I do not know Rick Hansen personally. I only know that he has an excellent reputation as an athlete and as the Director of the Rick Hansen Foundation, an organization that raises money for research into spinal cord injuries, such as those which Hansen himself suffered at the age of 15.

I do, however, know Sam Sullivan well enough to affirm, without a second’s hesitation, that his nomination would be good for Canada, good for people with disabilities around the world, and good for Sam Sullivan himself, whose greatest dream is to contribute to Canadian public life. To contribute! For Sam, this verb is charged with all the meaning carried by the French word engagement. His nickname is “Citizen Sam.” After a skiing accident that resulted in quadriplegia, he went into a long depression, a state that reduced him to observing the world as a passive and bitter spectator from the institution in which he lived. Happily, de-institutionalization was on the government’s agenda at the time. Inspired by the love of his niece, then a child, who threw her arms around his neck and told him she loved him, Sam chose to live. He left the institution, and the security it offered, to confront the larger world and to make his contribution to society.

I met him several years later as a participant in a project called Philia. Sam and I were founding members of the project, as were Al Etmanski and Vicki Cammack, two people known worldwide for their efforts in community building and social innovation. We borrowed the word philia from Aristotle, taking it from a context in which it signifies the love that creates communities. Inspired especially by the works of John McKnight, summarized in his book, The Careless Society - Community and its Counterfeits, we looked at different ways of promoting the involvement of people with disabilities. Instead of looking at people with disabilities first in terms of their rights, and instead of emphasizing the obligations of families and society toward them, we were interested instead in what people with disabilities could bring to those close to them and to society. We looked at the question from the point of view of the community and asked how it might be enriched by people with disabilities, how the community could benefit from their gifts. Among the many ideas we developed was that of “social resilience.” We continue to work together on a bilingual Internet site on Belonging, on which Sam recently published an article about sport and belonging. As part of Philia, Sam participated in a number of projects in Quebec.

Sam is one of those people who, as they rise little by little on the social ladder, stay close to their friends who have not made the climb, even while it seems so natural for others to look down on them. This faithfulness no doubt springs from the fact that he fell to the lowest rung of the social ladder, only to climb up again in the company of sages such as Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, who had few illusions about the happiness that comes from power compared to that which love brings. That he keeps such company helps explain how he has been able to face setbacks as well as success in politics. Let us remember the elegance with which he made the Olympic flag dance during the closing ceremony of the Winter Games in Turin.

They say that he learned Cantonese during the long sessions of his morning personal care routines. I was witness to his apprenticeship in French. One of his methods was to learn quotations by heart. When we would meet again after six months or a year, he would recite the thoughts he had learned since our previous meeting. “Everything is fruit to me that thy seasons bring, O Nature.” (Marcus Aurelius). I often accompanied him to public gatherings in Quebec – where he always spoke French – so I am convinced that Quebeckers will accept him even if he does not speak the language perfectly. The interviews that he gave in French as the Mayor of Vancouver were very well received in Quebec. Moreover, if named to the post, he will continue to attract support as he makes progress in the language while in office.

I have never heard him make derogatory comments about Quebec. This is a man who seeks to understand before he judges. If he asked all of his friends in Quebec as many questions as he asked us about our society, he no doubt has a depth of knowledge about Quebec that would surprise many. There are more Chinese people in his Western home than there are Francophones in the East, so the very fact that he took the time and the energy to learn French at the same time as Cantonese is proof of his openness of spirit and of the respect that Quebec inspires in him.

To have emerged from dependence on an institution demonstrates that he has a will of iron. Despite his disability, he has maintained the enthusiastic, competitive spirit he had before the skiing accident. And, yet, perhaps this misfortune, in breaking him, has made him more human, and it is this which generates the connection people feel with him. I saw it while accompanying him on the streets of the Chinese district in Montreal. Three out of four people recognized him and offered a friendly greeting. Among the thoughts he has learned by heart was this one. “On n’est pas fait pour le malheur, mais par le malheur.” (We are not made for misfortune, but by misfortune.)

