The Problem with the Church

It seems to me, as a committed Christian, that we, in the Church, are going a long way astray.
I'm not speaking of the definition of our faith, nor of our worship, but of how we operate as a body.
We are still of the opinion, even as we speak of a "post-Christian Era" where our faith does not seem to be relevant to most people, that we can do business as usual - full-time, dedicated staff, to lead our prayers, guide us, counsel us, and teach us - and that somebody else, essentially, will pay for this.
In short, we act as if we believe we ought to be an "Established Church", funded by everyone in the community.
This seems to be true, no matter which of the main-line denominations we espouse. We have large buildings - often ones that sit vacant, unused, or only marginally used, most of the time. We have professional prayers - ostensibly to lead us, but (from the way we act) really to do the praying for us.
We have paid staff (We need them!) to maintain these buildings, to do our clerical work, as well as a great deal of the teaching we claim we need to do, as well as to have.
It is increasingly difficult to maintain this structure, as more and more of our limited resources are poured into salaries and all the necessary benefits that go with them - medical insurance, pensions, for when our workers are too old, tired, burnt-out, or infirm to continue.
The picture is frightening - and we sedulously avoid looking at it.
We know that, as far as our own health is concerned, this does not work. We do need to look at our bodies, our condition. We need to accept the sober truth that things are not working properly, and address the issue - be it angina, a warning of heart disease; a growth that is cancerous; a problem with mental health, or whatever the issue. To ignore it is to hasten our end - and probably to increase the agony of it.
Why should not the same apply to our churches - our bodies of people called together to do God's work? Business as usual is NOT working. Therefore, I believe, we must find another model, and the sooner we do so, the better the prognosis for the body.

I'm going to suggest that there is a model that might serve better - that was once the Church's way of life, and should become it again. The problem is, essentially, that we have too many people depending on our charity for a living. Oh - it's not that the jobs they do are not needed, that they do not work, and work very hard, often for far less than they could earn in the secular world. It's that, unless and until we can attract the rest of the world into our circle of faith, we cannot, really, begin to support such a body.

I am a Scout, as well as a faithful member of the Church. Scouting has found (as has our system movement, Guiding) that we have grown too "professional" for our membership - that we had too many Chiefs, and not enough Indians. It has been true, also, that this imbalance has actively served to drive down the number of people willing to join - that parents have grown to feel that they were not getting value for the dollar spent in bringing their children into the movement.
Part of it came from a period of lax acceptance standards, lax standards of behavior, and poor delivery of our program. We had serious problems - of misconduct in sexual behavior, in use of funds, in training of leaders, and quality of program - and realized that the only way to preserve the valuable part of the movement was to change - to reduce the cost of the program (get rid of excessive paid staff); weed out the unacceptable leaders, for whatever reason; and improve our standards of screening, training, and delivery. It has been a time of turmoil. I'd suggest that not all the changes have been as good as they ought to be, but as far as health of the movement is concerned, an increase in the numbers of Youth involved, an increase in the general health of units, can only be seen as positive.

So - the strong suggestion I have for the Church - and I think this must, if they wish to survive, apply to all the major denominations - is a) to reduce the numbers of full-time, paid staff - clergy, and clerical, to the minimum - far lower than we have at present. Yes - we need people called, identified, trained and ordained to be our leaders - our guides in prayer and sacrament, our counsel in difficulty, our beacons in moral behavior.  I do not suggest, for one moment that these are not needed. But most of them should, for more than simply fiscal reasons, have other, "real", jobs - ones in the every-day world. Teachers - yes - for teaching is a large part of what their task is, even as clergy, but also as workers - and here I think it appropriate to suggest that the skilled trades are as important in their lessons for such leaders as more prestigious "executive" jobs. Our Lord WAS a carpenter, following his earthly father's trade, until He set out to preach - this was the custom of the time, and of that culture. Saul of Tarsus - a man learned in the Law of God, and very much of that lawyerly cast of mind - was a tent-maker, and plied his trade to help earn his keep - he refused, as he told his correspondents, to batten on his converts, even if it were technically appropriate. So, also, we should be earning our own keep, not in the Church, as much as possible.
A friend of mine, a priest, remarked that one of the difficulties that full-time professional clergy face is that they become so familiar with Holy Things, that they lose some of the sense of awe and mystery that surrounds them. These things become simply the tools they work with, and they, themselves, become simply workers at a job, when, in reality, we live in a world of Mystery and Awe, and are called, continuously, to service.
Will this be disruptive? Of course. Will I like it? Probably not - and only partly because one aspect of it would be that the part-time job I have, myself, in a parish-church, would become, of necessity a volunteer job. It's a good thing I'm a pensioner, and not really dependent on this job for income. Will it mean the loss of more church buildings? I hope not - but that would depend on our being able to find other ways of using them.
We must change - or we will become like the large theropods of old - highly successful species, but unable to adapt to changed circumstances, and so doomed to die off.

