StillKim

  • Pink or blue?

    Pink or blue?

    There’s a lot going on in the world right now, but I am going to use my space this month to share a perspective about an issue that impacts a very small group of people, and yet it has attracted a huge amount of negative attention based on inaccurate information and fear of the unknown. 

    When I was young and naive, I recall laughing at a joke that asked, how do you tell the difference between boys and girls with the answer, you look under the blanket, and the punch line: girls have pink booties and boys have blue booties. 

    But, like other things from the past, the joke needs to be retired because I know better today. It falls short on what it means to be human – it was never totally accurate by the way. But now people are speaking up and the rest of us are learning. I’d like to share the evolving I have done as I learned more about this topic.

    My first inkling there was more to be understood came when I read in my university textbook that some people are born intersex – having both male and female traits.

    About 1.7% of people are born intersex – the same frequency as people born with red hair. (How many people do you know with red hair? One, two, more? That’s how many intersex people exist in your sphere.)

    Sometimes the traits are visible, and at other times the evidence isn’t known until puberty. It would take an ultrasound, for instance, to see a uterus, vagina, or testicles that have not descended. 

    Fast forward a few years and I hear a radio interview with a person who was born obviously intersex. The doctor made a decision at their birth to remove one set of genitals and leave the other, deciding what sex the baby would be and sending the parents home to raise them with those expectations. The child grew up feeling that their gender identification (what they believed about themselves) did not match their sex as determined by the genitals that the Doctor left intact.  

    I was intrigued and perplexed. It seemed there may be more to our gender identification than just our genitals – or how we are raised. 

    As I continued to listen with an open mind to what others were saying, I began to also understand there are some people who are not intersex, but who do not identify in any way with the biological sex they presented at birth.

    That had to sit for a while. I have a curious nature – how could this be, I wondered? Our binary world of male/female or he said/she said is very ingrained because that explains the majority of us.

    My childhood had been defined by the fact I had four older brothers and no sisters. I was often frustrated by what the boys could do that I could not, and I spurned things I deemed “too girly,” but I never wanted to be a boy. I knew I was a girl – my internal sense of being/my gender identity was female.

    I learned it is different for others. Some girls don’t just want to do what the boys do, they believe to their very core that they are male.  And some boys believe to their very core they are female. They were speaking of a misalignment between their genitals which indicated a particular biological sex at birth and the deep belief they were not that gender – had never been that gender. Their gender identity did not match their biological sex: the definition of gender dysphoria. They didn’t just suddenly feel this – it is something they had struggled with over time and didn’t necessarily understand themselves.

    My initial reaction was I couldn’t imagine the agony of feeling like you are trapped in the wrong body.  So I made an effort to learn more.

    I confess to confusion as it seemed to throw so much of what we understand about gender, sex, and social roles into the deep end of the ocean.  Suddenly, matters such as bathroom use in public spaces, team creation, change rooms, and department store arrangements are no longer benign but loaded questions. 

    Questions around the use of bathrooms in public spaces created a conundrum for me. How far do I go in believing or supporting this phenomenon?

    So, here is what I have learned to date by reading and also attending presentations by transgender people:  

    At a presentation by a transman (one I had a chance to attend through my church) he addressed something I had noticed, that it seems like there’s a lot of people suddenly deciding they are mis-gendered. Is it a “trend” without real substance, as some claim?

    He asked us to consider how our society used to believe left-handed people were evil, and then we evolved and learned that some of us are just born that way.

    When it became safe to declare oneself as a lefty, starting in the 1900s, many people came out of that “closet.” There was a growing upward trajectory in the number of people who said they were left-handed. Then, around 1960, the number settled.

    The same situation exists for gender dysphoria, he said. It will peak, and then it will settle statistically. There are more left-handed people in the world than trans, but it is the acceptance of being different which allows people to self-declare that this comparison highlights.

    I still needed more information, so get ready next for a short biology lesson.

    My simple understanding of biological sex taught me that XY chromosome makes a boy and XX makes a female. But that’s not the full truth. A person may have XXY, or XO, or XYY, or even XXX.  

    In addition, it is the SRY gene located on the Y chromosome that initiates the formation of testes triggering male anatomical structures. Its absence results in a female. However, the SRY gene can be missing or damaged or found on an X chromosome resulting in a person with XY being female and XX being male.  (It is this gene that the International Olympic committee has just announced it will test for in all female athletes – and I don’t know enough about this specific subject to comment. Just that there is also political pressure involved in this issue and much more biology for us all to understand. I’ll keep listening and learning.)

    According to the excerpt of an article in Science Direct, “Contrary to the belief that biological sex is strictly binary, the genetic, molecular, and cellular mechanisms that control development of sex-specific tissues and organs can and do result in outcomes that are not strictly male or female. In other words, the mechanisms at play in sex determination suggest that biological sex is not binary, but instead bimodal.”

    Thus, the fact some people say they are non-binary, meaning they don’t identify as either male or female, makes sense. And there is more to being male or female than what the X or Y chromosomes may suggest. 

    Our gender identity, as I understand from reading multiple sources, is derived from a combination of chromosomes; hormones, including early hormonal activity in the brain during gestation; and genes, all of which interact with social influences after birth. 

    So is how one feels about their gender biological (nature-driven) or is it social (how we are raised)? If we throw enough pink dolls and skirts at a girl, will it make her more female? Conversely, if we toughen up the effeminate boy, will it make him more male?

    PubMed Central is an archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institute of Health’s National Library of Medicine. A peer-reviewed article accepted for publication found on this site says: “existing empirical evidence makes it clear that there is a significant biological contribution to the development of an individual’s sexual identity and sexual orientation.” So more nature and less nurture. 

    People are said to transition, but the fact is they believe they have always been the gender they are transitioning to, that transitioning is simply matching their exterior to who they know they are inside.  Their sexual identity.