Such a man is refreshing, stimulating. He has piloted sailboats and can be seen in a film ascending a mountain slope aboard a TrailRider, created to help people participate in hikes on rocky ground. His name can be associated with the TrailRider because he helped invent it. It takes two able-bodied people to move this vehicle, which has been used in an ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro and in another as far as the base camp of Mount Everest. Each time Sam has used it, the occasion has created lasting bonds. “I was surprised,” said Sam, “at the depth of the connections I was able to build with those to whom I entrusted responsibility for my welfare.”

Sam has stayed with us here for about ten days. Initially, we thought of him as an everyday hero, but we discovered that such admiration may become a form of exclusion. “I put you on a pedestal so I can more easily excuse you from those obligations that alone make you a citizen like the others.” We discovered that Sam fulfills his obligations to life and to society so naturally that we do not see the effort it costs him. He overcomes his disability to such a degree that those around him forget about it. This is stoicism, but without the defect of the Stoics – Sam does not preach to others about how they should bear their suffering.

Ironically this very fact renders homage indirectly to the Church because it demands a perfection of the clergy which we do not demand of ourselves. However, sadly, it is not homage which members of the clergy are feeling, it is outrage. Many feel only a red branding iron because of these terrible acts and are now even afraid to approach a child. Poor humans as we are, if we have to carry a stigma for crimes perpetrated by our brothers and sisters. This unfolding hate against the representatives of the Catholic Church is clearly an exaggeration. All of this tainting is done in the context of all sorts of perversions such as sexual tourism which involves children as well as adults who get away with immunity.

The time has come for the pendulum to swing back and to render our thanks to the great majority of the clergy for their generosity. This is not a question of faith, this is not a question of loyalty to the Catholic Church, nor is it a question simply of solidarity between Christians. This is a question of justice, a simple showing of human solidarity. If we tolerate today that innocent representatives of the Church are tainted with infamy, who will be the next innocent ones to be so tainted?

For this reason on this Easter Day 2010, we of the Parish of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary in North Hatley give solemn witness to our priests and religious men and women in the hope that in justice all religious men and women in the world of whatever faith will be valued.

Traduction: Hugh Gwyn

Life in the outer landscape is at risk – so too is our inner landscape threatened. Every time a species of animals disappears, the internal bestiary of humanity is also further impoverished. So says Professor Henri F. Ellenberger, eminent historian of psychiatry. He uses the word “bestiary” in a cognate sense to that of the word “imaginary,” to refer to the images of beasts that inhabit us, consciously or unconsciously, and which form part of our interior humus.

Of what materials is the humus of the soil made? Of micro-organisms that feed on organic matter which they thus recycle. Pushing the analogy further, we might say that the interior humus of human beings feeds on living presences which surround us. Such presences might be people or animals or works of art, or landscapes, writings, or objects that inspire.

It is this interior humus which is now threatened, just as is the humus of the soil—and for similar reasons. What living presences nourish people who spend hours each day at the wheel of a car, seeing nothing but other vehicles, and then spend the rest of the day in a confined, purely functional space, eyes fixed on a column of numbers? And then if they spend all their leisure time in front of a television or computer screen, what sort of life can circulate within them? They will soon no longer live; they will only be able to function.

As early as the beginning of the 1950s, psychiatrist Claude Allard noted the appearance of the machine in the dreams and deliria of children. In a book entitled L’enfant machine” (“Machine Child”), he described this phenomenon as the “Hephaestus complex,” Hephaestus being the Greek god of technology—a mechanic.

We no longer live: we function, with the help of energy drinks, pills, and artificial limbs or assistive devices
See here an athlete, a runner more specifically, in a happy moment of his youth, a time when he ran for his own pleasure on a deserted beach. This young man was Britain’s Roger Bannister who, in 1954, was the first man to run the mile in under four minutes. Listen to his own words about that time: “I was seized by the quality of the air and the beauty of clouds, by a kind of mystical perfection. In this supreme moment, I lived an intense joy. I was terrified and frightened by the enormous excitement that these few steps could elicit … The earth seemed almost to move with me. I ran from then on and a cool rhythm invaded my body. Not conscious of my movements, I discovered a new unity with nature. I had found a new source of power and of beauty, a source I never would have dreamed existed.”[1]

Bannister was a natural runner, like the Ethiopian runner, Abebe Bikila, who caused a sensation when he ran barefoot at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. Both Bannister and Bikila were still “living,” even in the midst of the most gruelling of competitions. Little by little, however, these athletes have been replaced by creatures who function more than they live, and function under the supervision of a team of experts. We know that from now on, Olympic skiers will have computers in the toes of their skis. This is so clear that the Wall Street Journal was able to present the recent Olympic Games in Vancouver as the “The Olympics of Engineering.”

