Gardening, the First Profession

One often hears it said that prostitution is or was the first profession. I have no idea where that opinion originates. I see no truth in it. In fact, I find it annoying, as it almost seems to want to give credibility to something that should not even exist.

Whether you believe that God created the earth, as I do, as taught in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, or in the theory (yes, my friends, it is still only a theory) of evolution, neither of these would place prostitution as the first profession. The Jewish-Christian Scripture clearly states in the beginning of Genesis, the first book in The Bible, that God gave the first humans he created the task of looking after the garden (Eden) they were placed in. To this was added the double duty of being allowed to have dominion over the earth along with being responsible for replenishing it. Parenthetically, mankind, especially as the human race has become more industrialized, has kept the first part of this commission, but hasn't done so well on the 2nd part. Those who believe in evolution would see the first humans as hunter-gatherers, although I'm not sure they would call that a profession. I think they would call the transition to an agrarian society the change that brought on the first profession of gardener/farmer.

Gardening, and from that the outgrowth of farming and other forms of horticulture including keeping vineyards and orchards, is a somewhat unique profession. In the first place, it helped keep up the food supply when man may have initially been more vegetarian. We don't know much about the carnivorous side of man from the Judeo-Christian or Islamic scriptures, but it wasn't until after The Flood that God is recorded as giving Noah, the head of the household that survived the flood, the go-ahead to eat meat. That may have been a matter of expediency, as it may have been some time after this terrible flood before vegetable growth could provide food.

The other unique thing about this whole occupational field is that almost anyone who begins to take part in it remains “hooked.” There is just something about seeing things grow, blossom and bring forth vegetables or fruit that captivates those involved in this. In fact, in our urban society, with its increasing numbers of troubled children and youth, it is interesting to see how many groups, agencies and programs incorporate gardening into working with the young, and with good results.

Nowadays, there is increased interest in this area with the dawning of the realization that our fossil fuel-assisted food transportation systems, which had evolved to a global scale, bringing us exotic produce from all corners of the globe, was an unrealistic venture, and is not sustainable. Some of the byproducts of this have been the inappropriate use of the resource of water and land. We thus have areas of the United States of America, for example, where deserts were irrigated to grow produce now not having enough water for their citizens' use. On the other hand, we have untold hectares of land around the world that have been deforested, with the results often that this land becomes denuded of any vegetation. This leads to more flooding with further erosion and loss of soil, further reducing the amount of arable land available and in some places turning areas into desert.

With increasing urbanization of the population over the past couple of centuries, many lost touch with the land and where their food came from. However, with the rise of suburbs in the last century, many homeowners were able to have their own garden plots in their backyards. Then, even this became threatened again though with the decrease in size of property lots and increase in size of homes on the lots, and a renewed move to building of apartment complexes of various types.

Again, there were those who, perhaps having come directly from a background where they were involved in gardening and farming, persisted in growing things wherever they could. Thus, you have people creating garden spaces on balconies, rooftop decks and in vacant urban lots. Now, urban areas are increasingly seeing the value of setting aside the last for food production, with the increasing costs of bringing food from a distance. A variety of methods of more mass gardening are also being tried in various cities. In Vancouver we have the example of a car park being turned into a greenhouse. In Montréal, greenhouses are being built on top of large industrial buildings.

Much of this can be referred to by the new catchphrase when it comes to gardening and farming, that of  "sustainable food production." Part of this involves looking at food production that does not involve the continued and excessive use of herbicides, pesticides and other chemicals including artificially made fertilizers. Increasing attention is being paid to natural means of dealing with weeds, pests and soil enrichment. Some of this comes under the umbrella of "organic."

All of this creates some hope that we may be able to once again grow enough food for ourselves much nearer to home, and in much less industrialized ways. Indeed, the first profession shows promise of living on, and with it the human race. Of course, as our Scriptures tell us, the God who first gave us our marching orders, because of our failures, has also told us that this world will come to an end, despite our best efforts. However, that is another story, and certainly not a reason to give up on what we are doing. Indeed, I do not believe God would want us to do that, as that would be submitting to the same evil that spelled the doom of this planet. That evil has been overcome, but the consequences of its influence will still ensue.