    There is more to this subject, (being transgender does not necessarily mean a person is homosexual, for instance), but it’s more than I can possibly cover in an already long blog post. And I am not a scientist, but I do trust those who have the education and qualifications to reach a deeper understanding of the human condition. This subject will continue to be studied, but I have concluded that there can in fact be a disconnect between biological sex as determined by one’s genitals and gender identity as determined by how one feels about who they are. Those feelings can come as early as age 3 or 4, based on my reading. Surgery, if it is desired, can not be performed until the person is an adult. 

    According to Government of Canada census data, since 2021, people have the option to qualify the sex question by choosing “at birth” and a new question about gender was added. 

    The 2021 census indicates of the nearly 30.5 million people in Canada, aged 15 and over, living in a private household in May of 2021, 100,815 were transgender (59,460) or non-binary (41,355) accounting for 0.33% of the population in this age group. That means 1 in 300 people in Canada is transgender or non-binary. (Likely higher given that many trans youth are kicked out of their homes by parents who don’t understand.)

    Regardless, it’s a relatively small number so why should we change our jokes, our bathrooms, our pronouns – for such a small number of people? The fact that suicide among youth who experience this reality is higher than average is enough for me. But consider: 

    • It’s kind of like the ramps we see everywhere for those people who use a wheelchair – it doesn’t hurt everyone else to have this access available for the smaller number of us who need them.
    • A bathroom stall with full walls and a door makes the toilet private and available for everyone, regardless of what’s in their pants. Handwashing isn’t a private task. 
    • Adding my pronouns after my name makes it easier for someone who needs to have those gender markers clarified, so I am doing something to make “the other” more comfortable and welcome. 
    • There’s enough about the human race that is common and can be funny without singling out a group that suffers from so much misinformation and discrimination.

    Gender dysphoria is not an ideology as some suggest. It is real. Knowing about it won’t make someone transition, but it may decrease the discrimination targeting this minority group of human beings, and it might increase understanding and acceptance for what is “different” in our world. 

    Humans are wonderfully made and complex. Some of us are quite unique, but we all seek acceptance, and we all deserve respect, regardless of the colour of our booties. End of story. 

    ***

    NBC News, accessed March 6, 2026, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/transgender-people-texas-blocked-changing-gender-state-ids-rcna167860

    Global News, accessed March 28, 2026,

    Life is getting more difficult for trans people living in Alberta, advocates say

    Clark, Brianna, Left-handedness and the cycle of acceptance, Medium, https://brilovely.medium.com/left-handedness-and-the-cycle-of-acceptance-3e8d0386f0ef

    National Library of Medicine, National Centre for Biotechnology Information, SRY: Sex determination, 

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22246/#:~:text=The%20SRY%20(sex%2Ddetermining%20region%20Y%20gene)%20is,DNA%20in%20the%20cell%2C%20distorting%20it%20and

    Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, accessed March 4, 2026

    https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220427/dq220427b-eng.htm

    Science Direct, Teaching the complexities of biological sex determination with the foal of creating a more inclusive classroom and perhaps challenging key components of the oversimplified rhetoric of the gender binary, Abstract, by Rebecca Delventhal, accessed March 4, 2026

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012160625002350https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012160625002350

    PubMed Central, National Library of Medicine, accessed March 6, 2026

    https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6677266/

    I have also read two books written by trans authors and these were: 

    Knox, Amanda Jette, Love Lives Here, Viking, Penguin Canada, 2019

    Mock, Janet, Redefining Realness, Atria, Simon and Schuster, 2014

  • Your family narrative

    Your family narrative

    Have you caught the bug yet? The one where you disappear down rabbit holes searching for ancestors in your family tree? 

    It seems to become an area of intense interest once retirement provides the time – not just to research, but to reflect about the lives of those who may have impacted our own course. 

    Knowing your ancestors’ stories can have benefits that may surprise you. If one of your wishes is that your family is resilient in the face of an uncertain future, read on!

    I felt compelled to write the story of my parents’ 54-year marriage and include the background that would explain who they were and what, or who, contributed to their story.  I grew up with a lot of detail about my father’s family, thanks to his story-telling skills, but I didn’t have much to go on about my mother’s family.

    Thanks to Ancestry.ca, a global pandemic and retirement I was able to complete Beneath the Wings of Love, which I published as a paperback on Amazon in 2021. This success followed years (I started this project in 1998)of drought when there was no writing, and then significant writing and re-writing – at one point I lost the entire project in a computer crash, but thankfully I had printed out hard copies for editing. 

    I remember wishing my mother had known more about her own background as I thought it would have made a positive difference in her self-esteem. Turns out I was right on that count, and I had underestimated how important the stories would be for my grandchildren. 

    Bruce Feiler wrote in the New York Sunday Times about a study conducted by psychologists Dr. Marshall Duke and Dr. Robyn Fivush that tested the hypothesis: children who know a lot more about their families tend to do better when they face challenges. 

    “The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned,” Feiler wrote of the study’s findings. 

    Then 9-11 happened, and although the families were not directly impacted by the horrific events of that day, the children in the study would have been impacted by news of planes hitting the towers.  They were reassessed. Feiler quotes Dr. Duke, “the ones who knew more about their families proved to be more resilient, meaning they could moderate the effects of stress.”

    Why? According to Dr. Duke, these children have a strong sense of an “intergenerational self” and know they belong to something bigger than themselves. Things like family traditions, family holidays, telling stories about the family, whether hardships met or positive tales, all contribute to a strong family narrative. 

    You don’t have to publish a book to contribute to the family narrative, but safe-keeping what you know in some format is clearly beneficial. If your children or grandchildren are not asking questions yet, we know there will come a time when they will wonder. So, take up a pen, or get on your computer and type what you know – now.  At the very least, store the pages in a three-ring binder. Talk to relatives still living to get their stories and write them down, and add to the binder!

