Poem 3

   Quite a few years ago, I watched a documentary on t.v. about bullfighting. In it, they showed film clips from several actual fights. In one of them, things go terribly wrong for the bullfighter, there is some kind of a miscue and he is horribly mauled. In the midst of being treated like a ragdoll by the bull, however, for the briefest of moments the bullfighter ends up standing there, straight up and down. How could this be, until I looked a little closer and realized that he was actually suspended on one of the bulls horns, which had pierced his back and come out through his stomach. For me, this was a hard image to shake and eventually became the following published poem.




Dreaming of Madrid


He was a Pedro
or a Juan or a

The Death of the Bullfighter--Clave Antoni

Manuel who stood straight up
suddenly, en la corrida,
impaled on his final
mistake.
In the middle of
the spectacle turned
mayhem, a bullfighter
is tossed toward the sun
then trampled, but then
stands straight up
for a moment, like he
has changed his mind,
has chosen a profession far removed
from this, is waiting for
the bus in Madrid, goes to
work each day and knows
he will return home again.
Perhaps this is the dream he has
as the suit of lights
turns off, he looks down
sees the hard tip of the bull
sprouting from between his
own muscle and bone, knowing
it has ended this way and that
this is the last time it will
end this way


and the bull, looking up through the heart
of the man, knowing no other way
it could have ended.

Cheam

   In the late 50's and early 60's, I spent parts of my summer vacations visiting my grandparents in the little town of Gibson's Landing, on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, not too far north of Vancouver. From the mid-thirties on, they had owned a small cottage on a good-sized parcel of land overlooking the ocean. Getting there required a ferry trip from Vancouver and, in the times I spent there it was a very sleepy little place that I adored.
   As was common custom, they named their little cottage, calling it "Cheam", (pronounced Chee-am). They had pulled this name from a little bit of family history; my grandmother was, in turn, the grand-daughter of Lewis Nunn Agassiz, a settler who'd originally travelled from London, Ontario to B.C. in search of gold back in the 1850's and then, being unsuccessful, had settled in the Fraser Valley. The area he settled became the town of Agassiz and it was nestled at the foot of Mount Cheam. This, then, was where they pulled the name from.
   Gibson's, in the seventies, became the town they filmed "The Beachcombers" in and, with the accompanying publicity, quickly became anything but "sleepy"! During the time I visited there, though, it was a small boys dream.
   A big part of the dream was the ocean being there. At the time, I was living in Edmonton and there was no ocean or even large bodies of water in the vicinity. To get to Gibson's required a two or three day trip through the mountains and this only served to whet a prairie boy's appetite. The mountains were a place of wonder for my brother Bob and I with its jaw-dropping scenery, bears and deer showing up on the side of the highway, the picnic lunches, the souvenir shops, the glaciers, etc. Vancouver was always a marvel when we got there, Stanley Park, Lions Gate bridge, totem poles, the aquarium. Then it was on to Horseshoe Bay and we were riding on a ship! We'd land and then it was a 3 km. trip to Gibson's during which I could barely sit still. Quick trip in to the house to see Granny and Grandad and then down to the beach.

The bottom of the steps leading to Gran's beach

   The beach was a place of wonder. It seemed as though we lived on the beach, we ate there, swam there, and Bob and I always headed there whenever there was nothing going on up top. To get down to the beach you had to follow a winding set of stairs, which, in different spots, were constructed out of either stone or wood. They spilled out onto the beach at the bottom, at high tide you would almost be stepping into water. It was a fairly long beach with almost no sand but a lot of pebbles. Huge logs had rolled in on the tides and planted themselves there. There was a high bluff at one end of the beach that my brother and I were warned not to climb but, generally, we disregarded this (I have been back as an adult with kids and now understand the warnings!) At the other end, near the stairs, was a pool carved out of the rocks. This always had some kind of marine life in it and it was easy to spend an hour or two at a time, on your belly, gazing in to it and trying to corral the little creatures you saw. At low tide, it was amazing the things you discovered, simply by turning over the wet rocks, thousands of crabs and crawly things, barnacles and mussels. The rocks at this end of the beach led around to the next beach and we'd often make the trip there but it wasn't nearly the fun of "Granny's Beach".

Gibson's Landing marina, great place for a kid!