Contentment versus Excellence

Contentment versus Excellence

As a physician-in-training, I already joined the student chapter of the Christian Medical and Dental Society (CMDS) of Canada. My activity level in the organization declined when I graduated and went into rural practice, simply because there were not enough physicians nearby to meet with regularly enough to form anything resembling a local chapter. Winnipeg, where I had been as a student, was a 90 minute drive away. When I moved to Brandon after 7 1/2 years in this rural setting, I tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to form a chapter there with others who had been involved in their pasts as well. So it was though, that one year it was our turn to organize the annual provincial CMDS retreat. I think we were more in charge of the logistics than the contents, at least in its entirety. The topic had to do with excellence, and there was some debate about it from the side of those promoting it and those who had other thoughts.

This is an issue that I have struggled with for a number of years. I felt that God called me into the medical profession; it was nothing I had ever had my sights set on. It is a profession that has been challenging intellectually from the beginning. I have made it through with a lot of hard work, more than because I have any particularly superior level of intelligence. Thus, for me, it has always been somewhat of a struggle to maintain professional competence, let alone strive for what the profession would probably consider excellence in its broadest sense.

I attend conferences and take part in other activities with the aim of keeping up academically and professionally. However, I have never been an active researcher nor have I written anything noteworthy for publication. I may have made a few small local innovations but nothing of any magnitude or noteworthy in a larger way. When I later actually went back and successfully completed a residency re-training program to move from Family Practice to Psychiatry, I by default fell into a place where some would consider me an expert because I am now defined as a specialist. Indeed, I have even become somewhat of a sub-specialist, because my practice focuses on only children and adolescents, along with their families. To be sure, with the experience I have gained over the years, I do know a thing or two. However, even here, I would not consider myself a great practitioner of the art.

In part because this career was not something I chose, I must admit I have never been that passionate about it, as my wife knows all too well. My passion as a youngster and young adults was car design. However, as a Christian, I could not see that as a worthwhile career goal in a world that had much greater needs than that someone put their energies into designing cars. I had actually thought of architecture, as we would generally accept that we need to live in buildings. When I was even younger, and somewhat in overlapping years with my interest in cars, I had thought of being an ornithologist, one who studies birds. I still like birdwatching and taking good photographs of birds. I do the same with automobiles to a certain extent, but I limit that because for many reasons automobiles are not something I think I should be putting my energies into.

I have to confess also that I have not in some ways put as much into my career as I could have. I have not been at the vanguard of invention and innovation. Some of that was for two other reasons. I attribute these to the fact that I had learned a thing or to about life before I ever got into the medical profession because I came to it later than many of my colleagues. By that time I had learnt about the need for balance in life. For me, this somehow translated into not putting everything into my career. Even as a student and resident I had seen what happened to the personal lives of people who did that, and it wasn't where I wanted to go. The other point was somewhat related and had to do with privacy and regarding the independence of my family and personal life. As a husband and father I wanted to do my best in those areas. As a Christian, I also felt the need to be active in the church. Then, the need for balance also led to my continuing to pursue various other interests such as art, photography and music. The end result was that there was not a lot of room left for striving for excellence in my profession. Rightly or wrongly, my energies were being channeled into a number of different corrections and just did not allow for that.

Then I began to look at the whole issue of living the simple life and contentment. These are both principles that I, as an Anabaptist Christian, believe our Lord Jesus illustrated in his life and that we are therefore to follow. If one is content with something, if one wants to keep something simple, where does that leave the pursuit of excellence? I think many of us would agree that when we look at many of the advances, the so-called progress, of our increasingly complex society, beginning with the agrarian, then the industrialization, technological and now information-oriented society we live in, we have no more time for one another and we are no happier. We are told that we work harder and longer hours, that in most cases both partners of the family unit are working and that we get less sleep than we used to. To be sure, in some ways, with the infrastructure we have in place in our developed Western society for the provision of our shelter with its modern comforts, our water and sewer systems, our protection as well as distribution of food, life might be easier. However, I am not sure that we are any happier after a day at work bringing home the groceries or the "takeout," as is more common nowadays, than the caveman who came home with the fruits, nuts, grains or meat that he had caught for his family that day. We certainly have a lot more to pay attention to, or should I say be distracted by, to tend to and to take care of or look after than they do. Mind you, we don't have to be on the lookout for vicious wild animals or enemy clans at all times.

So what do you think? If we believe that we should be content with our lot, and try to live a simple lifestyle, is there room for excellence? What does excellence mean in that context? It is an obvious question I have not yet answered, and I have already started on the road to retirement from my profession!