Doping in Sport

It seems to me that we miss the facts, when we get all upset about doping in sports. The reason - the only reason - for this is that there is pressure on the professional sport participants to win - at all costs, by whatever means it takes. Fairness is not a factor. We'd like to believe that it exists - we feel it ought to - but it has not, for centuries, probably millennia.
The reason? Simply this: that all sports are, in a sense, ritualized warfare. They exist to channel into safe areas the rivalry between me and my neighbour. Who is better? (Does it really matter?) So we try to see who is faster on foot, who has the better eyesight, the steadier hand, who is stronger.
I and my friends, my village mates, my countrymen, set out to prove we are better than those others - in all sorts of team sports. All the various team games - football (soccer), hockey in its forms, polo, and the variants on rugby football - all are stylized battles, with rules more or less agreed upon between the combatants. We see this most clearly in the older forms, such as the Irish sport of Hurling - surely the development of an ancestor of all the others - particularly when the contest takes place over an open stretch of ground, with no preparation.

So - if winning is important, and players are otherwise equally matched, then what I eat or drink, what I take in, becomes more important in giving me that extra edge, to ensure that I win.
As sport becomes more professionalized, and we become vicarious players, just watching, we feel that our side must win - but we can do nothing to ensure that - other than deserting it, if it fails. How do we desert? Simply, by not going to our own games (and the more of them that come to us on television, the easier this is to do), by not paying to support our team. This, in turn, puts pressure on both the players and managers to win at all costs - and some will try anything: brawling, to maim other players, and so overwhelm the "enemy", stealing players, or bribing them to throw games, taking drugs to enhance our performance.
We, as spectators, find ourselves shocked - even though what WE do has contributed to this. We are prepared only to pay for wins - yet become upset when these wins are found to be improperly achieved (at least by what we fondly believe are the rules).

I think this is the reason I've become less and less interested in professional sports. The ethos of win at all costs simply ruins proper sport. It's not fun any more - it's business, and the win becomes, if not destructive (in which case it IS war) more and more a fake - staged for the financial benefit of the players, as much as anything.

Bike Lanes as perfect Soltuion

The following is the unedited text of my latest letter to the local paper:

As a "serious cyclist" of over fifty years experience, I take exception to the impression left by the editorial from the Ottawa Citizen in Friday's paper (A City Safe for Cyclists).
While bike lanes and paths are a part of the solution - and we do have both here, and quite effective ones - they are not all, nor even the greatest part of the solution. Far more important, in my view are a) education and skill - both of cyclists and motorists, and b) enforcement.
Education - Driving a car is not a "right", but a privilege, held on good behaviour. It demands the highest standard of performance, with attention to the job that is, often, closer than that required in boaters, or pilots. Most drivers are less than adequately trained - and I do not except myself. Most of us have developed deplorable habits - speeding, lazy adherence to stop signs, or other control devices, and a general cavalier attitude towards other road users. Many cyclists, despite their much higher exposure to physical hazards, have the same mind-set.
We all, without exception, need retraining.
Enforcement - As things are, speeding and lax observance of stop signs and traffic lights only bring sporadic attention from police. It would appear that such matters are only important if there is a temporary push on (as at the start of the school year), or we are involved in an accident. For cyclists, there is virtually no enforcement, whether of lighting laws, side-walk riding, the use of helmets, or signage - all related to the personal safety of the rider.
Motorists need to be sure that, if they bully other road users, they will lose the privilege of driving - now, not in six months, or two years, with a one-month suspension that is rescinded on hardship grounds.
Cyclists need to know that they will be required to conform to reasonable norms of behaviour and equipment. They are (most of us) already aware that the laws of physics are not subject to court delays.
In short - all road users - drivers, in effect - need to become aware of the others on the road - and it must begin with each one of us, for ourselves.

Bike Lanes on Streets

Since I've been riding for over fifty years - I started in the late spring of 1954 - I've watched, with interest, how motorists and cyclists interact and coexist. For me, this has intense practical meaning - it is, after all, my own general safety and ease that is at stake here.

One development that has attracted my attention has been the introduction of bike lanes along the side of streets. As long as it is clearly understood that although the lane is the usual spot for a bike, the cyclist is not absolutely restricted to it, but may (and should) move out as intentions differ, such a lane is not a bad thing, in itself.