   A twenty-five minute walk from Gran's (early on in one of our visits grandad actually passed away, everything then became "Gran's") took you into the business area of Gibson's and, more importantly, the marina. I would walk there on my own, with a life jacket and a small fishing line, lie down on the end of one of the docks and spend hours catching "shiners", or ocean perch. Gran would let me take a mason jar with me and every shiner I caught went into the mason jar. I would then bring this back, show everyone and then bury them in Gran's rose garden (she had beautiful roses). Of course, the next day, due to my curiosity, I would dig them up again! They did always get re-buried though...
   There was the occasional early-morning fishing trip, generally with either my Dad or my Uncle Keith. Of course, we were always after salmon, and it became a mission of mine to catch one. Finally, the day before we moved to London, I caught one! One excited boy! I have such strong memories of salmon being wrapped in newspaper, all lined up on Gran's kitchen counter, before they were carried down to the beach to be cleaned. They would be scaled and gutted and soon there would be a whole flock of seagulls hovering over us, waiting for the bits that needed to be cast off.
   It is actually very difficult to describe the magic of the place. I can safely say it was my favourite place to be as a kid. I can still smell the smells, see all the sights and remember the excitement. I have gone back a handful of times as a grown-up and much of the magic is gone, though it now appeals in a different way. It is a much more commercial place, as a town. Cheam itself doesn't exist the way it did when we went there, has been added to and upgraded. These days, I'm sure it is worth a small fortune! If I ever win the lottery...
  

Thoughts on a Christian friend

   Unfortunately, we had the opportunity to attend a funeral yesterday. Now, normally, I will use any means at my disposal to avoid funerals and visitations. I find that there never seems to be anything truly appropriate to say and I am always fearful of saying the wrong thing and/or simply blurting out the usual platitudes one hears at these things. So a lot of rationalization goes into me trying to figure a way out of actually attending.
   Yesterdays funeral, however, was different insofar as the person whose life was being celebrated was my boss' mother and I've known my boss for almost thirty years. So really kind of a no-brainer as to whether to attend or not and I did so, happily.
   One of our close friends and co-workers, however, had a different viewpoint. She had decided she would not attend based on her assertion that there would be a Catholic ceremony in which the deceased's name would not be mentioned and none of her life story would be told. We argued with her, saying that this was not our recollection of how Catholic burial services were performed. She would not agree with us, however, and based her final decision on not to attend on her belief that the Catholic church's policy of conducting this type of service was wrong, She strongly felt that when she attended a funeral service she wanted to find out something about the person and that the person's name should be referred to throughout.

   Of course, we attended the service and found out many wonderful things about this person's life and she was referred to by name constantly. This then reinforced what we already knew to be true about Catholic funeral services.
   My reason for writing this is to briefly explore the contradictions our friend presents to us. She is a born-again Christian. She believes whole-heartedly in God and Jesus and feels that her life (and, indeed, the world) is guided by them. In this particular case, we found her decision to not attend the service baffling and contradictory as it seemed to go against true Christian values, the same values that urge you to support your friends and loved ones at times of grief. We attended the service solely to offer our support to our boss and friend (I do consider him to be a friend almost as much or more so than a boss) as we did not know and had never met his mother. Our friend's non-attendance seemed to be based solely on politics (probably not the best word and if I can think of a better one by the end of this blog I will insert it) rather than for any other reason. And this is not the first time she has surprised us with this type of seemingly contradictory notion. A few months ago several of us attended a social get-together at one of our houses. At the end of the evening, one of our group was lacking a way to get home. My wife and I were pondering giving this person a lift but were talked out of it by our Christian friend who we were also driving home that evening. At the time, her rationale was that the other person's home was way over on the other side of town. So we actually ended up leaving this person to her own devices, something which my wife and I strongly regret, to this day. Okay, the "Christian" thing to do would have been to have given this person a ride to the other end of town. Somehow or other, we let the "Christian" person talk us out of this! This, then, the paradox our friend presents us with!
   Having read all this, you may have formed a negative opinion of our friend. Please don't feel this way! She is actually a wonderful person, who has gone above and beyond the call of duty in being a true friend to us and many other people. If you're having a crisis, she is there for you. If you're moving your house, she is there for you. Problems with life in general, she is there for you and we love her for this and lots of other reasons. She has lately presented us with this dichotomy, however.

   And I wonder how universal this dichotomy might be. There are people out there who live their lives simply to do things for other people and they probably don't think of themselves as Christians. And there Christians out there who live under the veil of Christianity and yet are very closed to the world. If you have read some of my previous blogs, you probably already know that I am of the opinion there may not have even been a "Jesus", in the historical sense. Yet, I do believe that when you are judging someone's actions (if we should even be doing that!) it is sometimes helpful to ask yourself, "What would Jesus do?" Well, I'm pretty sure Jesus would have given our friend a lift to the other end of the city. I'm also pretty sure he would have attended the funeral yesterday, regardless of whether it was Catholic, Muslim or Rosicrucian if he thought he was supporting someone in grief.

   To be totally clear, my friend is a better person than I am! I can give you all sorts of examples. The difficult spot she has placed herself in is, because of her Christian posturing, that there are now these expectations on her, deservedly or not, and it is possible that her actions may be judged differently than another person's because of this. Which, of course, is probably not fair. There is a saying from the Bible that goes,"Judge not, lest ye be judged". Attitudinally-speaking, I believe this to be true. I, however, was the one who ultimately did not give our other friend a ride home that night! So mark me down as a non-Christian, for Christ's sake! That will lower the expectations!