    If you have adoption in your story, don’t avoid this. A family tree can be a tree of people who love me and the stories still contribute to the narrative of what your child knows about the family they call their own. 

    Sometimes the family history contributes to the history of the commercial development of an area. Such was the case when a former schoolmate of mine, Lynn Thorne and her cousin, Evanne Ketchabaw got together and created a road trip out of their shared Zurbrigg family history. The trip took family members, in their cars, through villages, along county roads, and by specific sites surrounding the Listowel (North Perth) area where four Zurbrigg siblings had moved in the early 1860s.

    The family had many entrepreneurs so stops along the way highlighted the businesses as well as the homes and final resting places of multiple ancestors. The cousins wrote a script to accompany the journey so at specific stops, the history was read out loud for the 15 participants. After the event, everyone received a booklet, bound in a clear plastic cover; family details shared during the road trip were included along with photos from the day. 

    What an amazing, interactive way to share the family narrative. 

    Other family histories are relevant beyond the family because they are a history of national importance. Such is the case for Tracy Lee Johnson of Guelph. 

    I attended a fascinating presentation by Tracy, a 5th generation Black Canadian, who shared an historical look at an area called Queen’s Bush, one of the largest Black settlements in the area, near Wallenstein. Her ancestors travelled to the area in the 1830s via the underground railway and were early pioneers before this nation was even created. The year 1806 is the earliest date for which she has found a record of her family in the Niagara area.  

    Tracy’s story reinforces what the psychologists’ study showed. “Had I known the information about my family when I was younger, I would have held my head up higher. I would not have felt so uncomfortable in my own skin,” she told me.

    There was reason for pride in her ancestors’ early contributions, yet our history books have largely ignored their story. When we think of pioneers, we tend to think white, and Little House on the Prairie, Tracy points out. She’s right. 

    As well as effective story-telling (Tracy is an actress), she also sings as part of her presentation. She presents in schools, helping to educate the broader community about Black history in this area. In fact, you can book Tracy, through her website, to share her amazing historical story with your group, club or organization.

    If, like me or Tracy, you don’t know a lot about your background, tools such as Ancestry.ca help.  This program allows you to build a family tree and each name on the tree links to a page of details where you can fill in the names of parents, siblings, and children. Links to census details and old newspapers are revealing. I was able to discover causes of death, adding detail not known before, and pointing to a possible inherited trait. I was finally able to fill in the blanks about my mother’s history. Even the painful knowledge of early ancestors who farmed on native land in the U.S. and had deadly run-ins with Native Americans (Shawnee) in the area. 

    As I worked on the memoir, I was not unaware of the privilege I enjoyed in being able to conduct this research. Especially as I uncovered these earliest settler stories, I brought 21st century eyes to the issue of European settlers believing they were bringing civilization to savages, ignoring the multiple generations of history lived by these Indigenous people. I thought of Indigenous children who were stolen from their parents by the Canadian government and then turned out of residential schools at age 18 with no understanding of how to cope on their own. They didn’t fit with their own community any longer, unable to speak the language and with no knowledge of their customs. They had no family history. And they were spurned by the predominately white settler community they lived in. They had both their past and their future stolen from them.  The studies that connect resilience, happiness, and self-esteem to knowing your family narrative reinforce the horror of what was done and explain the generational damage that has resulted.

    We must evolve as we learn, and then share our knowledge. So, if you are down a rabbit hole of family research, or if you have stories stored in your memory, start making notes to be shared. Share the good, the bad and the ugly. You will be doing your grandchildren and great-grandchildren a huge favour when they know the intergenerational narrative that is theirs to claim.

    ***

    Bruce Feiler, The Stories that Bind Us, New York Times, March, 2013 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/fashion/the-family-stories-that-bind-us-this-life.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

    Tracy Lee Johnson, Website, https://tracylcain.wordpress.com

    Tracy Johnson shared a newsletter that “honours the creativity, scholarship, and dreams of Black mamas, women and girls in Canada.” Tracy’s story is featured in the November 2025 issue. Check it out here: https://www.animawrites.com/newsletter

    Beneath the Wings of Love, the memoir of my parents, is available on Amazon. If you are interested in the process of self-publishing, please connect with me. Beneath the Wings of Love is written under my pen name, Roberta Kim. 

  • A forgotten connection?

    A forgotten connection?

    Oh, blessed autumn: cooler breezes, still-warm sunshine, and fall colours. I can’t even mourn summer when we are offered the beautiful weather that September delivered. There’s no better time for getting on the saddle and pedalling away. 

    Riding a bike was my primary mode of transportation when I was a kid – I travelled all over town on my gold-coloured bike. No special brakes or gears, just girl power. Now I have rediscovered bicycling as a way to visit sites all around Ontario.

    My husband and I recently upgraded our 21-speed bikes for the latest craze, e-bikes. They are game changers. We can go further without wearing out and those steep hills don’t stop us anymore. 

    We still get exercise, but what I most appreciate about this past-time is how it gets me outdoors and enjoying nature. Bicycle paths are abundant around Ontario, and I relish the scenery as I travel through parks, over rivers and creeks on bridges, or beside farm fields on rural trails. The Guelph to Goderich Rail Trail has an added bonus of being shaded by trees planted in memory of loved ones. I see familiar names on plaques as I pass and I remember them. 

    Fields of hay, corn, beans, and apples reveal the seasons as we travel by them in early spring, again in mid-summer, and finally at harvest time. Then, there’s the animals. Watching a young horse, also enjoying the fresh air, chase the sheep around an enclosed pen brings a smile while seeing a beautiful red fox leap across the trail a few short yards ahead brings a gasp of wonder. The groundhog that ran across the trail and thankfully passed under my pedals brought a shreak! 