To live is to respond to the call of life: it is to run toward the sea when we catch sight of it; it is to head off on a walk when the birds sing; it is to hasten to get to work when we are expected and met there by friends, and by a meaningful task. It is to caress the dog that bounds joyously toward you; it is to pick the lily of the valley and to breathe in its perfume; it is to set a table in the colours of the season; it is first of all to contemplate. To contemplate to the point of love. Everywhere the same desire; everywhere the same attachment to its object. Everywhere the same polarity. To function is to substitute an abstract goal for this call of life, and this goal may just as easily be a level of performance at work achieved at the cost of scorning the other pleasures life offers. It may be sexual performance separated from all eroticism and reinforced by a chemical substance, or prowess in sports attained at the cost of the harmony of the body. To function is also, and in the same spirit, to reduce food to its energy-producing dimensions, to reduce dwellings to their utility; to reduce health to adaptation, such that “to be healed” means that one is able to function in society and at work. Everywhere the same will substitutes itself for desire; everywhere the same furious energy expended in pursuit of the goal. Everywhere, preference accorded causality rather than polarity. In simply functioning, objects are transformed into means placed at the service of the will in the pursuit of objectives. By contrast, in life, objects become once again presences, and hence recover their symbolic dimension.

Motivation Replaces Inspiration
We are all recognize it: in the most beautiful quartiers of Paris, as in the Old City of Québec, one can walk forever, almost effortlessly. On the other hand, one would have to be powerfully motivated to cover the same number of kilometres on the fitness machines in our basements. In the first case, we are literally carried away by the ensemble of pleasant and nourishing sensations; each step is its own reward, regardless of the goal, our destination—and even in the absence of any goal, we move forward joyfully. The desire is enough. In the second case, in order to persevere, one must hope to be inscribed in the record books. So each step calls on ever greater efforts of will, and what was once a pleasure is transformed into punishment. I call “motivation”—a word whose meaning has been strongly influenced by its use in behavioural psychology—the force that pushes me to persevere in the achievement of an objective that locks me into myself. I call “inspiration” the joy that transports me from one piece of life, or living presence, to another, from one form of beauty to another, life and beauty being inextricably linked. Wonder lies at the heart of this movement; determination makes the other possible and that is why we can easily burn ourselves out in these efforts. Wonder creates a symbiosis with reality, which renews our energy as it is sapped, whereas when we move forward only by determination, we are obliged to bite the bullet – to soldier on—and to keep our feelings to ourselves, even to the point o f burnout.

Speed is the Goal
Speed is linked to efficiency, and efficiency is the goal of technique. The phenomenon of technique, says Jaccques Ellul, is the search—in every area—for the method that is absolutely the most efficient. In all cultures that adopt technique, Ellul remarks, this goal soon overtakes all others, engendering a technical mentality that impregnates all aspects of life including those where we least expect to find it: love, for example, and food. Why stay longer at the table when we can swallow the calories we need in three mouthfuls of a chemical protein liquid? Viagra promises the same efficiency with respect to sex.

The result of this shift is a head-on collision between technique and life. Life has its immutable rhythms. Pregnancy lasts nine months in human beings; a chicken’s egg takes 21 days to incubate; a particular fruit does not attain maturity until three months after it flowers. And so it is with psychic phenomena—a poem, learned by heart in a single day, may only reveal the fullness of its meaning years later.

There is only one way to avoid this head-on collision—an asceticism that will prevent the technician mentality from penetrating the kingdom of life. For Christians, respect for Sundays should be at the heart of this asceticism, as should fasts from media.

1. Cited by Allen Guttman, Du ritual au record, la nature des spots moderne, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2006, p. 18.

These are excerpts from a presentation with the same title: “To live or to function?”