Hopewit

  You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise! (II Corinthians 11:19, NIV) Dirk Willems rescues his naive pursuer. This saying from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is rendered in such a variety of ways in translations and paraphrases that it’s hard to know whether he’s for or against putting up with “fools.” Or likely, whether any current interpretation does his comment justice. Certainly, politicians who use it to denigrate opponents should stop, read the verse in context and consult Bible scholars before saying, “I don’t suffer fools gladly.” Perhaps Paul (who was skillful in exercising soft persuasion, even humour in his preaching and writing) was employing political skill to endear himself and his cause to the Corinthian audience. Corinth, a Greek city, was a centre of learning in Paul’s time, comparable to a university city like Oxford, UK in ours.   We mustn’t forget that Paul also wrote, “but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to ...

  Prelude Like you, I’m appalled beyond words at stories of child neglect, abuse and particularly trafficking. How can any man or woman risk their very soul by gratifying their physical lusts and greed at the expense of a child?? What justification could there ever be?                I decided to try expressing my disgust in a poem; the rhyme and metre would imitate children’s rope-skipping chants. ( Ap ples, peach es, pears , and plums / Tell me when your birth day comes .) To make its reading most effective, I envision ten-year-olds, a girl and a boy, twirling a rope and reciting in rhythm while another ten-rear-old girl in a red dress skips. A voice would be added at each verse making a chorus of protest. A film maybe?                I would value your reaction, criticism, advice. It’s a first draft.   I’M NOT, I’M NOT, I’M ...

  David Brooks, writer, philosopher and journalist, said in a recent speech to the Aspen Ideas gathering that the current divisive, belligerent mood among the people of earth can’t be attributed to our real-life situations. We have space, food, water, shelter, healthcare enough for everyone, and more. We don’t fight because we need to, he said, but because we carry stories in our heads to which we respond. It's clear that he doesn’t mean story in the same way I meant it when I published a collection of short stories , but there’s something to be gained in connecting the two, particularly when behaviour is guided by, for instance, The Holy Bible , or the Quran , each telling a story by which adherents understand life and by which their actions are governed. Scientists, as a rule, act according to a very different story of life, their exploration guided very much by the saga of evolving nature and the incontrovertible principles that govern all things. Our stories —I think Broo...

  Politics . You can tell how people relate to this word by the way they use it. “I’m not much interested in politics,” for instance, equates it with the day-to-day news about our current government, elections, party dynamics, etc. A narrow definition.                By whatever word we use, it’s clear that the setting and enforcing of the principles under which we form community—and function as community—existed before the word was coined. In families, in schools, in workplaces, on the roads, in the economy, the making and respecting of agreed-to behavioural expectations in a community is the necessary defense against chaos.                How behavioural expectations come to be, how they are altered, how they are enforced … and most importantly by whose authority … is fundamental. The “benevolent dictator” model has a long history: give...

  The story of The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) is familiar to every practicing Christian, I presume. It’s one of Jesus’ most powerful parables, an allegory illustrating important truths. We may not always agree on what truths are most important there, but the allegory popped up again for me when I read that hopes are high for rescue personnel and helicopters to search again for three missing climbers in very difficult terrain. (CBC News, June 08, 2024) Put crassly, how much risk and effort do we owe others when in self-inflicted danger? The obedient other son in the parable is appalled at his father’s embrace of the one whose demise followed his own—eye’s open—bad choices. His, “All my life I’ve been a model son, and you’ve never thrown a banquet for me!” is an eminently logical accusation. Nobody has ever staged a celebration to honour me for not climbing precarious precipices, never taking illicit drugs, not abusing alcohol or disobeying driving rules either. We know by no...

  “… Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down.”   Robert Frost’s iconic poem, “Mending Wall,” takes us into the New England countryside and two properties where two owners get together every spring to repair the stone fence between them. Had they livestock, the narrating owner conjectures, the adage, “Good fences make good neighbours,” would suit. But here, one has fruit trees and the other a pine orchard, so why keep the fence/wall? Clearly, those who constructed the Berlin Wall had a good idea what it was they were “walling in or walling out.” Or attempting to. Visiting a family in East Berlin in 1988, we learned that the wall was much more than concrete, machine guns and guard dogs. Through the legal system, the wall cut through the school curricula, through personal freedoms of religion, movement, thought and speech. Bu...