    It feels good to get away from the concrete and ordered life of town or city. 

    Bicycling is also a bit of an escape from daily chores and gives me time to reflect. As I do, the neurons in my brain seem to make new connections as they sort memories, conversations, and recent readings. 

    The corn stalks beside the trail eventually create a wall that towers above me, and I think about the fact I was not raised on a farm. I’m a townie. My parents didn’t even maintain a garden. Food, as far as I knew, came from the grocery store and was canned, boxed or frozen. But I loved to visit my friend who did live on a farm, and I remember her father seemed to really appreciate it when I asked to go out to the barn. (I dearly wanted to see a calf being born but was not rewarded that wish!) Even as a self-absorbed teenager, I sensed the deep devotion her father had to his farm, the care of his animals, and the tending of his crops. This usually quiet man would become animated as he told me about the farm. Farming was his livelihood, but there was a connection to his way of life that went deeper than a job. 

    We were never allowed to have a pet at home, but I remember making a big deal of stepping on an ant one day. My dad, always one to poke a conscience, asked me why I had done that. The ant wasn’t doing anything to me, was going about its own business, and had a right to live, he said. Geesh, make a kid feel guilty about an ant? Seemingly simple memory, but the intended lesson has stuck. (So glad I missed that groundhog, and the chipmunks!)

    I recall going to school in downtown Toronto, returning home most weekends via bus. As the bus got closer to rural landscapes and I could see farm silos and barns out the window, the knots in my stomach would begin to unravel. 

    I remember that when my kids were little, we would go out on “nature” walks and I would get them to look for and collect different shaped leaves, or rocks etc. I especially loved the smell of the earth in the spring and the smell and sound of rustling leaves in the fall. Our grandchildren have also enjoyed walks through local trails, in deeply wooded areas where the ground cover of pine needles absorb sound and it is quiet. We listen and identify sounds we may hear. On one occasion, I picked up a small twig of pine needles and suggested to my young granddaughter that it was a mouse broom and perhaps they were using it to clean their homes. A bit of fanciful nonsense that we shared. A year later we visited the same area and she was telling me she had found the mouse brooms! 

    These seemingly unconnected memories reinforce the idea I don’t have a history of living on the land, but I do feel some kind of connection to the land, or to nature. My inside voice has always suggested this connection was perhaps a bit fake or “put-on” because, as I say, I don’t have a history that I can connect to.

    Or do I?

    This tenuous connection was given some veracity recently as I began to read Braiding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. In her preface, she explains that sweetgrass is “the sweet-smelling hair of Mother Earth.” Then, she adds a statement that has really stuck with me: “Breathe it in and you start to remember things you didn’t know you’d forgotten.”

    I contemplate a crazy thought. Is it possible my sketchy connection to the land is based on a memory I have forgotten, a memory passed to me through my ancestral roots, or even further back in time to my place in the world as a human being? If we were created to play a part in the eco-system of earth, perhaps there’s a reason beneath my appreciation of the smells and sounds in nature or behind the unravelling knots in my stomach when I see a rural landscape.

    Is it possible, I continue to reflect, that we are all connected to Mother Earth, but some of us have forgotten? That it is buried by generations of progress and development that pushed the connection down deep into our subconscious?

    I hear many people reflect the sentiment that we have lost touch with the land; we have moved away from living on the land, of surviving only by what the earth can give us. Our modern, urban existence has changed our relationship with the land. I wonder again, have we suppressed a connection? 

    I have also understood that people who farm the land, and Indigenous peoples have different relationships with the earth. But I didn’t fully understand the Indigenous connection until reading Kimmerer’s book. 

    In Indigenous culture, the land is a gift. And to fully appreciate this, you must also understand how the Indigenous interpret the term “gift.” Their economy is based on a gift exchange, unlike ours which is based on a commodity exchange. As Kimmerer explains, if you pay for a pair of socks in a store, the exchange ends once you give the clerk your money. You now own the socks. That’s a commodity exchange.  But if those socks were given to you as a gift, the gift creates an ongoing relationship between you and the gift giver. The gift comes with responsibilities and obligations, and a need to reciprocate.  

    The earth is a gift from the Creator and thus, in Indigenous culture, it can’t be bought and sold as a commodity. And when we accept the gifts of the earth, we are obligated to care for them. We are to reciprocate by returning the gift. 

    Kimmerer asks “How in our modern world, can we find our way to understand the earth as a gift again, to make our relations with the world sacred again? I know we cannot all become hunter-gatherers – the living world could not bear our weight – but even in a market economy, can we behave “as if” the living world were a gift?”

    If we believed the world was a gift, how might we change our behaviour?

    I certainly feel I have been blessed with a gift as I bicycle on trails around Ontario where you get a whole new perspective of the land, and the nature that inhabits it. 

    As I continue reading Kimmerer’s book, I look forward to further food for thought as she weaves her first-hand knowledge of Indigenous culture as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, with her professional training as a botanist and scientist.  Perhaps October will offer more opportunity for bicycling and reflecting.

    ***

    Kimmerer, Robin Wall, Braiding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Milkweed Editions, Canada, 2013.

  • Seniors for Climate

    Seniors for Climate

    As a follow up to my three posts about climate change, I have recently subscribed to a group, Seniors for Climate.  The most recent information they have sent out pertains to their “Draw the Line” rally events across Canada. 

    Seniors for Climate recently hosted author John Vaillant who wrote Fire Weather about the Fort McMurray wildfire. I missed their presentation but heard John speak at a Literary Festival I attended in Knowlton, Quebec, and his message is powerful. It has inspired these Draw the Line events across the country. 

