The Galilee Centre in Arnprior is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. It continues to nourish my spirit after 15 years of involvment there.
At a time of daily world upheaval, Galilee continues to provide a quiet place where I can seek the truth about God, my relationships, my life and myself. Many religious retreat houses have closed due to lack of staff, aging infrastructure and changing world views. Not so Galilee. They have found a way to keep going due to the dedication and hard work of their leadership and staff as well as the support of fellow truth seekers. I am truly grateful.
Galilee front lawn view of the Ottawa River
As I had not been on a retreat in about 5 years, I recently signed up for one there on the spiritual writings of Thomas Merton. Entitled Adjusting Your Life’s Vision by authors at the Merton Institute of a series of Merton guide books entitled Bridges to Contemplative Living.
Contemplative living is defined as a way of responding to our everyday experiences by consciously attending to our relationships. It deepens our awareness of our connectedness and communion with others, becomes a positive force of change in our lives, and provides meaningful direction to our journey and sense of well being. (p. 6, Introduction).
Thomas Merton at Gethsemani Monastery
Well it worked. I came away feeling very connected, enriched and renewed with energy and peace. The mystery of hospitality, becoming an instrument of reconciliation and finding our place in God’s scheme of things were some of the topics we explored, There was rich sharing among the participants, many of whom came from afar.
So thumbs up rather than elbows up after a great retreat. Cannot recommend the Galilee Centre enough: their hospitality, their programs their retreats, their community. Hope to see you too there soon.
This is a book about Canada as seen from its centre Winnipeg from an indigenous perspective. It is remarkable read by a great journalist/professor Niigaan Sinclair. Yes he is the son of the famous Senator Murray. I think that this book will change your mind a bit in favour of the need for reconciliation. It did mine.
Ages ago when I was in Grade 13 in Ottawa, a group of young First Nations high school students met with our study group to explain their life issues. I recall that we heard about a litany of problems and complaints and then confusion about their identity and what to do. I remember going away thinking they don’t know what they want. At least they couldn’t articulate it yet.
Well Nigaan’s book which is an extensive collection of articles he wrote for the Winnipeg Free Press, has finally answered this question. And it won the Governor General’s award for non-fiction in 2024.
Before we go there I would like to recount the particular story he tells that got me. You are sitting in your living room with your family having tea. There is a knock on the door and a few strange looking people are at the door. They ask if they can they come in and join you for some tea? Why sure you say a little awkwardly perhaps, “Come on in and make yourself comfortable.”
After tea they stand up imposingly and order you all to go into the bathroom. Then they lock the door. Very strange you think. Let us out you cry out. There is no response. Next day a note is passed under the door saying that you are not allowed out anymore and food will be occasionally passed in to you.
This goes on for some time, a long time. Finally one day they open the door and say that you and your family can come out now. You walk around your house and see that everything has changed: new furniture, decor, modern appliances, strangers living there. They tell you to leave and get a new place to live…and leave your children behind.
That my friends is how we got to where we are in Canada some years ago with the need for reconciliation with First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples. It wasn’t you or me that personally did these wrongs we each say. Yes but it was our government and in many cases our churches that did.
So what do Indigenous people really want according to Nigaan? Of course they want an end to the pain, racism, stereotyping, profiling, crime, violence, addictions, incarceration and human disrespect for sure. But more importantly, they want to govern themselves, alongside other jurisdictions, so that they can get on with their lives, free of government control.
Is it that simple? Of course not. But it would be a good start.
Some recent stats:
5% of Canadians identify as First Nations peoples
In Manitoba this rises to 18% and in Winnipeg it’s 12%
41% live on reservations, 59% off
32% of the prison population in Canada are indigenous
74% of the male prison population in Manitoba are indigenous while about 43% of the females are indigenous!
There are over 630 Indigenous communities, 50 Nations and 50 indigenous languages in Canada
There was a time when I read a lot of Russian novels written by names like Lermentov, Sholokov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Gogol and Dostoevsky. I even remember meeting a guy in the 70s who always had a fat Russian novel in his back pocket! Bookstores carried half a dozen of these Russian authors on their front shelves. Not like that anymore. Recently I came across the following book written by Russian philosopher and writer Nikolai Chernyshevsky in 1863 while he was in jail for subversive ideas in Czarist Russia. I decided to give it a read, all 500 pages!
Ii is about a young man (Lopukhov) who rescues a beautiful young woman (Vera Pavlona) from her controlling mother who is trying to marry her off to a rich man she hates. She suffers immensely under her mother’s control and Lopukhov takes pity on her and falls in love. He helps her move out, find a job and eventually they get married.
