire began locking the harbour’s gates at 11:00 each night, and re-opening them at 5:00 a.m. Overnight parkers got tickets, or had their vehicles towed.
I’m not objecting to that change. Local residents had long lobbied for a means of controlling late-night parties and abuse of a free facility.
But I also see a kind of inevitable progression taking place.
Increasing complexity
I see the development of our little harbour as symbolic of all institutions. They evolve from practical simplicity towards a juggernaut that generates its own momentum.
My unease came into sharper focus during a chance conversation with a university professor. Universities don’t produce educated persons any more, he lamented. They produce members of professions. The prerequisites and regulations for a course are now often twice as long as the course description itself.
Students who want to broaden their perspectives, who want to take courses outside their professional assembly line, find themselves constantly running into bureaucratic roadblocks.
Similarly, in the civil service, administrative concerns tend to replace service – let alone civility.
Parks intended to connect people with wildlife start protecting the wildlife from the people.
Libraries keep valuable collections under lock and key. Museums move artifacts behind glass.
Evolution of religions
Every major religion – except perhaps Hinduism – started as a reformation of some previous tradition. Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Baha’i, Sikhism – all slashed away an accumulation of doctrine and dogma to reduce the distinctions between men and women, clerics and laity.
And then they started building a new hierarchy of authority and doctrine…
Shortly before his death Jack Lakavitch attended a conference of churches in India, representing Canadian churches. Colonial India used to have a plethora of denominations cloned from European and American parents. After Independence, many of these denominations combined, seeking a structure that better reflected their belief about unity in Christ.
It was a noble experiment. But over some 50 years, it too evolved – at least, in Jack’s perception – into structures as rigid as its mission antecedents.
Jack lamented, “Why do all churches become more patriarchal as they age?”
It could be argued, I suppose, that things move this direction because that’s the way they should be. Reformations and revolutions are the aberration; hierarchy is the norm.
I prefer to think of reformations as recurring attempts to restore what we know intuitively is right.
But history shows it’s much harder to sustain a reformation than to launch one.
=====================================
Copyright © 2009 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
Please tell your friends about these columns. To send comments, to subscribe or to unsubscribe, or to request permission to reprint, write jimt@quixotic.ca Be sure to include Soft Edges or Sharp Edges in the subject line, so my spam filter doesn’t delete your message. =====================================
Your Turn
The first letter to arrive after last week’s column came from long-time correspondent John Shearman in Ontario. “I know and feel where you are at with admitting mistakes,” John wrote. “I still react when anyone corrects me. I often feel that is the way those corrections are stated — the tone of the person’s voice, especially if it is in my own family, or the tone of an e-mail. And I immediately jump to defend myself. I can recall such reactions as far back as my childhood when I was #5 of six siblings — one learns to get self-defensive very quickly.
“I am also aware that it is my own self-image that is suffering when I get angry because I am being corrected for mistakes. I don’t like that any more than you do. I feel less important. My desire to be in control of every situation is under threat. It’s like that in the kitchen where I am not very efficient and frequently need correction or help.”
John went on to some exploration of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, which I appreciated but will not pass on.
William Ball, from Ottawa, also sent along a biblical reflection, this time on Romans 5:21-6:2 —
“But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?”
“I immediately thought of Paul’s efforts to use theological language to speak of mistakes made and learned from. As you said: shall we keep making mistakes so that we learn all the more? Certainly not deliberately; that is simply perverse. But we do find it hard to accept that we are wrong. Embarrassment, shame, risk-taking, are all involved in ‘putting yourself out there’ — taking a chance that someone, somewhere, might find an error in fact or argument.
“You do far more than most — in a very public way you put out your ideas, perhaps deliberately to stir the pot, to get us to think, react or freak out, as Ralph Milton would say.”
From Dawne Taylor: “It takes courage to admit our mistakes, especially public ones. And it takes maturity to reflect on our reactions to criticism or correction. Hang in there. My concern for you is how this will affect your relationships with your neighbours and community members.”
