The West Beyond the West

{Textile squares hanging in Kim's design studio at Capilano College reminded me of Tibetan "prayer flags"}.

Last Thursday morning Krista drove me to the airport and I flew just over an hour to the city of glass, water, and cedar. Douglas Coupland has written well about this fair city. And soon, in an annual dance, it will be drenched with cherry blossoms. In Life After God, Coupland writes about how the geography ofVancouver, hanging on the edge of the world, created a new moral space, beyond the boundaries of the Rockies, a place where people from "back east" could create something new.

Vancouver has always lived large in my consciousness, since, for most of my childhood it was "the city." My parents used to take us often - a few times a month to picnic on the lawn in front of the Ferguson Point Tea House at Stanley Park, overlooking Spanish Banks. We would stroll through Gastown in the early 80s, and I had a ritual of playing amidst the First Nations' treasures at Hill's, and then buying butterscotch candies in a tartan tin at some Scottish tourist shoppe.

At the course I took on Friday on the topic of "The Challenge of Sustainability for Heritage Conservation" , I learned that in the 1970's the plan was to raze all of Gastown to build a dozen or so high-rise towers. I also learned how, during World War Two, the Canadian beaurocrat W.C. Clifford wrote most of the tax code here in Canada specifically to encourage the demolition of older buildings. He wanted a fresh start, and worked tenaciously to make level every historic urban area in Canada a tabula rasa for his conception of a rational, Modernist plane. Clifford went so far as to actually call those who cherished older buildings "perverts." Are we? Am I? Despite the fact that "sustainability" is perhaps the slipperiest of planning buzzwords, and if you've been to a dozen conferences on the topic you've pretty much been to them all, I took one thing away from this day. That the possibility still exists to foster a culture of repair. This is really what the whole thing is about: finding modest ways to consider what we discard and throw away. The practice of salvage lived large in the course. Salvage is sometimes good - but not "vulturistic" salvaging... robbing Peter to pay Paul. The very fact that the culture of repair was mentioned was hopeful to me, planning as I am to take my broken wedding shoes to a cobbler one of these days.

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In the course of the weekend, I had many blessings: Attending Kim's classes with her and just getting some good visits in, meeting some new friends (as well as visiting old ones for French Toast on Saturday), and enjoying some peaceful music. Back in the Edmonton airport, as I waited for my Beloved to come pick me up, I talked Church politics (God, forgive me!) with an Eastern Catholic nun from Saskatoon. No matter how enchanting Vancouver is, there is substitute for coming home.

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Speaking of another kind of "conservation," please do take a moment to check out A Rocha Canada. This is an amazing organization that works worldwide, encouraging Christians to engage in care for the Creation. Our good friends Jay and Milissa Ewing are embarking on a journey with A Rocha as Directors of the Field Study Centre in Canada. This is an amazing work, so please join in prayer with and for them!