    There’s a rally in downtown Kitchener held by Waterloo Region Climate. Details follow:

    Date: Sept 28

    Time: 1 to 6 p.m.

    Place: Gaukel Block (44 Gaukel Street), Downtown Kitchener

    Event:

    Join us at the first ever Waterloo Region Climate Fest! We have great creative workshops, booths, performances, and demonstrations lined up. We will also have a group ride to kick off the event! Let’s come together and celebrate how our community is taking action and how we can take it further. 

    Seniors for Climate says: If you can’t join an event in person, you can still take part.

    Post a message of support on social media with #DrawTheLine, call or email your MP, write a quick letter to the editor, or simply talk to a few friends and invite them to join Seniors for Climate. Every action helps grow our voice and our impact.If you can’t join an event in person, you can still take part.

    Hope to see you there!

  • Will the Kids be Alright? 3 of 3

    Will the Kids be Alright? 3 of 3

    This post is the final and third in a series reviewing the book Life After Doom, Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart by Brian D. McLaren. 

    ***

    Were you able to answer the question I posed at the end of my second post – to describe your preferred life situation if the world was ending?

    Are you panicking and sequestering yourself with your supplies behind a barricade? Or, are you holding hands with your loved ones, sharing space and time with your family, neighbours,  and/or with close friends?  Perhaps you are sitting around a dining table, maybe at your cottage by the water, or possibly just in your own backyard enjoying nature. 

    Are you satisfied that you tried to do what was right by the Earth, and by your descendants? 

    Perhaps you are still trying to fight the ending, to find ways to preserve a world for the human race?

    As I continued to read through the difficult chapters of McLaren’s book, I began to feel that although our world will undergo some profound changes, that perhaps there is a path forward, one of resilience in community if enough of us understand that what we can do, matters.  And for that, we must hold onto one another.

    In the final chapters of his book, McLaren asks us to “let come” (after we “let go” and “let be” in the first two sections) – that while we can’t guarantee what the future world will be, “we can commit to work for justice, peace, and compassion wherever we are in this world, as long as we live.”

    Climate justice is a key part of this picture. 

    It won’t be easy, because we live in a world with people who are happy with the status quo, in part because it is so tied to our economic wealth.  Remember, we are addicted to our cheap fossil fuels. 

    We can see the beginnings of what McLaren describes will be a “bumpy” ride.  I can already identify with the seven different conditions he highlights in the book that we can expect to encounter as “the drama of overshoot continues to play out.”

    Consider how susceptible we are to misinformation (1) in our social media curated lives. It’s more important than ever to be savvy consumers of the media we read and watch, always checking sources. Don’t fall prey to memes and comments that simply reinforce your opinion in an echo-chamber. 

    McLaren suggests that mean-spiritedness (2) will increase and we will need to develop the moral courage to speak up for the marginalized – the immigrant, the LGBTQAI+, the racially and culturally different, the poor.  People are afraid that if someone else has rights, they will lose their own. That’s not how it works. This is what makes comedian Steve Carell’s commencement address about kindness to Northwestern University graduates so compelling (and funny!). A simple, timely message delivered in true comedic form. 

    Dishonesty (3) will abound and we will need to strengthen our character. As Michelle Obama famously said, “when they go low, we go high.” McLaren notes, “When others stoke fear and resentment, we (must) radiate courage and grace.”

    Our world, our country, indeed even friendships have become fragmented (4). When others will be tempted to divide and conquer or become dependent upon “autocrats or cult leaders,” we must “develop the skills of interdependence.”  There is strength in numbers, particularly diverse numbers, McLaren stresses. Don’t discount the scientists, the lived wisdom of Indigenous peoples, and the educated as you inform yourself.

    It will become increasingly difficult to go high when others go low, and we may experience despair (5), but we need to develop the skill and “the courage to differ graciously,” even as we state our position. 

    My father was a fan of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock and Dad used to tell us we would continue to see rapid change (6) in our lives. I wish I could chat with him now. I’m sure even he would not believe the speed of change we see today.  We must be agile to adapt to the continued multiple changes in our lives. McLaren says “Some changes will feel like losses; others will bring surprising gains.”

    Finally, we may begin to feel disconnected (7) from life as we witness the changes. McLaren notes we will need to nourish and “discover new depths of the human spirit,” whatever you call it, religion, spirituality, centredness, or contemplation.  

    It’s an understatement to say the world is undergoing tremendous change and no longer looks like the industrial-age era that brought in and provided prosperity in the century before this one. Well, prosperity for those of us who bought into the European, colonized definition.

    People are afraid. 

    And fearful people are susceptible to messages of quick fixes, regardless the stripes of the tiger. 

    Find your people is the essence of one chapter. “It only takes two or three to build an island of sanity in a world falling apart,” McLaren writes.

    But he isn’t talking about a cult. If you envision a future often seen in apocalyptic movies where someone amasses food and ammunition and then builds a wall to keep others out, that’s a sure-fire way to speed-up the ending. 

    Instead, he writes of connecting with others who care about our future: “we need people reaching out and building huddles of sanity and mutual kindness, preparing to share and support each other when turbulence comes and we’re all tempted to be sucked into collective stupidity.”

    An excellent example of this connecting can be found on a recent episode of CBC’s What on Earth with Laura Lynch. The program features stories from around the world of people trying to fight climate change. 

    The recent episode that caught my attention featured listener Adrienne Crowder who took a free university course on climate change that the program had promoted. 

    Adrienne tells Laura that the course “fuelled my fire – realizing, ah,  I am not alone. I’m not the only one trying to fight the world. There’s a whole group of people in their own little sectors doing their thing and when we band together, we become this beautiful mosaic of people doing great work which inspires all of us … and we feel good and when we feel good we do good…. It is so easy to get utterly overwhelmed and depressed if you feel like you are alone trying to combat climate change and big oil and whatever…But when you learn there are other people who are not only similarly concerned but who are actually doing some really cool things in their part of the world, that’s inspiring … it keeps me going.”

