Guest Column: Our goal should be healthier communities

By Medicine Hat News Opinon on November 4, 2017.

It’s Halloween as I write. A delightful and weird little event, teeming with all sorts of conflicting traditions and practices, none of which make any sense at all. Except for the ones tied to the excitement, wonder and mischievous missions of little kittens, sea captains and ghosts all set to plunder the neighbourhood for sweet and salty treats.

Halloween is, of course, for the kids. But then we see the suppressed smiles and fussing of young moms and dads. We notice the bemused grandparents watching in the background. And then we see the confused and excited little ones begin to stumble off into the haunting darkness followed by the awkwardly proud and watchful presence of dads and moms shuffling zombie-like down the sidewalks, grunting occasional greetings to the neighbours. This evening is a rare and beautiful family affair, and a social celebration of neighbourliness.

But when all this beautiful silliness is over we are left with pails of goodies and memories of wide-eyed and then tired little ones.

Dig a little deeper and other themes begin to present themselves. Halloween is one of those events that connect parents with their children’s experiences of their world. Parents begin to see that for the child everything is draped in mystery, wonder, and novelty. The child is not just a mini-adult but is instead, a tiny, unique and voracious sense-making being. We are reminded of the priceless gift and the heavy responsibility we have as parents. We are, through Halloween and its weird little practices, joined more closely to our children.

Seeing the evening through the eyes of one’s child, a parent may be reminded of what adulthood has taken from us. We no longer delight as much in novelty or in the joy of unravelling the mysterious. We have become somewhat estranged from the child-like wonder about changing seasons, the falling leaves, or the golden sunsets. We rarely wonder about the power of the wind, the fierceness of a prairie fire, the flight of the geese, the stranded worm after rainfall, the fluttering by of a butterfly. We just don’t experience these things as a child does. Curiosity has been lost in our growing up.

How did this happen? Maybe our parents, far too interested in good grades leading to good careers leading to comfortable and boring lives, are at fault here. Our teachers, too focused on order, mandated curricula and provincial achievement tests, may have undervalued and suppressed the gentle pleading light of curiosity flickering in the eyes of their students. And the light slowly dimmed.

So the flame subsided and we became mortgage owners and mongers of marketable skills and architects of our own images to improve our saleability, and ladder climbers and taxpayers and self-serving political tribe members. And there is just no time to sit back and shed a joyful tear for the beauty of the morning, for the smile of our partner, for the thousand little gifts that life brings every day. And we dribble away our lives in mucking and fussing and pretending and coveting. And we deny the very real possibility that we could die tomorrow, another theme obliquely presented in the skeletons, the zombies, and the gravestones of Halloween.

So one of the lessons of Halloween, I believe, is to remind us that it is possible to live a fuller and richer life, a life lightly sprinkled with a dusting of curiosity and wonder, and fuelled by tiny moments of joy and gratitude for the hundreds of little things that give meaning to our existence. To awaken to these little things, to experience a private smile in gratitude for the very fact that one is breathing today, brings one back to the richness of the child’s experience of the world.

Even a secular interpretation of Jesus’ words suggests that somehow, somewhere, we have missed the boat.”Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.”

Maybe we would live and die happier if, instead of defining our lives by how we are doing in the race for material aggrandizement, we stop listening to those who preach the gospel of “the healthy economy.’ We know “a healthy economy” with its Conservative shibboleth of the “fiscally balanced budget” always means cutting taxes, reducing services, and making sure the wealth-producers are happy. This also means that the poor become poorer and their futures more limited, and the relatively voiceless are pushed aside. Anger and frustration grow, and the guilt of the ‘winners’ blinds them to the misery of others. These things destroy the concept of healthy communities.

Could we instead begin to embrace the goal of healthier communities? Can we imagine living in more just, more inclusive, and sustainable and happier societies?

Rachel and Jason will be tricking or treating at your door in the next provincial election. They’ll each be wearing very different costumes and offering very different tricks. Scary stuff indeed.

Peter Mueller is a long-time resident of Medicine Hat who, in spite of all the evidence, continues to believe we can build a better world.