The Reading Mother
Mother and Son; Jan Verhas (1834-1896)
I had a Mother who read to me
Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea,
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth,
“Blackbirds” stowed in the hold beneath.
I had a Mother who read me lays
Of ancient and gallant and golden days;
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.
I had a Mother who read me tales
Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales,
True to his trust till his tragic death,
Faithfulness blent with his final breath.
I had a Mother who read me the things
That wholesome life to the boy heart brings–
Stories that stir with an upward touch,
Oh, that each mother of boys were such!
You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be–
I had a Mother who read to me.
The Day The World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Gives Us a Better Life and a Greener World by J.B. MacKinnon
Published by Vintage Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Ltd., 2022
Review by Bill Locke
“The Day The World Stops Shopping”? On first glance, it sounds like The Day The World Stood Still, or maybe …The World Exploded, or even worse …Was Attacked by Aliens. Pretty scary stuff. After all, how could the world stop shopping? Sounds impossible. We need things, don’t we? All of the time. Or so we think.
The trouble is, we are using up the planet at almost double the rate it can regenerate. And that reality is becoming increasingly clear.
In this somewhat audacious but empowering book, MacKinnon takes us on a trek into our consumer lifestyle and desire for endless products, through the chain of processes that provide them, to examine what a new world with much less consumption would be like – and to consider some of the rarely considered benefits. Studying situations in which economies have shut down temporarily, examining lifestyles of crafts and arts producers, exploring minimalist societies, and aggregating expert analysis, The Day The World Stops Shopping is an illuminating history of global consumerism. It is also a profound musing about a very different reality than we in the west are used to. It provides us a carefully researched and sometimes daunting journey to a possible new future, one that would be much better for our planet and all its inhabitants.
On this journey, we are taken back in time and to places around the world today, where consumerism as we know it does not rule. MacKinnon shows us what life might be like without our big-box temples of retailing, and what could happen if we stopped using our credit cards so furiously.
I found the chapter on our retail clothing habits to be particularly telling. We find out that consumers, especially Westerners, buy clothes and throw them away at a spectacular rate. Today, we buy on average 15 items apiece per year for everyone on earth. In total, people on our planet buy one hundred billion articles of clothing every year, double what we purchased 15 years ago.
A mountain of excess used clothing and textiles from the “global north”, near a clothing market in Ghana. (Source: The Or Foundation: “Too much clothing/not enough justice”)
Demand, we discover, is so great that the big clothing factories in Bangladesh and other countries with cheap labour employ four million workers. As it stands now, workers in these big factories earn $120 to $150 per month, while working twelve and sometimes more hours per day, six days a week.
Imagine if we stopped shopping for clothing so compulsively.
MacKinnon presents us this alternate scenario, and lets us see what would unfold. Envision a world in which we Westerners bought fewer clothes and kept our clothes longer. A reduction in demand from the marketplace could actually have a positive effect in this case. Some of the employees in the big factories will lose their jobs, but those that remain would produce better quality clothing that would last longer. And that would mean that these employees would have to be skilled up, and paid more.
One factory owner in Bangladesh says that the quality of the products his factory produces makes him sick. The 200,000 articles of clothing his company spews out every day are, in his words, “junk”. At a production cost of $1 per shirt, and $2 for pants including materials and labor, they are nothing like the clothing his family business produced in generations past. When his grandfather ran the factory, the business produced elegant silk products with custom designs which lasted a lifetime.
“Now,” he says, “our customers demand a fast-fashion T-shirt in an American store for four dollars or less, including packaging, distribution, shipping and retail markups. We need to reduce our buying, slow down, and improve the quality of our products, increase the pay for those who produce them, and be satisfied with fewer but better things.”
MacKinnon carefully and methodically untangles our shopping systems, supply chains, economic processes and ways of living to show we are all caught up with ever-increasing marketing, demand, production, distribution, display, and sales. And he shows us how we can live differently and more sustainably – aided by lessons recently learned during the coronavirus pandemic when our shopping was suddenly reduced dramatically.
