Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Simone Weil on 'Forgive us our debts' - trans. Brad Jersak

‘And remit us our debts, in the same way that we also have remitted our debtors.’

In the moment that we say these words, we must already have remitted all debts. This includes not only letting go of the reparation of any offences we think we have suffered; but also any recognition and gratitude for the good we think we have done. And in a completely general way, anything that we expect from people or things, everything we believe is our due, the absence of which has made us feel frustrated.

Forgiveness is letting go of every right we believe is ours in the past or in the future. First, this includes the right to a certain permanence. When we have enjoyed something for a long time, we believe it is ours, and that fate must allow us to keep enjoying it. Second, we let go of the right to compensation for all of our efforts, regardless of the nature of our effort, work, suffering or desire.

The Beats of the North Cascades by Ron Dart

A braid of circumstances ties the Beat Generation to the North Cascades. In the early 1950s, a weary America turned its attention to getting ahead after enduring the Depression and WWII---and in that era of the man in the gray flannel suit, a group of literary rebels hit the road and the trail. While the Lost Generation found its refuge and inspiration in Paris, the Beats found their safe harbour in the North Cascades as well as in San Francisco’s North Beach.                                                                   

   James Martin, North Cascades Crest: Notes and Images from America’s Alps (1999) p.58

    There is a historic tendency to date the origins of a deeper ecological awareness in North America to the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962. There is no doubt that Carson’s incisive missive woke many to troubling ecological issues, but there were sensitive canaries in the toxic mineshaft before Silent Spring left the publishing tarmac.

    On October 7, 1955, the poet Kenneth Rexroth orchestrated the most famous Beat Generation poetry reading in history, one that joined Columbia-educated, Greenwich Village Beat writers—Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac— with the ecologically minded “mountain Beats” of the West— Philip Whalen and Gary Snyder—at San Francisco’s Six Gallery. It was that night when Allen Ginsberg read his poem “Howl” for the first time in public. But for Kerouac, Whalen, and Snyder, a Western landscape far from that gallery touched their work deeply.

The Children of Cain - by Brian Zahnd

This post consists of an excerpt from chapter nine of All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

Remarque was a German veteran of World War I. (He later became an American citizen.) Remarque published All Quiet On The Western Front in 1929. It sold two and half million copies in the first eighteen months. Some have describe it as the most honest account of war ever written. German soldiers would simply say of Remarque’s book, “So ist es gewsen!” (That’s the way it was!)

And if you ask me what this post has to do with Holy Week, I will simply answer, much!

Read it thoughtfully.

I have entitled this excerpt as…

The Children of Cain Have a Conversation Concerning the Legacy Bequeathed Them.

Wherefore wait? Maurice Baring

One day I heard a whisper:  ‘Wherefore wait?

Why linger in a separate porch?

Why nurse the flicker of a severed torch?

The fire is there, ablaze beyond the gate.

Why tremble, foolish soul? Why hesitate?

However faint the knock, it will be heard.’

I knocked, and swiftly came the answering word,

Which bade me enter to my own estate.

Maurice Baring

 

"Little Annie's Treasure" - Napoleon's Armies and the Czech Exiles (from the Jersak memoirs)

Karl Jersák, Paměti [Memories] (Bohemia, 1954, William Jersak’s collection in Sulejovice) cited in Edita Štěříková, Země Otců [Land of our Fathers] (Prague: The Society of Exiles in Prague, 1995), 110-113. Translated by Lloyd Jersak.

On February 1, 1803, the first Czech colonists settled in Zelov. Fourteen farmers came from Tábor and thirteen joined them from Erdmansdorf. Among them was Jan Jersák and Jan Stehlík. Eleven families came from Sophienthal and Bachowitz: one of these was also a Jan Jersák and another was a Jiří (George) Jersák.

From 1803-1804, eight of their newborn children were baptized.

Beside the landowners, there were also some poor families who came with the colonists to help with labour. Most of the land was sandy and unproductive, but they began to grow flax. They formed a local government and in 1807, they established a Czech school.