    Western University offers this free course and you can register here or sign up to be notified when the next course runs.  I’ve signed up to be notified for their September 2025 course offering. The University website describes the course “Connecting for Climate Change Action is a course that uses a storytelling approach to bring Western and Indigenous Sciences together to educate, encourage discussions, and motivate action on climate change. This innovative, experiential, online learning opportunity engages and stimulates learners to action to mitigate climate change.”

    Do you know your neighbours? Do you maintain connections with former colleagues? Do you have a church or club or group that you meet with regularly? In any emergency, including the impending changes we are witnessing due to climate, we are better when we work together, not every person for themselves. If you have such a group, you might consider reading this book and discussing it together, or signing up to take the free course. 

    As adults who have lived a good piece of our lives already, we might be susceptible to thinking it’s too late or we know it all, but McLaren has a special message for us: “if you don’t keep maturing in wisdom, you will not remain at your current level of awesome. Like an egg that doesn’t hatch, your awesome level will, I’m sad to say this – decline along with civilization.” 

    In the face of the despair we may feel, it is important to realize that what we can do does matter. 

    McLaren introduces readers to musician Michael Franti who sings in one of his songs, ”There’s a billion different people doing a billion different things to make a billion places better today” and ”We can be part of the change.” The title of Franti’s song, “The World is so F*cked Up (But I Ain’t Never Giving Up On It) delivers a message worth listening to in an engaging tune. You will find yourself smiling and perhaps even singing along after listening to it.  In fact, McLaren devotes one chapter to the importance of art, music and poets in our lives. 

    McLaren entreats the reader to light their own candle and to consider this is a great time to be alive. Borrowing the line from the song, he suggests if a billion of us do a billion things then maybe in the “dance of life,” there will be a way forward in a world that is going to look very different some day. 

    McLaren’s book does not outline a plan for everyone to follow, but he does have a lengthy list of suggestions for us to develop our own plans, based on our own areas of interests and strengths. One of these is the “plan to use your voice and exercise your right to not remain silent” and thus, I decided to use my blog to write about McLaren’s book and attempt to provide some sort of summary of what he has to offer to the discussion about climate change. I plan to use some of my future posts to celebrate some of the “billion things” that people are doing to make the world a more habitable place.  I am giving thought to another, “Your plan to improve your diet for your own health and planetary health” because listening to Sidney Smith’s video has strengthened my resolve to eat locally and seasonally rather than supporting industrialized farming practices.  Small steps. I continue to keep the book close and review its messages along with taking the university course. It’s part of my plan to keep learning about overshoot.

    Will the kids be alright? It’s where I started my reflection and the question the title of this series asks. The answer: I don’t know, but I am committed to do what I can to contribute to a better future for my grandchildren choosing to believe that what I can do, will matter.  

    In the meantime, can you share the ways that you preserve our Earth? How do you contribute toward the billion different ways people make the world a better place for future generations? Please use the comment section below so we can all share with and learn from each other. 

    ***

    1. Life After Doom, Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart, Brian D. McLaren, St. Martin’s Publishing Group, New York, 2024

    2. Facebook post, featuring Steve Carell https://www.facebook.com/reel/1907663633317980; original posting @cspan. 

    3. CBC Radio, What on Earth with Laura Lynch 

    https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whatonearth

    4. Western University, London, Ontario. https://geoenvironment.uwo.ca/undergraduate/course_information/new_course_connecting_for_climate_change_action.html

    5. Michael Franti and Spearhead, This World Is So F*cked Up (But I Ain’t Never Giving Up On It)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrPQfNjeHlo

  • Will the Kids be Alright? 2 of 3

    Will the Kids be Alright? 2 of 3

     This post is the second in a series of three reviewing the book Life After Doom, Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart by Brian D. McLaren. 

    ***

    In the first section of his book, McLaren addresses our natural tendency to turn a blind eye to climate change. He also encourages us to take care of ourselves, particularly our mental health, in the process of waking up to reality. Then he invites the reader to “let be” – to reach a place of insight. 

    Our civilization has created much good: think of the surgeries that now save lives, the medicines that allow people to live fully, air conditioning in the summer heat, the eating of fresh fruits in the dead of winter,  the air travel that allows us to explore our world – I could go on and on listing a multitude of ways our lives have been improved to the point we enjoy longer, healthier lives than ever before.  

    But, as McLaren outlines so well, there’s the human cost of all this progress. Children mining coltan for our smartphones, increasing asthma and cancer rates due to air pollution, and the ongoing over-heating of our world destroying homes, industries, and lives as wildfires rage like never before. This documentary on the fires in Los Angelos explains how our warming climate feeds fire. 

    Closer to home, think of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Halifax.  Read this news coverage detailing the most recent devastation there. 

    We are in overshoot, McLaren explains. We take from the Earth more than we repair or return and we spew more pollution than the Earth can detoxify. And Earth is letting us know. 

    Intertwined with the causes of climate change is our current civilization’s economy which has become so complex it is also fragile and ultimately, not sustainable. Consider how our economy relies on infinite growth in a finite system.

    We live in a complex civilization, and it is very difficult, even  overwhelming, to decide what needs to happen or whether we can even avoid these crises. We are not the first civilization to face the ending. Consider the Roman Empire, the Mayans, or our own Indigenous of Turtle Island. In fact, McLaren devotes an entire chapter to what we can learn from our Indigenous peoples. Consider that the collapse of our civilization, which has been shaped by the domination of colonial exploitation, might be viewed as a liberation by some. 

