New Canadians and old traditions.

 

New Canadians and old traditions.

In 1967, I flew over an invisible border to become a Canadian. It was Canada’s 100th anniversary. I left a country where I was the middle class and came here to be an immigrant that many people disrespected and most people wanted to exploit if they could. It was all worth it since Canada was a place living in peace, not in a perpetual war like many other countries. Although we had to work hard and do menial jobs until we assimilated, some people were socially lower than us. The native population was treated badly and, to my surprise, so was another group. They were Ukrainians.

Eventually, I managed to have a job with the CPR and met Ukrainians who were not at the bottom of the social order. One I remember was a lawyer in the old country and here worked as a mechanic. Some years later, I had some business with a high-level officer of the RCMP who was Ukrainian. Another group took the bottom place, and they were the people with turbans. Sikhs were called “Pakis” by the masses of uneducated people.  

This was a group that invited punishment upon themselves by visually being different. They were formed into a religion based on some high ideals, like feeding the poor. Their originator insisted they should look different from the rest. The men are forbidden to cut their hair and must wear a turban. Over the years, we in Canada have seen many groups that wore attires unique to their cultures, often demonstrating something related to their faiths. I welcome the mixture of pieces that make the Canadian mosaic. We have the most international country in the world. It is a magnificent country.

There are many other signs of multiculturalism in our society. For example, one aspect that drew me to the Crowsnest Pass was the sound of church bells on Sunday mornings. The bells that in cities we hear no more, greeted Christians to their religious practice for hundreds of years. Here the Catholics amalgamated some older parishes which, like the rest, became smaller when mining days were over. They formed one larger parish and built a beautiful new church. The architect was commissioned to construct a bell tower with electronic bells and merge modern methods with the preservation of heritage.

The bells on a church are a tradition but also an ancient marketing tool. Bells throughout the mountain valley remind Christians of all denominations of Sunday worship. I honor all faiths.

One person complained the bells made too much noise, and the bells were silenced, or damaged and not fixed. Sadly, they didn't consider my opinion and the opinions of many others like me. I would have gladly contributed towards fixing the bells. The community here invested much money into building and equipping the bell tower but now does nothing.

People changed the church design, not considering the importance of symbols and symmetry.

My city-born grandchildren think that God and all the rich heritage that we inherited from our various religions is fiction and only science is real. They don’t realize that for many thousands of years, science and religion were one. The Greek philosophers of old did some serious thinking that planned how humans formed society. Before them, there were others, Persian, Indian, and more. Humankind became what it is thanks to them figuring out life and reality and communicating the knowledge to us. In the last quarter of a century, humans finally discovered machines, electricity, electronics, and later artificial intelligence. The greatest discoveries are still not understood by the ignorant masses. However, people all over quit learning the great human knowledge from the past and adopted the opinions of not-very-sophisticated modern philosophers, preaching that all past knowledge is nothing but fiction.

The results are not impressive. Yes, we can have fast vehicles, better medicine, and all forms of modern entertainment, but we are facing extinction at our own hands. One wrong move or neglecting to take the right action can spell our end.

Society could have advanced to benefit humanity and understanding of the Universal mind. We chose to believe that a few technological discoveries placed us above God or even that there is no God. It’s possible, but the smartest humans, from whom we came, had other ideas.

The latest research that I have heard about is also surprising. Just asking people all over the world if they believe in God in some form reveals that most do. Hardly anyone subscribes to the theory about a “sky God” as portrayed in old art. Most don’t believe in a God who is a bigger or greater human, but Christians believe in the holy trinity. That is the belief that God, who is a spirit, created a human son for himself to ease communication. People hold different beliefs about the Son. Some consider him as a divine entity that is one with God, while others regard him as a superior mind sent to reveal some otherwise incommunicable truth.