In the same year (1807) the French war entered Zelov life. In June, the boundary was pushed back from the Prussian kingdom. Overnight, the colonists found themselves under new Warsaw governorship. The former Prussian privileges were now overlooked and the Zelov population was forced into labour, building roads and bridges.

The Czechs hoped in a Russian victory. Eventually, their wish was fulfilled. After the end of the war, they became subject to the Russian Czar. Within thirty years of the founding of Zelov (by June 1, 1830) there were 149 properties listed in settlement.

What has been told later about this period, Karl Jersák, the Zelov chronicler and re-immigrant of Nejdku, records in his memoirs:

Tolstoy and the Orthodox Tradition -- Fr. Michael Gillis

One of the ways to understand Tolstoy’s relationship with the Orthodox Church is in the context of his search for certainty, certainty regarding truth.  Tolstoy’s relationship with the Orthodox Church is paradoxical, that is, very Russian, quite Orthodox.  

In 1878 at the age of 50, Tolstoy was experiencing a kind of religious awakening during which he frequently attended the village Church wanting to absorb the spirituality of the people.  However in the year before, the Russo-Turkish war began and this year the Tzar commanded all of the churches to pray for the troops (sounds like this could be the U.S. today).  However, part of the prayer, apparently, contained references to the Turks being destroyed by “sword and exploding shell.”  This was too much hypocrisy for Tolstoy.  How can the priest proclaim the Gospel of Christ and at the same time pray for the death of enemies?

Tolstoy's War and Peace -- Reflections by Fr. Michael Gillis

This year I read the ultimate summer read, War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. But I’m a slow reader, so I got started in April--But I finished before the end of summer. I read the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.  The translation is so good that I seldom noticed that it was a translation. The conversation flows smoothly, for the most part, although there are occasional awkward expressions, mostly in the speech of Pierre, that left me wondering if this awkwardness is something reflected in the Russian original--after all, Pierre is an awkward character. Some of the descriptive passages, however, especially the battle scenes, have such vivid force that several pages seemed to disappear and I saw only the image created in my mind. 

'Lev Tolstoy: Peace, War and Politics' -- A UFV Symposium

Lev Tolstoy, one of Russia's greatest authors and peace advocates, passed away one century ago. A four-time Nobel nominee, Tolstoy was known through his literature and activism as a proponent of nonviolence and communalism; a critic of militarism and hierarchy; and is regarded by some as the father of Christian anarchism. He was also an inspiration and guide for a young Gandhi, with whom he corresponded regularly and shared a common commitment to actually living the Way of the Sermon on the Mount.

Tolstoy's life work has recently been commemorated in a variety of mediums, including the acclaimed film, The Last Train Station. His remarkable contributions to literature and society were also celebrated on Sept. 22 at the University of the Fraser Valley Tolstoy Symposium. The day was initiated by Professor Ron Dart (see photo with Tolstoy) and facilitated by Scott Fast (both serving in UFV's philosophy and political science dept).

Hadji Murad: A Tale for our Time by Ron Dart

War and Peace (1869) is the Mount Everest of all novels, and Anna Karenina (1877) and Resurrection (1899) stand tall and stately within the towering Himalayan peaks of world literature. It is 100 years this year since Lev Tolstoy died (1910-2010), and many is the event that is being put on to celebrate the life of this literary genius and prophetic visionary. Tolstoy is very much a man for all seasons, and the perennial themes he grappled with in his novels, short stories, plays and parables are as relevant today as they were when written and published.  

There is little doubt that one of the finest short stories that Tolstoy wrote in his latter years was Hadji Murad (viewable online). Hadji Murad was written between 1896-1904, and published after Tolstoy had died in 1912. The tale told is probing, evocative and apt. We often hear in the news about the clash between the Russian state and the Muslim Chechens and Grozny. The Chechens are viewed as the terrorists and the Russians the law abiding citizens. The contemporary clash between Russia and the Chechens has a much longer history, of course, and Hadji Murad tells part of that older tale. The young Tolstoy was in the Russian army in the 1850s when the Russian state and military had launched a campaign to colonize, dominate and control the Muslim Chechens. Needless to say, such an aggressive stance by the Russians created much opposition and resistance by the Chechens. The conflict led to the deaths of many lives, and one of the leading Muslim liberation fighters was Hadji Murad. It would have been natural for Tolstoy, as a Russian, to view Murad as a terrorist. But, did he? Murad led many attacks on the Russians, won many a campaign and was a living myth and legend to the Russians. He was the Osama Bin Laden of the time. The Russians hunted him down like a fox, and any true and patriotic Russian was expected to see Murad as a Muslim terrorist in the same way the West views the Taliban or Al-Qaeda.Tolstoy was never, though, an uncritical or patriotic Russian.