The book is not only thoughtful and challenging, it is also fascinating. As well, I found it to be deeply hopeful, especially at this juncture in history. MacKinnon’s previous books include The Once and Future World, a bestseller about rewilding the natural world; The 100-Mile Diet (with Alisa Smith), widely recognized as a catalyst of the local foods movement; I Live Here (with Mia Kirshner and artists Michael Simons and Paul Shoebridge), a ‘paper documentary’ about displaced people; and Dead Man in Paradise, the story of a priest assassinated in the Dominican Republic, which won Canada’s highest prize for literary nonfiction. He is also an award-winning journalist, and an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of British Columbia.
MacKinnon’s latest book helps put us – and our planet – on a path that will do more good than we can possibly imagine. It has definitely prompted me to take a hard, honest look at my own spending habits, and encouraged me to curb any tendencies of impulse buying. I’m grateful for MacKinnon’s very welcome wake-up call.
For more information about J.B. MacKinnon, visit his website.
Wishing
Photo by Larisa Koshkina
Do you wish the world were better?
Let me tell you what to do:
Set a watch upon your actions,
Keep them always straight and true;
Rid your mind of selfish motives;
Let your thoughts be clean and high.
You can make a little Eden
Of the sphere you occupy.
Do you wish the world were wiser?
Well, suppose you make a start,
By accumulating wisdom
In the scrapbook of your heart:
Do not waste one page on folly;
Live to learn, and learn to live.
If you want to give men knowledge
You must get it, ere you give.
Do you wish the world were happy?
Then remember day by day
Just to scatter seeds of kindness
As you pass along the way;
For the pleasures of the many
May be ofttimes traced to one,
As the hand that plants an acorn
Shelters armies from the sun.
This poem is in the Public Domain.
Journey to the Common Good; Updated Edition by Walter Brueggemann
Walter Brueggemann. Photo provided by Westminster John Knox Press
Like so many others, I first learned about Walter Brueggemann’s astute way of illuminating the Old Testament when I attended a Bible Study group many years ago, as a young Christian. More recently, I re-discovered his writing on a website called Common Good Collective. The Collective facilitates events and conversations that bring together social innovators, community activists, and faith leaders. Their goal is to provide a space to discuss – and implement – both system and spiritual transformation, while weaving together three aspects into all that they do: the significance of place; the structure of belonging; and the elimination of economic isolation. I also read the book An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture (John Wiley & Sons Publishers; 2016), co-written by Brueggemann and two other wise elders – Peter Block and John McKnight – who were all instrumental in founding the Common Good Collective. That book was a game-changer for me, and got me seriously thinking about the culture of addictive consumption in which too many of us are mired. It led to great discussions with friends and family, and some life-altering changes in my own consumer habits.
In 2010, Walter Brueggemann wrote a book called Journey to the Common Good (Westminster John Knox Press). It was written in a time of rebuilding in America because of the economic crash of 2008-09, and also a time of facing the fears and challenges in a new age of terrorism. His book offered a positive, constructive road map for our shared human journey. I was delighted to learn a few months ago that Brueggemann recently released an updated version of the book (Journey to the Common Good; Updated Edition; Westminster John Knox Press, 2021).
This new edition addresses social issues brought to light by the pandemic and the economic meltdown in its wake, as well as the ongoing racial injustice we are experiencing in our times. The book calls us to step away from the “grace-less contexts” of greed and separation, and instead work together for the common good. Brueggemann points out both the big and little actions that are needed, and reminds us of the significance and boundless consequences of active, caring neighbourhoods.
