May 13, 2005 - Glebe Report

31 Glebe Report May 13, 2005 CONTEST
Congratulations to our Essay Contest winners
JUDGE'S COMMENTS
I picked two winners. These two essays, MR. TRUDEAU and the untitled
essay, were very well written, heartfelt and memorable. I suggested a title of
A PLEA FOR COMPASSION for the untitled one.
UNTITLED quietly but effectively connects the wretched and the
beautiful. In understated, heartfelt prose, the public horrors of genocide in
Rwanda are linked to a moment of poignant compassion when a small girl
hugs a homeless person.
This essay needs some tinkering with punctuation in the middle of the
fourth paragraph. I also think the title of Romeo Dallaire's book should be
used, as well as the title of the Lonely Planet book about the kindness of
strangers. The last paragraph needs some attention to the semicolons, etc.
MR.TRUDEAU is a sincere homage, perhaps one might say, a passionate
defence of a great man. This essay eloquently reacquaints us with the kind of
man we could use in the current unsettled weather of our political climate.
In this essay, the last third of the first paragraph might need a bit of work
to give it clarity of meaning.
UNTITLED
(A PLEA FOR COMPASSION)
BY COLLEEN SLOAN
Earlier this year I read Romeo
Dallaire's book describing the
genocide in Rwanda. It contains
many horrific images and is an
account that makes you want to cry
or scream, to rage against something
or someone or maybe just hide in a
hole and never come out.
Earlier today I read an article
online about a 9-year-old girl who
was speaking to a group of business
people and about her response to the
homeless.
Her message seems
simple enoughbe nice to them.
According to the article, her
message moved several people to
tears.
These two events are seemingly
distant and disconnected from each
other, and yet I have a strong sense
that they are not as disconnected as
they seem. In my mind they
converge and I am slowly realizing
that they are all part of a bigger
picture. The picture of humanity.
Romeo Dallaire describing the
systematic annihilation of nearly a
million people, and the world's
lackadaisical response (or lack of
response) to the horror and this
small girl talking about giving a hug
to a homeless man are both just
telling us what it means to be
human.
Since the publication of LGen
Dallaire's book many people in the
world have vowed never to let this
kind of thing to happen again.
Canada has just changed its foreign
policy in part with the idea in mind
of preventing the Icinds of atrocities
that happened in Rwanda, but I have
to admit I'm a little skeptical. It was
less than a year ago that I was in
Guatemala reading about their 36-
It's All
year-long civil war; about the
decimation of the indigenous
population, about babies having their
fingernails pulled out and their
genitals cut off or their heads
smashed against stones, about
women being raped, tortured and
killed, about entire villages being
wiped out in a single afternoon.
It got to the point where if I saw a
baby on the bus with intact
fingernails I would secretly rejoice at
the wonder.
My friend finally brought me the
Lonely Planet book on the kindness
of strangers, stories of people who
had been unexpectedly kind and
caring and demonstrated unusual
grace, and suggested I might try
reading that instead.
Which brings us back to the small
girl.
Everywhere in the world, we see
this juxtaposition between the
wretched and the beautiful, the
things that we almost can't bear to
look and those that we want to grab
hold of and keep close to our hearts.
I think we are touched by both
because if we really look deep down
in our own hearts we recognize that
within each one of us lies both the
capacity to be wretched and the
capacity to be beautiful. We can at
times be indifferent to suffering, and
at other times reach out and give all
we have to remind someone else of
their own beauty.
This one small girl is reaching out
and reminding homeless people;
those who might be depressed,
mentally ill, smelly, dirty, and
marginalized that they are human
too. A striking reminder to us all that
we are at our most human when
someone sees both the wretched and
the beautiful in us and hugs us
anyway.
Amethyst Women's Addiction Centre
488 Wilbrod Street, Ottawa, ON K1N 6M8
Tel: (613) 563-0363 Fax: (613) 566-2175
Web site: www.amethyst-ottawa.org
E-mail: amethyst @ amethyst-ottawa.org
Writer Rick Taylor teaches
writing at Carleton University.