The still point of the turning world -- excerpt from T.S. Elliot's Four Quartets

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchainment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.
Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.

God sees the truth, but waits - Leo Tolstoy

 In the town of Vladimir lived a young merchant named Ivan Dmitrich Aksionov. He had two shops and a house of his own.

Aksionov was a handsome, fair-haired, curly-headed fellow, full of fun, and very fond of singing. When quite a young man he had been given to drink, and was riotous when he had had too much; but after he married he gave up drinking, except now and then.

One summer Aksionov was going to the Nizhny Fair, and as he bade good-bye to his family, his wife said to him, "Ivan Dmitrich, do not start to-day; I have had a bad dream about you."

Aksionov laughed, and said, "You are afraid that when I get to the fair I shall go on a spree."

His wife replied: "I do not know what I am afraid of; all I know is that I had a bad dream. I dreamt you returned from the town, and when you took off your cap I saw that your hair was quite grey."

Allen Ginsberg and George Grant: Howl and Lament for a Nation - Excerpt from Ron Dart's 'Spiders and Bees'

Introduction: It's 55 years this year (1955-2010) since Ginsberg's Howl was published, and 45 years (1965-2010) since Grant's Lament was published. This article on Ginsberg's Howl and Grant's Lament appears in print in Ron Dart's Spiders and Bees. In it, Dart brings to the forefront how two different 'jeremiads' are handled.

 It is fifty years this autumn since the Beat Movement was launched at Six Gallery in San Francisco (October 13, 1955). Some of the American Beats from the East Coast (Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg) and the West Coast (Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Lawrence Ferlinghetti) met and read together at this gathering. John Suiter rightly says, ‘The Six Gallery reading has sometimes been called the first synthesis of the East and West Coast factions of the Beat Generation’ (p.148).

The Sleepwalker - A Thought Experiment by Friedrich Jacobi

"Imagine a sleepwalker who has climbed to the highest point of a tower and is now dreaming, not that he stands on top of the tower and is being sustained by it, but that the tower is suspended from him, and the earth from the tower, and that he holds the whole thing hanging ..." 

Friedrich Jacobi (1743-1819).

[His critique of enlightenment rationality (Descartes-Leibnitz) AND romantic idealism (Kant-Fichte).

The War Prayer by Mark Twain

The following is both the written text and an animated adaptation of a short story by Mark Twain (see details at the bottom). 

Simone Weil's Statement of Human Obligation (1943)

Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation

Profession of Faith

There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.

Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.

Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.

Just as the reality of this world is the sole foundation of facts, so that other reality is the sole foundation of good.

That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations.

"At the centre of the human heart is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world."

Those minds whose attention and love are turned towards that reality are the sole intermediary through which good can descend from there and come among men.

Although it is beyond the reach of any human faculties, man has the power of turning his attention and love towards it.

Of Crushed Angels and Single-Stringed Ouds by Karin Dart

 Back in the late nineties I remember sitting at a table outside in our back yard pouring over two programs of study leading to two different Masters degrees. One was the counseling degree being offered at Trinity Western and the other, the Christian Studies degree being offered at Regent College, where my focus would be courses in spiritual formation/spiritual theology. I still vividly remember how alive my heart would feel when I looked at the courses on spiritual formation. I knew which university I was meant to apply to and what a rich experience that wound up being. I had the opportunity to sit in on lectures taught by Jim Houston, Eugene Peterson, Bruce Hindmarsh, three people who held the chair of Spiritual Theology at different points in the history of Regent College. It is also a way of hinting at just how long it took to complete the degree along with marriage and family commitments, raising two very lively children and my involvement with our church community.