Though a short, concise book (144 pages) it is a powerful one, and delivers much to think about. Woven throughout the book are the Old Testament stories found in the books of Genesis and Exodus. The story of Joseph sets the stage for the Israelites’ experience as slaves in Pharoah’s Egypt, followed by their long wilderness sojourn led by Moses through the desert. In his usual fashion, Brueggemann is able to take Old Testament Scripture and make it very understandable, enlightening, and applicable to our present-day life. To break free of Pharaoh’s power and oppression, the Israelites had to trust in God’s abundance as they escaped from Egypt, and let go of the fear of scarcity they had learned under Pharaoh’s rule. In their journey through the barren wilderness they had more lessons to learn, such as how to listen to each other – as well as the vital importance to their survival of working together and focusing on the needs of everyone.
Brueggemann strongly advises that after the pandemic we cannot simply return to normalcy. Echoing the words of Isaiah, we can and must find our way forward into a new age, one that is rooted in inclusivity, hospitality and justice. As he leads us through these ancient Old Testament stories, he helps us experience them in new and intimate ways that speak volumes to our current lifestyles. Brueggemann also offers both hope and guidance, encouraging us all to live out the words of Jesus to love our neighbour as we love ourselves, thereby becoming guardians of the common good. In fact, he calls for nothing less than for us to embrace a subversive, alternative social ethic, one with specific economic implications, focused on care for the poor and the marginalized.
Balance
Image by Artfolio.
(for Peter Eibeck)
Wisdom is knowing when to let go without hurting,
when to hold on without holding someone back.
I see my friend, Peter, guiding David, his third child,
who sits atop his bike like someone on the tip
of a cliff enjoying the view but sensing danger
in the distance down. And, in the early spring Sunday
sunshine, Peter, who has done all this before
with Daniel and Josh, runs alongside David holding
the seat, keeping him steady as the wheels wiggle
back and forth on the pavement, wobbling so much
David would surely hit the street if not for Peter’s
loving hand behind him. But no one grows without
a bit of risk so Peter lets his son search
for balance by finding for himself which is
too much to the left, too much to the right, until
David, whose smile belongs in a museum, begins
to find his center. By June, David will be zooming
past houses with his brothers and all the kids
who bless our block with young life. And little sister,
Elaina, will be waiting in the wings for her turn
to join the two-wheeled propulsion of her brothers.
In another spring Peter will, once again, hold his child
on a bicycle until she can move away on her own,
keeping her balance for the road that lies ahead.
From Dedications, Volume II: More Poems for Special People.
Rescue Mission
Photo by Jessica Devnani.
Now, she says.
And so we go,
tossing toothbrushes in a bag
and commitments out a window
as we escape
en route to healing.
Destination doesn’t matter;
it’s the contact that counts.
We’ve healed in
posh places and plain,
spread out and huddled up.
What matters is the laughter.
What matters is the love.
What matters is the
indefatigable bungee-cord of caring
that pulls us back from the brink
time after time after time after time.
One can get through
anything
with friends.
From She of the Rib: Women Unwrapped (2006)
To find out more about Jayne Jaudon Ferrer, check out her website; and visit Your Daily Poem for your free daily dose of poetry.
What If…?
Photo by Joe deSousa
What if the leaves,
stirred to singing
by the breeze,
sing with even more joy
when they notice
you are listening?
What if the small white flower
quivers with delight
when you notice
her tiny
yet honorable
contribution
to the beauty
of this world?
And what if
that brief moment
is all she needs
to know that her life
is worth living,
all her efforts
not in vain?
What if the trees
feel the depth
of your pain,
and are quietly
reaching toward you,
offering solace
with everything
they have to give?
What if the whales
diving into the deep blue
can feel your love
for them,
even across all that
open ocean?
What if the water,
weary from
her endless journey,
is replenished by
your gratitude,
which gives her
the strength
to keep going?
What if the Earth
herself
longs to feel
the caress
of your naked feet
on her warm, brown skin?
And what if
the granite mountain,
no matter how remote
and immovable
he may seem,
feels a quiet shiver of joy
when you are touched
by his majestic beauty?
What if…?
On the Beach at Night Alone
On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef
of the universes and of the future.
A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different,
or in different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d,
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.
Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet – And Our Mission to Protect It by Nicole Stott
Review by Laura Locke
Since I was very young, books have loomed large in my life. If you’re ever having trouble locating me, best bets are to check out the nearest library or bookstore, or possibly my couch. Over many decades of reading, I can say with conviction that my favourite non-fiction genres are history, biographies, travel, and science. Nicole Stott’s new book manages to bring together all four – and is a lively and very engaging read.
Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet – And Our Mission to Protect It (Seal Press, New York; 2021) is brimming with optimism, wit and intelligence, but also delivers an important warning about the current state of our environment. Stott is a retired American engineer whose NASA career spanned nearly thirty years. Part of that time was spent as a NASA astronaut, with two spaceflights and 104 days living and working as a crew member on the International Space Station. She is also an artist, and an aquanaut – but more on that later.
Stott’s book starts with the story of the famous “Earthrise” photograph, taken on Dec. 24, 1968 by astronaut Bill Anders. Anders was part of the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon, aboard Apollo 8. His now-famous colour photo shows our glowing blue-and-white planet rising out from a backdrop of pitch-black space, with the grey, lifeless surface of the moon looming in the foreground.
“Earthrise”, photo by Astronaut Bill Anders. Public Domain.
Stott tells how in 2009, forty years after Apollo 11 astronauts left our planet to take a walk on the moon, she flew to space for the first time and experienced her own “Earthrise” moment. Seeing the Earth hanging in space from the windows of the Space Shuttle and later the International Space Station, she had a revelation – a strange, profound, and simple truth: we live on a planet.
She writes: “Experiencing Earth as a unified whole is more than an idea for astronauts; it’s a powerful reality. It is a message from the universe, intended not for space flyers alone but for all humanity. To understand the significance of Earthrise, we have to connect with these three simple lessons: we live on a planet, we are all Earthlings, and the only border that matters is the thin blue line of atmosphere that protects us all from the deadly vacuum of space.”1
Stott goes on to write movingly of the joys and struggles in her own early family life, as well as the steps on a remarkable journey that led to working for NASA, training to be an astronaut (which included an 18-day saturation dive mission in an undersea laboratory where she earned her ‘aquanaut’ status) and finally, travelling to space. We learn about the history of NASA’s space program and meet some of her heroes and friends who have been lights on her path. She also details how the International Space Station itself is an incredible marvel of both engineering and the human spirit.
Some of my favourite stories in the book arise from her personal experiences on the International Space Station (ISS), which for decades has featured a partnership between fifteen countries sending astronauts from around the world to live and work together in space. Stott relates fascinating (and often funny) insights about the ways that she and her crew members were constantly learning how to manage the challenges of living on the ISS, and how to work together as a team. They must, for example, learn to live with “microgravity” – the condition of virtual weightlessness or continuous free fall.
“To be able to float and fly is one of the unique things about living in space, and the most fun, but it also brings some of the greatest challenges. When I first got to space, I was a little clumsy as I tried to get used to life in three dimensions: I’d hold on too tightly to things, push off too hard, and try to reconcile some kind of up and down that didn’t exist. But our brains and bodies are incredible. We figure out very quickly how to adapt to new environments, even extreme ones.” 2
Astronaut Nicole Stott on the International Space Station
There are also negative side effects associated with microgravity, including weakened immune systems, bone loss, slower wound healing and cell behaviour changes. But the microgravity environment of the space station also gives opportunities to study and learn things that can benefit life on earth. Dr. Christopher Austin, director of the National Centre for Advancing Translational Sciences, explains that things that affect humans on Earth slowly affect astronauts much more rapidly – which provides an opportunity to study certain disorders on a time scale that would take much longer on Earth. Stott also gives an example of how experiments on protein crystals, used by scientists to study the structure of proteins for medicinal uses, are much easier to study in space. This is because they grow larger and form more perfectly in microgravity – and these are just a few of the many examples of the areas of fruitful scientific work being done on the ISS. One of Stott’s fellow astronaut classmates, Kevin Ford, came up with the phrase “Off the Earth, For the Earth”. This has now become the motto of the ISS program, and Stott writes that it is “beautifully appropriate.”