Justice for First Nations in Canada – II. What We Can Do

I am going to speak here both about what we can and what we should not do. What we should not do is probably more easily and rapidly dispensed with. Again, as a Christian, I am going to speak to an audience that I assume is mostly Christian. However, as I also stated in part one, there is much here for the non-believer to digest as well. It is simply that if we are true to our Lord Jesus, there is so much more to what we should feel, think and do.

1. We should not continue, as Christians, to evangelize and send missionaries to First Nations peoples the way we used to in the past. In spite of the damage the church has done, even among those to whom the damage was done, there are many Christians, and they are forming their own churches and organizations to reach one another.

2. We should not continue wondering and asking them what we can do to help them. They are not looking for that kind of top-down patronizing help. They never were. The fact that we looked at them and thought they needed our help just shows how culturally uninformed we were.

3. We should not continue to think that the Indian we think we know stands for all of them. We are probably all guilty of some stereotyping, which we do of each other all the time. We really need to be more careful about that.

4. We should stop seeing, why don't they leave it in the past, just get over it, and move on. This is saying that they should pull themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps, to use that figure of speech. It should have been clear by the end of part one of this essay, that we took away those bootstraps. They had nothing to pull themselves up on. This also shows a gross lack of understanding on our part of who they are and where they are and why they are where they are.

Moving on then to what we can do…

1. Get to know First Nations People individually. Do you work with any? Have any provided service to you? Are you fellow students with any? We know that getting to know people personally is one of the best ways to break down barriers between them when it comes to so many of our differences.

2. Attend events put on and sponsored by First Nations peoples. This would include Aboriginal Day celebrations. It would include the sharing circles put on by Hummingbird Ministries. Check out the First Nations Resource and Friendship Centers in Your Neighborhood and attend some of their events. As long as you go, recognizing that you are guests, coming to let them show their hospitality to you, in all humility, you are not likely to be turned away. Remember, First Nations People are by and large welcoming, hospitable and inclusive, which is why we are here in the first place.

3. Listen to what the First Nations people are telling us about their experience, their past, and where they feel they need to go. Listen without feeling that you have to jump in with your solutions. The solutions have to come from them, although we can then help them achieve those ends.

4. Support them in their efforts to do things like protect the environment, gain the respect of the society around them, including the recognition and maintenance of their rights by the rest of society and our government at all levels. Go with them on their walks to mourn their missing women. You do know that over 500 aboriginal women across this country have gone missing without a trace. If this were happening to any other segment of our society, there would be an outcry. Yet, many of us do not even know that. It seems that many of us still think these people are simply dispensable, invisible. Walk with them in their Idle No More demonstrations.

5. Write and speak to our powers that be including in the church and politics to support our First Nations Brothers and Sisters in their quest for justice and equality when it comes to education, health and simple human services and needs such as reasonably priced food, clean water and sewer that the rest of us enjoy without giving it a 2nd thought.

These are just some beginning points to provide some suggestions as to what we could do. They could be fleshed out in more detail. There may be other points that you can think of and I would be pleased to hear of them.

Hoping we can work together with our First Nations brothers and sisters in a good way to achieve peace and harmony and mutuality for all of us.

NOTE: A greatly extended version of the above, with a much longer detailed list of possible actions that can be taken, accompanied by a PowerPoint of the same was presented to about 25 people in the Adult Education Hour after our Sunday morning worship service in my home congregation in Richmond BC, Peace Mennonite Church, on June 30, 2013. If the reader who wishes to see that document, they can always contact me at lorne.brandt@gmail.com .

Justice for First Nations in Canada – I. Why We as Christians Must Care

I am making an assumption that I am largely speaking to a Christian audience so I will address this topic from that perspective. However, if the reader who is not a believer is interested in this topic, you will find much here that will speak to you too. 

Now, with a title like this, it would appear that it is understood that there is an issue with justice for First Nations peoples. In other words, there may be some INjustice.

1. As Christians, we are called to be concerned about injustice wherever we encounter it. So, maybe I could end this discussion right there. That would not be very helpful though. We need to look at this more deeply than that, particularly as I think some of us wonder really why we should care.