Around the same time, from my ongoing connection with my spiritual director, Steve Imbach, I realized that my true heart vocation was in spiritual direction and Steve agreed to take me on as his apprentice. This was before Soulstream, an organization that Steve founded, even began to officially offer classes in spiritual formation and spiritual direction.

"Justice" by George MacDonald

From George MacDonald's Unspoken Sermons

Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy; for thou renderest to every man according to his work.--PSALM lxii. 12.

Some of the translators make it kindness and goodness; but I presume there is no real difference among them as to the character of the word which here, in the English Bible, is translated mercy.

The religious mind, however, educated upon the theories yet prevailing in the so-called religious world, must here recognize a departure from the presentation to which they have been accustomed: to make the psalm speak according to prevalent theoretic modes, the verse would have to be changed thus:--'To thee, O Lord, belongeth justice, for thou renderest to every man according to his work.'

Let the reason of my choosing this passage, so remarkable in itself, for a motto to the sermon which follows, remain for the present doubtful. I need hardly say that I mean to found no logical argument upon it.

Let us endeavour to see plainly what we mean when we use the word justice, and whether we mean what we ought to mean when we use it--especially with reference to God. Let us come nearer to knowing what we ought to understand by justice, that is, the justice of God; for his justice is the live, active justice, giving existence to the idea of justice in our minds and hearts. Because he is just, we are capable of knowing justice; it is because he is just, that we have the idea of justice so deeply imbedded in us.

"Called out of darkness" - by Brad Jersak

My friend, Kevin Miller, spoke at church last Sunday. He shared about some of the joys and sorrows of being a movie screenwriter. I laughed as I heard about his encounters with some famous characters: shaking Chuck Norris' hand, getting eye-contact with the pope, duking it out with Ben Stein, and getting sued by Yoko Ono. But when he shared from the heart about how a series of deep disappointments can lead to a sense of broken trust with God, I sobered up quickly. He was preaching right to my sadness.

In my disappointment, I know that I lost confidence in God's way of running this buggered up world and at times, took it upon myself to take his place--with disastrous effects. I have seen my capacity to fail others miserably and know the hellish pride of self-loathing. It's easy for me to get stuck there, because that place opposes the very core of God's message. Kev related how our old friend, Tyler, had challenged him to stop and to just spend time "soaking" in worship and just listening to God. Sounds simple, but the resistance to engage that way was itself instructive. He recommended sitting quietly and listening to Kim Walker's "Oh How He Loves Us" ... repeatedly, until a message came through.

From Eichmann to Bin Laden

"The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. This new type of criminal ... commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong."

-- Hannah Arendt
Eichmann in Jerusalem

The Great Deed - Julian of Norwich

Julian of Norwich was a great English Christian mystic from the 14th-15th century. Her Revelations of Divine Love relate a series of "showings" given by Christ and endorsed by the Church as a genuine message from Christ.

Revelations of Divine Love - Chapter 32

Our good Lord once said to me, ‘All manner of things shall be well’ and another time he said, ‘You shall see for yourself that all manner of things shall be well.’ My soul understood a variety of truths in these two sayings. On the one hand, God wants us to know that he does not only concern himself with great and noble things, but also with small, humble and simple things. And this is what he means when he says, ‘All manner of things shall be well,’ for he wants us to know that even the smallest things shall not be forgotten.

The Beauty of Ambiguity (Mystery) by William P Young

There is a Wind… that wraps itself around the edges of necessity, tugging and pulling until those boundaries become torn and begin to move to the motion of that which is not visible.

I am back in the warmth of the cabin, watching through the window as early spring rains drench the surrounding landscape, low hanging clouds darkening the day. A late snow is coming, but not quite yet. Even though the fire crackles and snaps as it eats through its main course, I still snuggle deeper into the heaviness of the quilt that Papa left for me. She is soon back with a cup of tea, something that smells of wood and mint and a hint of jasmine. I grin. She knows me best, and whatever it is that she is handing me, I trust.