In our community - Victoria, BC - a number of these have been established, and I've been trying to see if there is a rationale for the successful ones. I think I may have found a couple of factors that make a set of lanes successful.

One - a primary one - is relevance. It must start where people will start riding, or the need for such a lane begins, and go where people who ride are going. A second is continuity - it has to go all the way. Both of these are hard to achieve, when a lane is being established, as such work has budget limits, and so needs to be done over several years. It does require restraint, on the part of the scoffing cyclist, to wait for the rest of the project.

Another criterion is the suitability of the street. here, I'd cite a perfect case match. Blanshard St. is the major thoroughfare into the city from the north. It takes most of the traffic to and from the ferry route over to the mainland of BC, from Swartz Bay. When this road was homologated, in the early 70's (I recall being in Victoria on our honeymoon, in the summer of '72, and parts of it were still being constructed.) it was build 6 lanes wide, with slip lanes for all turns, right and left. Most of the cross-streets were blocked, or diverted. Consequently, all the "blocks" were at least three times the length of others around there. When bike lanes first came onto the public radar here, over a decade ago, Blanshard was the first thoroughfare to be equipped. In this case, fitting the lanes involved a slight narrowing of all lanes, to allow a full 5' of room on the right side, along with some rebuilding of the right-turn slip lanes, to separate them from the bike lane. As such, it has worked wonderfully, forming a major arterial route for cyclists into and out of town.

One cross-route (Finlayson St.) was later established, along a narrow residential street that was getting a lot of through traffic, because it formed a natural cross-connection. Here the work consisted of installing control islands in the middle of the street, to give some left-turn refuges, and putting in parking bays in every block, to keep some on-street parking, while placing a bike lane along the curb. Despite having a nasty little ridge to go over, this is an effective route, for cyclists, as it goes from the area near both the University and the Community College (and a major Mall) to both the Blanshard route, and roads and paths along the harbour (as well as another Mall).

However, its layout illustrates another facet of bike lane planning. In this case, the road was already an important arterial street, but could not be expanded to carry four lanes of traffic. To increase its capacity, while not driving away local residents, on-street parking was banned, except in the new bays. The Left-turn refuge islands made it possible for the (relatively) small amount of turning traffic to be removed form the travel lanes. The bike lane was, as it were, an added bonus, to "absorb" the extra space left when on-street parking was abolished.

This system was also adopted along Fort Street, through a narrow little area that used to be known as "The Dardanelles" (Kinda dates itself, doesn't it - back to 1914-18). The area, between the intersection with Oak Bay Ave/Pandora St., (one and the same) and the head of Yates St. was too narrow for streetcars to meet and pass. When I first moved here, it had four very narrow lanes of traffic, with six intersecting streets, at most of which both right and left turns were permitted. The result was that through traffic was compelled to jink from lane to lane, and back, to proceed - not conducive to smooth traffic flow. The improvement has been to reduce this stretch to one through lane each way, with a dedicated left-turn lane in the centre. What to do with the half-lanes left at the right sides? The improvement was a wide bike lane on each side, almost wide enough to park a car in. This allowed cars turning right to be out of the through flow. The result has been a street that it is comfortable, again, to drive along.
So - from my point of view, bike lanes make sense if they go to and/or from places people wish to be. They have to follow (reasonably) normal traffic patterns. there is (or may be) one further criterion for a workable path - grades. When I first came to Victoria, a route had been established between beacon Hill Park and just north and east of the city boundaries, at Camosun College, near the University. As a concept, for a purely recreational route, it almost made sense. it had, however, several flaws: 1) It failed to go all the way to the University. In fact, that end of the route was at the very crest of a steep hill, involving a right turn into heavy climbing traffic, on a street that allowed no improvement (Lansdowne Ave., in front of Camosun College). The route was neither convenient to exit, nor enter (involving a left turn across those two lanes of heavy climbing traffic, with similar traffic bearing down behind you). 2) Crossings of other arterial streets, like Shelbourne and Bay Streets. were arranged away from traffic signals. This would be a definite deterrent to novice cyclists. 3) The route managed to climb up, and descend, the same side of a hill at least twice, before it managed to cross it, and was directed, between streets, along the one block that had a sharp little nubbin of rock in the middle to climb - in short, too many hills, for not enough result. 4) Finally, in its passage of the edge of the down-town core, along Vancouver St., it was built as an off-street bike way, beside the sidewalk. The result of this was that it became merely an extension of the sidewalk, with all the detriments of that - every driveway is now an uncontrolled intersection, and, because of the pedestrian use, drivers did not look to see cyclists there.
The route was not only useless. In parts, it was positively dangerous - definitely so to one who, like myself, rode his bike as if it were motorised. So - grades are acceptable - land goes up and down, and I must accept that, or give up riding altogether - but there is no need, unless one is on a training regimen, that one seek out and climb every hill - preferably several times - on the way to one's destination. Again, a route that is one cars and trucks use is likely to have as few hills on it as is possible, practically.
Ultimately, the bike lane is just an adjunct - a pleasant one, yes, particularly for those who are not hardened sinners on the road, capable of looking out for their own skins, and comfortable with that - to an already acceptable route. It can serve to get people who wish to ride for more than just pleasure, but need a bit of structural help, out there, so that they can learn to cope with traffic, and make their routes where they need them to be. It is not the best possible solution, and, poorly conceived, it is not even a good solution.
There are other things we need - training and enforcement come to mind - but those are matters for another comment.