    One of the many, many resources that McLaren recommends to his readers is Sid Smith’s How to Enjoy the End of the World series on You Tube. I listened to this and it gave me a whole new perspective on the use of energy in the creation of past cultures and the astronomical trajectory that led to our current complex civilization. While Chapters 1,2 and 3 are an academic review of the laws of energy and thermodynamics (I have forgotten my high school physics classes, sorry Mr. Finch), and what is actually meant by a “complex” society, I found them a fascinating base for understanding his later videos on energy in the creation and fall of civilizations. In particular, his final chapter at the time of my posting this blog is Chapter 5 and it clearly explains ecological overshoot. If you pursue this, be sure to listen to his Prologue: Why You Shouldn’t Let Collapse Get You Down, first and his next video entitled Whaddya Mean Collapse?  

    Back to the book, McLaren explains our addiction to cheap fossil fuels as something that we will find very difficult to eradicate. Even our industrialized food production relies on fossil fuels (which is explained very well in the above video series). 

    McLaren compares the process we need to follow to what Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) asks of its members. The first step for a member is to admit addiction and that life has become unmanageable. McLaren declares,”Our civilization is powerless over our cheap energy addiction; our civilization has become unmanageable and needs to be restored to sanity.” 

    It’s unmanageable because in overshoot we are caught in a vicious cycle; we need to remove resources from the Earth to support our economic growth and for food production, but that growth will “intensify and hasten ecological collapse.” Put another way, we use up farmland to build new industry (to provide jobs which give us the income to purchase food) which results in damage to water sources and precious eco-systems, and less farmland to grow our food.

    Where and how do we get off this merry-go-round?

    McLaren quotes the Serenity Prayer used by AA: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” 

    The wisdom to know the difference is an area of much debate when it comes to what will reduce the impacts of climate change. He cites the examples of renewable energy, such as solar and wind, or electric cars and heat pumps, but then notes “massive amounts of copper, aluminum, cobalt, graphite, and manganese, along with rare earth metals, especially lithium” will be needed which will require “huge quantities of fossil fuels to mine, transport, and process these raw materials.” 

    Many solutions result in more ecological damage to our Earth – in other words, more problems. In addition, these resources are primarily on Indigenous lands. How will they be treated? “Other resources lie beneath forests and other delicate ecosystems; again you wonder how many will be sacrificed for our climate emergency,” McLaren asks. 

    Something I have been repeating to myself a lot lately is McLaren’s Chapter 10 title, “Maybe It’s Good, Maybe It’s Not.” I have used it when reflecting on the minor irritations and celebrations in life but also when thinking about the big issues. There’s talk of an east-west pipeline across Canada which would require extensive use of land, including Indigenous land, and cause significant damage. That’s bad..isn’t it? It would reduce Ontario’s reliance on U.S. gas and also open the opportunity to export gas to countries that could then replace their use of coal, a fuel which causes tremendous harm to the environment. That’s good… isn’t it?  An east-west electricity grid, supported by clean energy would benefit everyone…maybe/maybe not?

    In a world that is increasingly polarized in its opinions, we could all use a good dose of maybe it’s good, maybe it’s not. As a former colleague used to say, it’s a pretty thin pancake that doesn’t have two sides.

     And so, McLaren invites the reader to get beyond our bi-polar views, “this” is good and “that” is bad, and helps us to question what may be conventional wisdom for our current civilization. He asks instead, “Are profitable quarters and big returns for shareholders always good? Is a declining GDP always bad? Is growth in the number of billionaires always good?”

    I recently published a memoir of my parents and included a lot of ancestral history. It’s a story of multiple generations working to improve their lives and it haunts me to think that my husband and I, and our children may be the last generations to experience that upward mobility. Will a decline in circumstances become the norm for future generations? Is that bad? Is that good? How can we prepare them? In order to get ahead, do we need to go back? How far back?

    These questions may be more than academic in the face of the looming climate crisis. When we are prepared to question, to challenge what has been conventional wisdom, then perhaps we will open ourselves to the possibility of an alternate, more sustainable future. 

    There’s a lot of negativity in this reflection. I am writing about a book with the word “Doom” in its title and I am recommending you listen to a YouTube channel that suggests we enjoy the end of the world. McLaren takes this head on and leads the reader to what feels like an inevitable discussion about death. As a woman about to enter her 7th decade, I connected with the author’s description of life and death, that we must abandon our fear of death and instead realize we may have limited time here, and with that time we have a choice: keep destroying our precious environment or we can  “leave our descendants with a habitable world and the skills and virtues to flourish in it.” 

    With five grandchildren, I know what my choice is. 

    Here’s a reflection for you to consider as I bring this post to a close: If you were facing the possible ending of the world, and you had a choice, how would you describe where you are, what you are doing, and who you are with? 

    Next week: Let Come

    ***

    1. Life After Doom, Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart, Brian D. McLaren, St. Martin’s Publishing Group, New York, 2024

    2.Inside the LA Firestorm – The Real Story – Documentary, PBS Terra, YouTube, Accessed August 13, 2025.

    3. CTV News, Thousands in St. John’s on evacuation notice as wildfires continue to spread, accessed August 13, 2025.

     https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/newfoundland-and-labrador/article/amid-nl-wildfire-evacuations-thousands-are-on-notice-near-st-johns/https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/newfoundland-and-labrador/article/amid-nl-wildfire-evacuations-thousands-are-on-notice-near-st-johns/ 

    4. How to Enjoy the End of the World, Sid Smith, You Tube http://www.youtube.com/@bsidneysmith/ , accessed Aug. 13, 2025.

  • Will the Kids be Alright? 1 of 3

    Will the Kids be Alright? 1 of 3

    It’s September and the kids head back to school, or in the case of the two youngest grandchildren in our family, begin that journey. Time to think of their future.  