He will be giving a Writers in the
Community workshop at the
GCCShaping Material For
Memoir and Travel Writingon
June 11 from 1-3 p.m. He is the
author of House Inside the
Waves: Domesticity, Art and the
Sulfing Life and is now working
on an unusual book about
swimming called Water and
Desire.
MR. TRUDEAU
BY WALTER JOSEPH
MacDONALD
Just like the other tens of
thousands of people that morning I
felt a calling to set aside whatever
was happening in my personal life
and get myself to Parliament Hill.
The line could have been fourteen
hours instead of the four that it was,
and that would have been quite
alright. The spiritual energy that
seemed to concentrate itself upon
the Mahogany coffin was an
experience we will not likely see
any time soon. Similar to the
winning goal in the final game of the
Russian Canadian play off series,
and Expo '67, all eyes fell upon the
same page: A great unifying
experience. On a personal note it
was a day like no other. Moved to
the point of tears I knew that in
almost perfect alignment, give or
take a day or two, twenty years
prior, Mr. Trudeau had delivered his
eloquent eulogy at my father's
funeral. The sense of synchronicity
in the air for me was uncanny. Even
the whether [sic.] was remarkably
similar. A man bearing a microphone
approached my group fromacross
the green; and somehow I
knew he was coming toward me. I
was very pleased to say a few words.
The sense of equanimity and harmony
on that hill was really something
to behold. I fell in love even.
Finally I was at the coffin. Unbeknownst
to me my photo was taken
and appeared in the paper the
following day. I looked just like my
dad on a previous occasion long
before in a photo that shows him
peering quizzically at Mrs. Trudeau.
If these are the final words that
fall upon my sheaf of paper I can always
make the claim that the Right
Honourable Pierre Trudeau referred
to my writing as eloquent and
sincere. It was never a surprise to me
that Richard [Gwynn] adopted the
word magus in referring to him. As
my mother says, aptly and simply,
"he was quite a boy". It is a
compliment he would enjoy. He was
many things that certain critics
claimed he was not.
18 and over category
Judge Rick Taylor
Mr. Trudeau was a deeply
emotional man, and he was anything
but arrogant. Yes the Jesuits told
those boys that they were the leaders,
but an arrogant boy that does not
make. Pierre Trudeau was a figure
who represented the true meaning of
humility, and if this comment evokes
rage and disbelief in certain readers,
then good I say, good; not to put you
down, because that is wrong, but
rather to enlighten. And if you think
now, that I am being arrogant, you
are sadly mistaken. Humility is
nothing more than a true assessment
of one's own strengths and
weaknesses; of one's qualities, and
in so doing, to enjoy a true
appreciation of others. What
appeared to be arrogance, was, on
the contrary, a person who decided
to embrace the light; and in so doing,
had a great time dancing and
pirouetting across an international
stage, showing each and every one of
us what was available to us if we
chose to embrace our [own] light.
Arrogant? No. One of the brightest
lights I have ever seen? Absolutely.
For a man to stand head and
shoulders above everyone else at
international gatherings in terms of
his ability to consider ideologies and
beliefs far different than his own is
the antithesis of arrogance. That is
humility in action. Ask Nelson
Mandela or [Mikhail] Gorbachev
what they think about this, and they
will agree.
There are those too who would
say that Mr. Trudeau }mew nothing
of self sacrifice. To me he [was] the
embodiment of self sacrifice. How
could it not be so? How easy it
would have been for him to spend a
lifetime in coffee shops talking
philosophy and literature; something
that was a real option for him. If ever
there were a human being who
understood what discipline and selfsacrifice
means, it was Pierre Elliot
Trudeau. To become the fascinating
human being that he was would require
nothing less. Some people
strive to be the Prime Minister. Mr.
Trudeau strove to be a whole person.
An honest man. Someone who did
not want to become the Prime
Minister. How wonderful!
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