Why Obey the Law?

A commentor on one of my recent postings asked why, if he, the writer, felt that a particular aspect of the Law (in this case, a law requiring the use of a bike helmet) was unfair, and he opted to disobey it, that meant that, in essence, he granted liberty to others to disobey parts of the law they disagreed with.

It is a fair question - and one that requires a thoughtful answer. So - here goes:

This is not a matter, really, of legal interpretation, or of choice, but one of ethics, and theology.
I assume we are created, essentially, equal. Therefore, we share the same natural freedoms (rights, if you will), the same natural needs, and the same natural responsibilities towards others. As children, we are concerned, vitally so, until we are taught by experience that it just is not so, that we (and others) are treated fairly. "No fair!" is a common, and accurate, playground cry.
Well, the Law, as it stands purports, at least, to deal with all people fairly - hence the blind-fold on statues of Justice. That it does not succeed in this, I grant, but that is largely because we are, ourselves, fallible, weak, imperfect people, and we do make mistakes.
However, in theory, at least, the Law treats us equally. Any law, then, that treats us unequally - and it matters not, for this purpose which of us gets the short end of the stick, is inherently unfair. If, then, motorists are required, for their own protection, to drive in certain ways, to use certain equipment (like seat-belts), and generally to treat other road users as they would be treated, then does it not follw that we, as cyclists, ought to do the same?
If I, as a cyclists, can chose to disobey the helmet law, for example, can I not likewise chose to disobey the seat-belt law, or the restrictions on speed that have been established for general safety (and, tell me, please, that drivers DON'T break these laws, and most others!). For that matter, what is there to make me obey stop-signs, or red lights; one-way restrictions, or driving on the right of the road, or any other traffic law, for that matter? If I can break any or all of these, what's to stop anyone else from doing the same?
In fact, we DO (as a general rule) adhere to most of the traffic rules - it works in our general long-run favour. What I'm saying of us as cyclists is that, as long as we want to be able to use the public roads as our paths, we have to abide by the rules laid down, whether or not we agree with them