    I suspect that every generation has its worries about the generation to follow. Elders have long moaned about the failings of youth and have sounded the alarm for society. Even Socrates apparently got into the act, purportedly to have said, “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, (and) contempt for authority.”

    I also hear people speak of hope concerning the next generation, seeing instead a measure of brilliance and a spark much needed for a different future. 

    My concern isn’t so much about the kids (I fall under the category of having faith in them), but I am concerned about the world they are inheriting from us. Our environment, specifically. 

    Do you share any of these concerns? Do you feel, like I do at times, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the crisis of climate change? I tell myself that I have given up plastic bags, I drive a hybrid vehicle, I recycle what I can…and then I see pictures of melting ice in the north, emaciated polar bears, or towns devastated by out-of-control wildfires, and my sense of being part of the solution is diminished.

    It was with this fear that I participated in a book study to explore author Brian D. McLaren’s Life After Doom, Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart. 

    No mincing words here: it was a challenging read. McLaren’s writing style made the book approachable and readable; however, the content was not sugar-coated.  I am glad I read it with others as part of a book study where we took time to discuss and reflect on the questions provided by the author at the end of each chapter.  McLaren outlines, supported by heavily researched and resource-rich documentation, four possible future scenarios that make clear the choice of the word “Doom” in his book’s title. 

    He does not provide a plan to get us out of this scary future. Nor does he suggest, despite his faith background, including being a pastor, that God will make it alright if we just pray hard enough. 

    Don’t let McLaren’s pastor roots deter you from reading this book if you are not a church-goer. While he includes reflections in this area, they don’t get in the way of what he is telling the reader about our climate crisis.  (If anything, they make clear for the faithful why we need to be engaged in this issue. If you are interested in one minister’s reflections, you can check out this series, “Sermons for a World Falling Apart” on the book at Gale Presbyterian Church in Elmira. )

    What McLaren does is take you on a journey into the dark reality of what the changing climate is doing to our world, to our Earth, and to our responding behaviours, and then brings you into a place where you are inspired to work with others and essentially, to not give up. 

    I think it’s an important book, and thus I am sharing my understanding of what it is telling us over three separate blog posts (there’s a lot to uncover and I don’t touch on it all). I’ll post these weekly during September so the thread isn’t lost while you also have some time between each to absorb what McLaren is telling us.  

    Through the process of reading the book, sharing thoughts with others, and then delving a little deeper in preparation for writing my blog I learned a lot (including about the development of our complex civilization), I was challenged in my understanding of the issues and what might fix them, I felt some despair, and I felt some hope. 

    If we are still learning and evolving, as my blog envisions,  then I believe we have an opportunity to play an essential role in our families and communities as we face an uncertain future. If for no other reason, I invite you to join this reflection for the sake of your children and grandchildren or any other young people you may know.

    ***

    In the first section of chapters, readers are encouraged to “let go” – to let go of any illusions we may harbour that the crisis isn’t real. 

    Our world in its current state is unsustainable. In a nutshell, McLaren explains that the world “sucks out too many of the Earth’s resources for the Earth to replenish, and it pumps out too much waste for the Earth to detoxify.” He calls it a state of overshoot.  Essentially we have lived like there’s no end to the resources, and we have largely ignored any damage our lifestyles may be inflicting on the Earth and its inhabitants. 

    McLaren illustrates where we are at by asking us to think about how a tree is chopped down. Even after several wacks of an axe into a strong trunk, the tree will remain standing. For a surprisingly long time. But at some point, a tipping point is reached and one little push, light chop or a strong wind will bring the tree crashing down. Some scientists believe we have reached Earth’s tipping point, that it cannot handle more waste or further removal of its resources, and there’s no stopping the fall.  Others believe we have time, but it is running out fast.

    Wanting to hide from this reality or denying that climate change exists is actually easy for our brains. As humans, we naturally resist what we don’t understand, or what we can’t imagine. Being concerned about the climate requires that we predict future disasters, and that’s a difficult ask. We may also feel overwhelmed and simply shut down. We may want to avoid what McLaren describes as a “path of descent.” Some of us say – not my problem, I’m too old, let the youth fix it. Some of us think (hope) the problem is exaggerated. Others think “someone” (maybe someone in that smart younger generation) who knows more …or has more money… or has more influence will magically fix it. 

    McLaren lists in an appendix, 16 different biases we may rely on when it comes to thinking about climate change. For some insight into how our human emotions and bias impact this issue, (and how such behaviours may be hard-wired into us) take 30 minutes to listen to this episode of The Agenda with Steve Paikin. There’s some similarity in what his expert guests have to say and what McLaren’s book tells us.

    Despite the gloom, reading McLaren’s book did give me a measure of hope, although even that feeling is complicated as McLaren explains in one chapter. If I rely on that feeling of hope to the point I ignore what is happening across our planet, I won’t be engaged to be part of the solution.  Likewise, McLaren states: “Just as hope can give you permission to return to your previously scheduled complacency, so can despair.”

    So with a clarity that our future will be changed in foundational ways, along with a measure of complicated hope,  McLaren invites us to wake up to a new reality which may be very difficult for many of us to accept. 

    Where are you on the matter of climate change? Do you think we should be engaged with this issue? Do you worry? Can you identify a bias you may hold concerning climate change?

    Next week: Let It Be

    ***

    1.   The Literature Network Forums, accessed August. 13, 2025

    https://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?17788-Socrates-Plato-Complaining-of-the-Youth

    2. Life After Doom, Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart, Brian D. McLaren, St. Martin’s Publishing Group, New York, 2024

    3. Gale Presbyterian You Tube, Sermons for a world falling apart, accessed Aug. 13, 2025

    4. TVO today, The Agenda with Steve Paikin, Are We Wired to Deny Climate Change, accessed Aug. 13, 2025

    https://www.tvo.org/video/are-we-wired-to-deny-climate-change