2. There is another aspect to being Christian that I want to name and include in this discussion. That is the biblical Christian concept that we are a people.  It is rally only in the last couple of centuries in the history of the human race that we have begun to think of ourselves as individuals as we do now in our Western Culture. That does not mean that is the biblical way to view ourselves though.

God created us to be a people. When we were redeemed, we were saved to be a new people. This people is to consist of all colours and races and ethnic groups. That includes all of our backgrounds, and it includes First Nations Christians. This is to be a people united as God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are united. So, as Christians we need to be concerned for our First Nations brothers and sisters and their issues because they are part of us.  If they have problems in our society because they are First Nations, by extension we have to be concerned about the problems that affect all First Nations, insofar as they also affect Christian natives. If we do not see them in our churches, if they do not feel welcome here, I think we have an issue.

There are other factors that we should bring out before we get to addressing the injustices, because they are there, and have been there for hundreds of years.

3. In the first place, as Canadians, we owe the First Nations a huge debt of gratitude. If it were not for them and their worldview and their knowledge of how to live I this land, we would not be here; there would be no Canada.

Think of it. The First Nations vastly outnumbered the European arrivals to begin with. They could easily have killed them all. But that was not their way. They did not immediately anticipate what the later result of the arrival of these white strangers would be. If they had, they might have killed our forefathers. I don’t think so though. It was not their way. First Nations peoples still believed in hospitality and being inclusive. The land was large. There was room for all.

4. Besides that, they taught our ancestors what they needed to know how to survive and prosper in this land. They taught us about things medicinal. They taught us about how to dress here. They may not have had the wheel but they had the canoe, and what better way to get around this land with all its waterways.

5. It was not long though before both sides began to see hat they needed to reach some agreements to go forward. These are called treaties. It was a concept the First Nations peoples were familiar with. However, the difference was that they saw them at a much deep level than the white folks. To the white folks it was just politics and business. To the First nations it was also a process rooted in their spirituality. It was something much more holistic and honourable. It was something ethically binding.

Now, some of you may be thinking – stop! Our ancestors weren’t even here yet when all of this was going on.  Why should we be responsible for what others did? Remember what I said about a people, a community. We are all part of the European race who was meeting the Indian race, as they were first called by us. So, there is a factor there to be considered.

Secondly though, some of the worst things to happen to our First Nations neighbours happened after the British and French colonies became Canada. We are all Canadians. That also makes us responsible as a people, as Canadians. So, as a recent slogan that some of you may have seen has it – We are all Treaty People.   We can’t escape it.

We won’t go into all the details about how the Europeans treated the Indians because the whites thought the Indians were pagan savages, inferior to Europe culturally and technologically. That was the attitude held by many though. To be fair, not all thought that way. There were many who appreciated the First Nations for who they were. There were some who tried to treat them honourably. However, the majority saw them as a people to be subdued so their land could be taken and its resources exploited for the benefit of of the Europeans. Just one example of this attitude is how the King of England in 1670 thought he could just unilaterally decide to give almost one third of North America to what became known as the Hudson’s bay Company for their commercial purposes. The people on the ground, at the front lines, realized they needed to get along with the natives to accomplish this. Hence the treaties.

Unfortunately, our people were not always the most honest when they made the treaties, let alone in how they honoured them. Let’s be blunt. There was a lot of deception gong on. The Indians did not all know what was going on. By the time they did, it was too late. The invading powers were gaining rights to the land and its resources in ways that increasingly and effectively cut the natives out of the loop when it came to the benefits of this.

6. When the white people started to arrive in increasing numbers and push their way westward across the continent, the next step was to establish what we in Canada call reserves, and in the US, reservations. It may have been put forward as a place of sanctuary where the natives could live. However, it soon became a place in which they were in effect imprisoned. It did not help that many of these reserves were on poor land. After all, the whites wanted the better land for farming, which wasn't one of the natives’ strong pints. They were nomadic hunters and traders. It also wasn't long before the reserves became smaller and smaller and some outright disappeared. So much for good intentions and honoring treaties. We stole their land.

7. One aspect of the treaties was that the natives had rights to ground to six feet under. After all, that is all you need to bury someone in. But where did that leave mineral rights? Another aspect was to give the Indians tools to begin to learn to farm. Well, some did learn to farm, and farm well. But then what happened? The whites schemed not to buy their grain as opposed to the whites’ grain and many were forced to give up farming and even starved. The parts of treaties about education and health care that the government was to provide them? 150 years later and we are still seeing First Nations education rates and wellness rates far too low compared to the rest of us. Something is wrong with this picture brothers and sisters. So, we took away their economic base and have not even provided them the same level and utility of education, health and well-being that we have.