However their relationship is somewhat stilted in that they agree to sleep in separate rooms and only get together in a neutral middle room. After a few years, she has a dream where she falls in love with her husband’s best friend (Kirsanov). After she tells her husband of this dream, he senses that it is true and that his best friend loves Vera too. He is so concerned for his wife’s (and friend’s) happiness that he decides to get out of their way by faking his own suicide. She is then free and indeed does marry her new paramour Kirsanov without feelings of guilt. They both are very happy.
But that is not the end. Lukanov comes back disguised as an American and marries the daughter of a formerly rich man in St. Petersburg. They get together with the Kirsanovs socially and become the best of friends. Both couples end up living next door to each other in harmony and friendship. A highly complicated and unlikely plot you say? I agree. How does someone ever think of this kind of story?
One of the themes in the book is how can a young woman properly discern the needs of a man she meets in order to decide if she should marry him, when she herself has little life experience? Another is the need for women and men to first develop their minds through reading, study and discipline in order to assume a productive life that will benefit society. While married to Lopukhov, Vera starts up a very successful seamstress business built on revolutionary cooperative principles where no one person owns the company and all employees share in the profits.
Then another character appears briefly who is sent by Lopukov without any prior instruction to speak to Vera before she decides to marry Kirsanov. His name is Rakhmetov and he becomes the moral compass of the novel. Born of rich parents, he renounces his wealth, educates himself and develops extreme self discipline. He sleeps on a bed of nails literally, abstains from romantic relationships and alcohol and lives in poverty by choice.
He’s a contrast to Lopukhov and Kirsanov, who are rational and kind but still live fairly ordinary lives with love and comfort. Rakhmetov is on a whole other level — the embodiment of absolute revolutionary purity. His character becomes the blueprint for the future “revolutionary” type in Russian literature and politics.
Xi Jinping, China’s Premier recently quoted Rakhmetov’s influence on him personally in an interesting article here….So this apparently unreadable book has long been an inspiration for current and previous Communist leaders/revolutionaries. Wow, what a tribute to this book.
This book is really about the search for social, economic and political reform in 19th century Russia. A great read in my view, 9 out of 10 stars since Cehernevsky does ramble on at times.
(In 1864, Chernyshevski was sentenced to seven years of hard labor, followed by exile in Siberia. He spent over two decades in harsh conditions, which severely affected his health. In 1883, he was allowed to return to European Russia, and died in Saratov at the age of 61 (per ChatGPT)
This detailed history of Open Options in Waterloo, ON mentions Tom Mitchell, CEO. I worked with him briefly at Imperial Oil back in the mid 70s. Article fails to mention Dr Gerry Sullivan, a cofounder of Open Options, who was in my engineering class at U of Waterloo. I would have really enjoyed working with these guys.
In 1957 or 58, I briefly attended Hilson Ave Public School in Ottawa’s west end near Island Park Drive. We were living on nearby Northwestern Ave while our new house on Georgina Dr further west was being completed. I was in grade 2 or 3.
After school I would walk home east along the sidewalk. I remember very clearly a tall stone wall that sheltered some kind of institution behind. You could not see anything at all – just the big wall. I remember wondering who is in there and what are they doing? It was a big mystery until recently.
The other day I drove by. The area has been developed now, the wall is gone and you can walk right up beside what I have since learned was the Monastery of the Visitation of Holy Mary. It’s very interesting history is documented here.
Wow, a cloistered group of nuns – as many as 60 of them – spent their whole adult life in total silence, dedicated to the love of God. In today’s secular world, it is hard to believe that just a generation ago, religion was that strongly embedded in our culture and that many of these places existed and thrived.
I found an absolutely fascinating video where in 1981, local journalist Charlotte Gobeil visited the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood contemplative monastery also in Ottawa, to show to the outside world what these sisters’ life was like. A little long, and sometimes awkward due to the language issues, it is well worth the watch here.
All this makes me wonder how important religion still is to Canadians. Very much so it seems when it comes to baptisms, weddings and funerals. Less so in terms of regular church attendance. Religion is largely a private affair in Canada and nowhere as culturally embedded or as participatory as it is in Mexico where there are religious festivals, shrines and images everywhere.
The Sisters of the Visitation of Mary were a beautiful Order but largely gone now. But so too is that wall. Hopefully the site will be preserved.
The Elms Villa dating from 1865 with the Monastery behind dating from 1913
www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/e52bf5c769d52bebc64c0cc2b8f1793e9f1eacb45ce5a4c47490d98d9e88b63a/ZYRNRL5HAJDMVLI3YDDMABCCDM
mattersofthemoment 