Seasons

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” - Ecclesiastes

I took on a new client a couple of months ago for what I expected to be a small project, barely worth my effort.  I didn't really want to take this piece of business.  For one thing, it is a French language agency and I don't speak French.  For another thing, the agency director didn't show any indications at the beginning of our interactions that she could recognize personal boundaries.  She sent me text messages from morning through night, seven days a week. One morning I woke to twenty five text messages which she sent in the middle of the night.  I am already immersed in other work and this project looked like a tremendous amount of effort for very little financial reward.  But the friend who sent her my way is a good friend.  His gut was telling him that she really needed help and that I was the person to give it to her.  He was right.

The morning to night, seven days a week texts, emails and calls have not abated.  In fact they have escalated.  Now they don't just come from the agency director but from the agency board and other members of agency management.  They come from the director's friends and supporters.  The director is dying and there is much to do to get things in order before she passes.

In these two months, I have come to love her. I admire her zest for life.  I am awed by the example she has set in taking the life lemons she was handed and making lemonade. She will leave a legacy of love, hope and healing not just for the children she has devoted her life to helping but for all those, like me who have been blessed to know her.

Just two months ago, when I met her, we thought she was getting better.  We believed she had many months, even years ahead.  We now know that is not so.  We count the time in hours and days now.  When we learned that her time was growing so short, I struggled with why God would bring me to her, to love and know only to take her away from me so soon. It is a selfish sentiment.  In this season of her life, she needed me and in this season of my life, I needed her.

A couple of weeks ago, when I went to meet with her at her bedside, she presented me with a Superwoman cape.  It made my heart smile.  As much as I appreciate the gesture, I don't think it is an accurate representation of our roles.  It is she who is Superwoman and I am merely her humble student.

Many Angry Men

”There was never an angry man that thought his anger unjust.” - Saint Francis de Sales

I've been doing a lot of work these past few weeks, investigating complaints of various types.  There have been the "mean girl" complaints, the "improper behavior" complaints and the "clash of egos" complaints.  The one I'm focused on right now is a workplace harassment case by a group of women against a group of men.  I've had private meetings with each of the women and each of the men. Taken individually, with one exception, I've quite liked all of them, both complainants and respondents.  What has become clear to me is that they are all working in a testosterone fueled atmosphere where aggressive interactions are the norm.  The physical space that they work in is tight.  The men regularly shout at the women and at one another.  They hurl epithets and bump into the women, sometimes with force sufficient to knock them off balance, all without apology.  Complaints about their behavior have until now, fallen on deaf ears, largely met by the all male management team with a "Suck it up, princess response".

And yet, these men, taken individually seem like good guys.  They've talked to me about their wives and mothers.  They are affable in my company and mostly respectful in our interactions, and yet they are also bewildered.  They don't understand why the women are complaining.  They don't understand why the women are afraid.

It has started me thinking about the rage of men and whether or not they even realize that they make women feel afraid when they rage at us.  I wonder if they know that we feel afraid when they tailgate our cars and then flip us off or scream at us when they pull up beside us at stop lights.  I wonder if they know that it makes us afraid when they yell at us.  

Last week I met a woman at a social reception.  She was clearly having a bad day.  As I seem to have a face that invites strangers to unload their burdens, she told me her story.  She has been married to a good man for more than thirty years.  They have children and grandchildren.  But just that very morning, her husband had lost his temper, angry about a situation that his wife was not responsible for, but shouting at her as the outlet for his anger.  She knows he would never physically hurt her but he made her feel afraid, just the same.  She got into her car and drove for five hours, unable to convince herself to return to her home, pushed beyond her breaking point.

I don't know what the answer is to dealing with angry men.  I do know that we need to do a better job with our sons in teaching them about the effect that male rage can have on women.  I have spoken to my own son about it.  Perhaps I will have the chance to do the same with the men who are the respondents in my current investigation.  Probably not, but I sure hope someone does.

Terrifying But Not Terrorism

“Dressed in the lion's skin, the ass spread terror far and wide.” - Jean de La Fontaine

It has been a tough week in Toronto with innocent people plowed down on our main street by a young man in a rental van.  At this point there are 10 confirmed dead and more than a dozen injured. Incidents like this don't happen in our city.  We watch this happen in other places and post our hashtags on Facebook and Twitter - #LondonStrong #PrayingForParis #MunichStrong ...  We pride ourselves on our inclusive and tolerant culture, at times a bit too smug while convincing ourselves it could not happen here.  And then it did.  It happened within walking distance of my home in a very place where I had been walking just a couple days before.  In a place I considered going to again the morning of the attack.  There is a craft store there that I often frequent and I was out of the colour paint I wanted for a new project. But I had other things to do so I set aside my need to shop for paint for another day, almost as if God had whispered in my ear.

Monday was the most glorious of spring days, our first following a relentlessly brutal winter.  People were anxious to be outside, to breathe in the air and feel the sun on their faces.  It was a day that felt like nothing could happen to dent our happiness.  I was shocked when I heard the news. And my prayers began, for those who were hurt and killed, for their families who may never have the chance to say goodbye, for those who witnessed horrors that will never be erased and then for the thing it was hard to speak out loud - dear God, please let this be the act of an ordinary madman and not the act of an Islamic terrorist.  I know this last prayer may seem bizarre to others but not to some.  I cannot be alone in praying that this horrible action would not feed hate and fear of others and retaliation against Muslims and minorities.  

Watching news reports of the events on different stations, was telling.  In the first hours, few details were given on the Canadian stations.  No one would speculate on the ethnic origin of the driver,  his religion or motive.  It was hours before we even knew his name.  I heard only words of unity, not a single word of hate expressed on the air.  Politicians didn't jump in with their rhetoric though we are on the border of an election cycle.  Our city truly went into wait and see mode.  Yonge Street was cordoned off and people were asked to stay away from the area and in the main, they did.  The news was not quite handled the same way by the international media.  CNN commentators spoke of how slow the Canadians were being in giving them information about the driver, who was arrested without a single shot being fired.  There were comments that he looked Middle Eastern, that the attack was typical of an ISIS inspired or engineered attack and that the driver was known to Toronto police.  On-line, disinformation spread like wildfire on far-right sites.  Then we all watched the footage of the driver being arrested.  He didn't look Middle Eastern to me.  

Two days later, we know that he is a twenty-five year old college student with mental health issues. He was not known to police. He is not affiliated with any group that presents a threat to our national security.  We don't know what his ethnic origin is or whether or not he subscribes to any religious ideology and we don't care.  He is a Canadian man who according to his elementary school classmates has always been socially awkward.  There is some evidence that he is involved with a group of people who identify themselves as incels (involuntarily celibate) who are angry with women for rejecting them and with the men who are not rejected - sick and sad. 

When it became known that this was not an act of terrorism, the international media soon lost interest.  I guess there isn't much mileage to be gotten from an act that was driven by madness, that involved no guns. I, for one, am glad they have moved on.  These are sad days for our city.  We need to mourn in peace, away from the spotlight, away from the poison of the lies that feed division.  We kept calm and carried on - helping our neighbours, embracing our humanity. This is Toronto.  We are good and we are strong.