8. Then, the whites, the Europeans, the colonialists bean to realize that the Indians weren’t changing rapidly enough to become like us and assimilate into our society that we were creating here. Wait a minute. Whose society being created where? That’s pretty arrogant I would say. Whose land were we on. Or whose had it been?

So, enter phase two of the process of subjugation – the residential schools. Make no mistake about it. By this time there were some in government who talked openly of the Indian problem and how to get rid of it. What they really wanted was to get rid of the Indians. We know that in the US there was a much more violent approach taken. Many were simply massacred and chased off their lands. Our people were watching and taking lessons.  It seems we still think the Americans have something to teach us. Just look at how our current government has followed the American political and military way, and even surpassed them in a negative approach to the environment, not only when it comes to things like global warming, but how our mining companies are abusing people around the world in their attempts to exploit the resources in their lands. You’d think we would have learned by now.

So, it was thought we would start with educating the children to our European Christian values and then they would become good productive Canadian citizens, like the rest of us.

So, let’s stop and think about that. What would your fathers have done if the government had said, OK, give us your children. They won’t be allowed to speak German even though that's all they know. They won’t be allowed to dress the way they are used to or wear their hair the way they are used to. They can’t have the religious beliefs they have grown up with. They can’t see their parents except may be twice a year. Would your ancestors have accepted that?

What does that do to families? What does that do to a people? You are basically destroying the fabric of the whole society. You are destroying their families. Indeed that’s what happened. When you’re taken from your parents at age 5 or 6 and raised by aliens, how do you expect them turn out? How do you expect them to know how to parent when they finish these schools and go out into the world to start their own families? They did not know how to do this. They were strangers to their families by the time they were grown. Not to mention the brokenness of the parents and grandparents who had been robbed of their children.

Nor did they have their religion to turn to for comfort. It was in many ways forbidden. What do you do? What happens? You get depressed. There is no one to help. You are all in the same boat. Where do you turn.  Unfortunately, alcohol was too available.

What do you do when all avenues seemed close to you? You lose hope, you wander the streets, looking for help. You move to the cities to find work or maybe get an education. But you are not welcome. You are not white. You become depressed. You turn to drugs and alcohol. You gravitate to the poorest parts of the city. The First Nations people who may not have been caught up in this are working back on their reserves. Or they are in schools and in places of employment. They are not seen like the unfortunate who have nowhere to turn and nothing to do. Those wandering the streets, drinking, abusing drugs, getting into fights and committing suicide at a rate far higher than the rest of the country; they are the First Nations people that too many of us other Canadians are familiar with. We have come to think that they are all like that. That, unfortunately, is the incorrect stereotype that many of us have of the Indian. But we have not understood, as I have just outlined, how they became like that. We made them that way. We as a nation and a people.

9. And our churches played a major role in that because they ran the schools that committed this atrocity against our Indian brothers and sisters. It would have been bad enough to take them away from their families and culture as we described. However, as we know hundreds and thousands were physically and sexually abused on top of that.  Can you imagine what damage it that does to a person's identity, character, sense of worth and self-esteem?

10. What does that do to a child's overall health? We now know again that hundreds and perhaps thousands died prematurely in the schools and too many were buried without any thought being given to sending them back to their families to be buried with respect. We were probably too ashamed to do that, knowing that they died in our care.  

11. Not only that, but the drinking began to have effects on children yet unborn. Again, we know that the proportion of First Nations children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and all of the disability that that entails, is far higher than in the rest of the population.

12. We also know that because of all of this, many First Nations people, desperate and angry, understandably, have turned to crime and end up in jail. We have heard the statistics. Proportional to their representation in the population, our jails are overcrowded with First Nations People. And, too high a percentage of those people have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and can't function normally in free society in the first place without our support.

Have I said enough? Do you know now why we should care?

All of this is why we should care and should be doing something to turn that around.

NOTE: An extended version of the above accompanied by a PowerPoint of the same was presented to about 35 people in the Adult Education Hour after our Sunday morning worship service in my home congregation in Richmond BC, Peace Mennonite Church, on June 23rd 2013.