"Rough week, eh?” she asks, as if she doesn’t already know.

The Problem with Zeal - St Isaac of Syria

Have Peace in Your Heart

"Someone who has actually tasted truth is not contentious for truth.

"Someone who is considered among men to be zealous for truth has not yet learnt what truth is really like: once he has truly learned it, he will cease from zealousness on its behalf.

"The gift of God and of knowledge of him is not a cause for turmoil or clamour; rather this gift is entirely filled with a peace in which the Spirit, love and humility reside.

"The following is a sign of the coming of the Spirit: the person whom the Spirit has overshadowed is made perfect in these very virtues.

"God is reality. The person whose mind has become aware of God does not even possess a tongue with which to speak, but God resides in his heart in great serenity. He experiences no stirring of zeal or argumentativeness, nor is he  stirred by anger. He cannot even be aroused concerning the faith."

John the Baptist: Wild Wise Man - Excerpt from Radical Grace by Richard Rohr

For many reasons we have chosen St. John the Baptist as the patron of our Center for Action and Contemplation.  Our feast day is celebrated on June 24, as the sun (reminiscent of John 3:30) agrees to decrease.  John the Baptist is the prophet who rejects the system without apology, eats the harsh food of that choice and wears the clothes of rejection.  Like our native peoples here in New Mexico, he goes on his vision quest into the desert where he faces his aloneness, boredom and naked self.  He returns with a message, a clarity, a surety of heart that reveals a totally surrendered man.  First he listens long and self-forgetfully; then he speaks, acts and accepts the consequences.  Surely he is the ultimate wild man!  Or is it wise man?  He is both. 

Orual and Psyche on the Violence of the gods (God)

"Do you and I need to flatter the gods any more? They’re tearing us apart . . . oh, how shall I bear it? . . . and what worse can they do? Of course the Fox is wrong. He knows nothing about her. He thought too well of the world. He thought there were no gods, or else (the fool!) that they were better than men. It never entered his mind—he was too good—to believe that the gods are real, and viler than the vilest men.”
     “Or else,” said Psyche, “they are real gods but don’t really do these things. Or even—mightn’t it be—they do these things and the things are not what they seem to be?"

    -Lewis, Till We Have Faces

Shit: Excerpt from F. Buechner's "Book of Bebb"

Bebb said, "That man knows his history, Antonio. It's his special subject, and he knows it inside and out. He reeled off a whole list of times and places where he said we'd met before. He told about the days they had children eight, ten years old and up working in mines like pack mules maybe twelve hours in a stretch till their pitiful little bodies were nothing but skin and bones and they couldn't hardly se in the daylight while people like me went on looking the other direction and preaching they kingdom come. He told about the days they tore the living flesh off people with red-hot tongs and broke their legs with hammers because they didn't believe like they should about doctrine. He went on how those old-time crusaders used religion for an excuse to rape women and raise hell and how back in slavery times there was ministers of the Gospel owned slaves just like everybody else and proved out of scripture it was the way things was meant to be. I don't suppose there was a single miserable thing anybody ever did in the name of Jesus that Roebuck didn't spell out chapter and verse before he was done. He enjoyed it. You could tell from the way he worked his face what a good time he was having.

A Prophecy Unheeded III: Erasmus, 1514

Excerpts from an open letter written by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam to Abbot Antony Bergen (addressing Emperor Maxmillian), 1514. Cited in Erasmus and our Struggle for Peace, by Jose Chapiro (Boston: Beacon Press, 1950).

I see great movements arising. . . . May the favor of God calm this tempest in Christendom. . . . I often wonder what drives—I will not say Christians—but men to exterminate one another like madmen at the price of such effort, such expense, and such risks. What do we do all our life long but wage war? Not even all animals fight, except some wild species. And even they fight not among themselves but with animals of a different species. Besides, they fight with their natural weapons and not with machines in the invention of which we employ an ingenuity worthy of the devils. . . .