Cultural Amnesia - or what we forget

Cultural Amnesia
(Clive James)
I picked up this work – a collection of reflective essays on writers about the arts, mainly of our own times – not knowing what to expect, but intrigued by the title.
What I have found is a gem of English writing. The author, an Australian by birth, and in age technically a war-time baby, has spent a life reading, studying, and finally writing and broadcasting on the arts – verbal and visual – in the United Kingdom. His essays are a plea for affective writing and clear thought. He is, in the best sense of the word, a Humanist, one for whom the best study, the only really worthwhile study, is Man himself, in all his glory, with all his weaknesses and all his foibles. That men have been – are, at times – evil he does not deny, nor that these same evil men can be, as Hitler was, artistic.
His writing is not a matter of whitewash – that the evil among us are the victims of some overwhelming compulsion. He will insist on the individual, personal responsibility of each for his own actions. However, he also agrees that there is an ethos in an era, or society, that is very difficult for members to fight. Such was, he felt, the case in Nazi Germany. That many writers DID fight it was not surprising – most of them were not IN the society – they were automatically excluded, as Jews, as Slavs, as not worth living.
However, what is most interesting, to me, is not his thesis – his underlying interest in the Arts, and what others think and say, but his affective use of language.
His writing I found strewn with gems of expression –little lapidary gems that illuminate an idea, or a word; descriptions that change ones perception of a particular habit of writing or thinking.
An example of this I found in his essay on Paul Pavlovich Muratov, an essayist, novelist, and, for Clive, the most learned, original, and gifted Russian art historian of his time – but now totally unknown. In writing of this man’s work Clive said that as a student of the High renaissance in Italy, in the 1960’s, he had read, and swallowed, hook, line, and sinker, Heinrich Wölfflinn’s teaching. About other eras, he could, he said, form the occasional independent judgement, but for the Cinquecento, he had "a seeing-eye dogma, and the snorting beast was provided by Wölfflinn."
The phrase struck me like a thunderbolt - for it exemplifies all that is wrong with acceptance of a dogma as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It does take over our critical faculties, guides us whither we know not, and keeps us at its mercy.
Another example – and I’ll stop with this, for the whole book is far too full to cite in one essay – He writes, in the introduction, of the difficulties of being a Scholar, and Jewish, in Vienna in the years leading up to the Anschluss. There was a real, stultifying, quota system throughout society. As a result, he claims, there was a great tendency for scholarship and humanism to be pursued outside, rather than inside the university. That a case could be made, and was, that this redounded to the benefit if those excluded, he grants.
"But it was a bad case. The humiliations were real, and the resentments lasting. But there was one "undoubted benefit to us all. Whole generations of Jewish literati were denied the opportunity to "waste their energies on compiling abstruse doctoral theses. They were driven instead to "journalism, plain speech, direct observation and the necessity to entertain. The necessity to "entertain could sometimes be the enemy of learning, but not as often as the deadly freedom to "write as if nobody would ever read the results except a faculty supervisor who owed his own post "to the same exemption." (p.2, Overture: Vienna)
You see here his ability to illuminate, to transform our perceptions of a system. This also contains, for young readers, a plea: "Make your work interesting – have an audience in mind, whose thoughts you wish to sway. Sell your work, and your self. " It is not enough that the ducks be lined up, that the weapon be properly charged aimed and fired. That is a technical matter, one that anyone can master, given sufficient practice and time. No – his is a plea for the use of formal rhetoric – and an exemplar there of.
This is not a book one can sit down with, and read through from cover to cover. There is no connected narrative, no over-riding theme of life. There is, though, a series of reflections on writers and thinkers – some good, some evil, and most mixed, very thoroughly. In anything, it most closely resembles a book of sermons – to be sampled, thought about, pondered on, and then dipped into again. The gems are there, page after page of them. I have by no means caught them all – some, I suspect, are dependant on our knowledge of writers, or their subjects, and the more we know, the more we’ll find. If asked for one word, I’d have to say:"Thought-provoking".

A note on sources

Many of these posts were written in response to news items in local papers, over a number of years. I'm sending them up, as is, because I think they illustrate particular aspects of cycling - at least as a form of driving - that need our attention. 

The Motor Vehicle Act (Revised Statutes of British Columbia, 1996, Chapter  318) is the governing legislation I drive under - whether by bike or car. It mandates the use of helmets by all cyclists, at all times. It requires us to light up, during hours of darkness - or at any other time when, in my opinion as operator, it would be prudent and necessary. It requires both head and tail light to be fixed to the bike - white aimed forward, and red back - and permits me to use a blinking light "that is of a design approved by ICBC". (To my knowledge, though I've not specifically researched this, ICBC - the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia - the Crown Corporation who is our primary insurer on the roads - ALL drivers must purchase basic minimum insurance through them - has not yet signed off any tail-light designs as specifically meeting requirements.) The Act specifically states that a cyclist "has all the rights and privileges of a driver", and then goes on to enumerate a few things specifically for ourselves - lighting and helmets being the brunt of the matter.

This last is good, though it is marred, in my view, by the section of definitions, that specifically removes the bicycle from the definition of a vehicle. As an aside - how one can be a driver, when one is NOT driving a vehicle is a legal conundrum beyond my powers of logic. The only thing I can figure, is that, since the primary thrust of the act is concerned with MOTOR vehicles, whenever one says vehicle, one assumes it is motorised, that the descriptive adjective is redundant. I far prefer the Ontario Statute, where a bicycle is still defined as a vehicle, and, under one clause is specifically permitted to be away from the curb, and at the centre-line, when approaching a left turn into another street, or into a driveway. Otherwise the two acts are almost identical. 

I grew up in Ontario, but moved out to this coast in the mid-60's. I've no desire to leave, thanks to an equable climate that allows and encourages riding all year round.

So - when I cite my local legislation, I specifically invite YOU, gentle reader, to do likewise, wherever you live. Know your local laws. That way, you will have some basis for your claims, when you have to complain to police.

I'd be glad to help compare local laws, if you would be so kind as to send me back links, so that I can check them myself. No, it's not (quite) a nasty, suspicious mind. I took my degree in Linguistics, but my study love has always been History. One thing one learns, or should, in getting a basic undergraduate degree is HOW to study, how to master a subject, how to research and interpret what one has found, and how to present it, to make sense of something, for someone else for whom it is just another essay. That's, really, all I'm trying to do here.