Another great example of work being done on the ISS that benefits life on Earth are its “sensors”. The ISS crosses about 80% of our planet’s surface as it orbits Earth, and these sensors monitor our vegetation, ocean surface conditions, harmful algae blooms in tropical coastal regions, floods, coral reefs, weather systems, impacts of natural and unnatural disasters, carbons emissions, and more – addressing a wide range of environmental and humanitarian concerns.
Stott’s other adventures onboard the ISS included a spacewalk, flying the robotic arm, and being the first person to paint a picture with watercolour in space.
The book is centered around seven “lessons” that Stott learned are key to the sustained success of the ISS program. Inspired by the words of inventor, architect, author and visionary Buckminster Fuller, she realized that these same lessons, which allow the astronauts to live and work and thrive on the Space Station, are also imperative for life on Earth to thrive and continue. Fuller wrote, “I’ve often heard people say, ‘I wonder what it would feel like to be on board a spaceship,’ and the answer is very simple. What does it feel like? That’s all we have ever experienced. We are all astronauts … aboard a fantastically real spaceship – our spherical Spaceship Earth.”3
The seven vital lessons – or indeed, as Stott calls them, “ways of being” – for both astronauts and Earthlings are:
Act Like Everything Is Local (Because It Is)
Respect the Thin Blue Line
Live Like a Crew, Not Like a Passenger
Never Underestimate the Importance of Bugs
Go Slow to Go Fast
Stay Grounded
Whatever You Do, Make Life Better
As she lays out the reasoning behind understanding and incorporating these lessons, Stott also introduces us to a number of Earthlings she has met who are working hard to effect positive change, telling fascinating stories about their lives and their zeal to improve life on our planet. Here are a few: Rowan Henthorn is a marine scientist and ocean advocate on the Isle of Man who is passionate about raising awareness and finding solutions for the devastating environmental impacts of single-use plastics and toxins on our world’s oceans. Anousheh Ansari is CEO of The X Prize Foundation, which designs and manages incentive competitions – awarding prize money from benefactors to enable social entrepreneurs to tackle humanity’s “grand challenges” in areas such as the environment, safety, energy and health. Dr. David Vaughan is a marine biologist who is doing amazing work on coral reef restoration, having found a way to reproduce thousands of fast-growing, resilient corals. Through Stott’s recollections of her encounters with these inspiring folks, we are given a chance to learn from her own curiosity and humility. Besides her storytelling abilities, she also has a way of helping us move beyond the idea of kinship with others to an awareness of something deeper, which includes all life on Earth.
“The willingness to acknowledge our interconnectivity allows us to experience our own Earthrise moment – to understand the uniqueness of our habitat here on Earth, our bodies’ unique attunement to life on Earth, and the urgency of the need for all of us to work as a crew to survive on Spaceship Earth.”4
Since her retirement, Stott has taken on a new, exciting “mission”. She is one of the four founding directors of the Space for Art Foundation. Its mandate is “to unite a planetary community of children through the awe and wonder of space exploration, and the healing power of art, working with children in hospitals, refugee centers, and schools.”
Yes, our problems here often seem totally overwhelming, but during Stott’s astronaut training and her time spent both in space and on Earth, she has discovered that truly wonderful things can be accomplished when people work together with focus and intention. It’s a timely message we all need to hear.
- Stott, Nicole. (2021) Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet – And Our Mission to Protect It. Seal Press, New York. p. 4.
- Ibid., p. 20.
- Fuller, Buckminster. (1969) Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. 1969. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. pp. 54–55.
- Stott, Nicole. (2021) Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet – And Our Mission to Protect It. Seal Press, New York. p. 39.
The Peace Prayer
St. Francis Giving his Mantle to a Poor Man. By Giotto Di Bondone (1267-1337)
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
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