Clarion Book of the Month: Excerpts from The Recovery of Love by Jeff Imbach

The Recovery of Love: Four Contemporary Mystics Address our Contemporary Crisis of Intimacy
by Jeff Imbach (Fresh Wind Press, 2005).

from page 82-83

It was common in the Christian circles in which I grew up to reduce love to a discussion of the distinctions between the three greek words for love: agape (self-sacrifice), phileo (familial affection), and eros (passion). By dissecting the word into discrete categories it was possible to elimnate the dangerous and end up with an innocuous but religiously acceptable ideal of love. Seen this way, love became tame at best and hopelessley guilt-producing at worst.

 

Reflections on Gettysburg by Brad Jersak

There are no enemies, only mortals forced to make critical decisions of allegiance and survival amid the horrors of armed conflict (Cf. the back cover of "Gods and Generals" by Jeff Shaara). The American civil war, which sacrificed more American lives than both world wars combined, was an orgy of bloodshed performed under banners of freedom, liberty, honour, and duty. Brother slew brother as the American dream was melted down and refashioned into a meat-grinder, churning out widows and orphans while opposing sides continued to worship one God while serving quite another.

T.S. Elliot and "Little Gidding" by Ron Dart

The Boston Globe once called T.S. Eliot “the most important English speaking poet and critic of the 20th century.” There is no doubt that Eliot was a major presence on the stage of 20th century literary, religious, political, and intellectual life.

Eliot had an uncanny and incisive way of seeing through the pretensions, distractions, mirages, and wasteland of the modern era. He saw because he went deep, and from such depths spoke forth much insight and clarity to his time. He was, in short, not a man taken in by illusions and thinness.

The American Beats and the Canadian West Coast Culture Wars by Ron Dart

It is 50 years this autumn (October 13, 1955) since the Bop and Beat poets of the East Coast (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg) and the Ecological Beat poets of the West Coast (Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen) met at Six Gallery in San Francisco. John Suiter, in his evocative book, Poets on the Peaks: Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen & Jack Kerouac in the North Cascades (20020 had this to say: “The Six Gallery reading has sometimes been called the first synthesis of the East and West Coast factions of the Beat Generation” (p.148) The American Beat poets were also connected to the Black Mountain tradition of poetry.

The Grant Inquisitor: A Chilling Prophecy Unheeded by Brad Jersak

In Dostoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov," we have Ivan's narrative about a Grand Inquisitor of the Church lecturing a silent Jesus who re-visits the Earth and is arrested during the 16th century inquisition. The speech seems to me a chilling prophecy being fulfilled these days in the North American Christian right where fundamentalism and dominion theology have risen phoenix-like in reaction to both 9-11 and postmodernism. As I read Dostoevsky's 125 year old warning, I confess that I shuddered. When will we begin to listen to the prophet's voice?

Phyllis Munday: A BC Mountain Legend by Ron Dart

“Phyl climbed close to one hundred mountains and made over thirty first ascents, many times being the first woman to reach the summit.”

—Phyllis Munday: Mountaineer (2002) p.135

When Phyllis Munday (1894-1990) left this fragile earth our island home, the first generation of BC mountaineering came to a fitting close. The tale of the life of Phyllis Munday is well told and recounted in Kathryn Bridge’s well-crafted missive, Phyllis Munday: Mountaineer (2002). The book is a gentle read and keeper for those with an interest in BC and Coastal Range mountain history.

Robert Service: People's Poet by Ron Dart

He (Robert Service) was a people’s poet. To the people, he was great. They understood him, and knew any verse carrying the by-line Robert W. Service would be a lilting thing, clear, clean and power packed, beating out a story with a dramatic intensity that made the nerves tingle.
—Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph

Robert Service is “the singer of the common man.”
—Stanley Walker

Marya Fiamengo: Nationalist Poet Extraordinaire by Ron Dart

Marya Fiamengo is a nationalist, and a moderate feminist. As a nationalist, she leans toward the Red Tory position.
--Patience After Compline

The day (October 25, 2005) promised to be a full and packed one. Robin Mathews, Glenn Woodsworth, Arnold Shives and I caught the early ferry from Horseshoe Bay (BC) to Gibsons. We had planned to visit Vivian Woodsworth, Dick Culbert, the Woodsworth home in Gibsons and Marya Fiamengo.