Ursula Acton thanked me for a “thought-provoking article” with which she then disagreed: “Learning from mistakes always struck me as counter-intuitive. I was pleased last year to read about research at MIT that showed that, starting at the level of neurological activity, we actually learn more from our successes than our failures and are more likely to remember those successes in future endeavours.
“Our mistakes teach us, if we let them, what not to do again — what behaviours not to repeat in order to avoid the negative consequences we associate with failure. But that only gets us halfway there, and clearly that isn’t enough. Our successes teach us what to do right the next time, and until we know that, what have we really learned?”
Fellow thespian Bob Scott wrote, from the shores of Lake Erie, “Many, many years ago I posited to The Dean of Seneca College that learning through our mistakes was what differentiated learning to program a computer from other types of learning. I still think that this is true and only recognized by someone who has been told how stupid one is by a electronic machine. However, the Dean pointed out that it was not possible to make all the mistakes in the world, so we must learn in other ways too.”
Robert Caughill noted that the desire to memorialize things goes beyond park benches: “We may have the same problem (memorial plaques) in South Cayuga, as we are merging three older churches into one new one… Once services have started in the new church, the two remaining churches will be sold/demolished. I presume memorial plaques will be placed at their locations detailing their religious contribution/history.”
A friend since university days, David Smith, sent reassurance: “I don’t often take the time to respond to your welcome and thought-provoking columns, although they give me much food for pondering, imagining, wondering, further exploration, and all those good things. I am sorry you had to suffer as a result of that thoughtful column. I suppose it is a risk you take in putting your thoughts on paper for all to read. I know I can’t (or won’t) do that. But I am glad that you do — and take this time to thank you.”
To be fair to those who did not, and still do not, like those two columns, there was a letter expressing dissatisfaction with my handling of the responses. But the writer decided that enough had been said on the issue, and chose not to have his letter published here.
=====================================
About My Books
Over the years, I think I have written (or ghostwritten) about 17 books. Several of them (mercifully) are no longer available from any source. But here’s a listing of those that are still available. The ones marked “WLB”, you can order from Wood Lake Books, either on-line at http://www.woodlakebooks.com, or call Wood Lake Books directly at 1-800-663-2775 in Canada, 1-800-654-5129 (Pilgrim Press) in the U.S. The ones marked “JT only” are now available only directly from me — as collector’s items, I price them all at $25 Cdn.
- Everyday God: Insights from the Ordinary
- Two Worlds in One
- Last Chance
- Seeing the Mystery: Exploring Christian Faith through the Eyes of Artists,
- Surviving Death
- Everyday Psalms
- Everyday Parables
- Letters to Stephen
- A New Understanding of Virtue and Vice
- Precious Days and Practical Love: Caring for an Aging Parent
- John for Beginners
- Spirituality of Pets
- Charlene Fairchild’s United Online site,
- David Keating’s “SeemslikeGod” page
- The Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity home page
- Alva Wood’s satiric stories about small town attitudes and bumbling bureaucrats are not particularly religious, but good fun anyway; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
(1981 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1985, JT only)
(1989, JT only)
(1990, with William S. Taylor, JT only)
(1993, JT only)
(1994 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1995 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1996, WLB, $17.95)
(1997, WLB, $19.95)
(1999, WLB, $19.95)
(2001, WLB, $11.95)
(2006, WLB, $39)
=====================================
TECHNICAL STUFF
To comment on something, in these columns, send a message directly to me, at jimt@quixotic.ca.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send me an e-mail message at the addresses above. Or you can subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message) to softedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at softedges-unsubscribe@quixotic.ca.
You can access several years of archived columns at http://edges.Canadahomepage.net.
I write a second column each Sunday, called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justic issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, at the address above, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca
********************************************
PROMOTION STUFF…
If you know someone else who might like to receive this column regularly via e-mail, send a request to jimt@quixotic.ca. Or, if you wish, forward them a copy of this column. But please put your name on it, so they don’t think I’m sending out spam.
For a lighter look at life, faith, and the lectionary, I recommend my friend Ralph Milton’s weekly e-newsletter Rumors. You can subscribe to it by sending a note to ralphmilton@woodlake.com.
For other web links worth pursuing, try
*****************************************