FINDING HOPE HAIKU IN THE TIME OF COVID

Reading with children Facetime is the next best thing When snuggling is out. Walking with Kathy To be outside where life is So spectacular. People delighted By an unexpected call I happened to make. Call from a cousin Who lives in Ontario Remembering me. Grateful for wellness And grocery delivery A home that I love. Making up stories Wednesdays are the send-out days Getting letters back. Balcony pansies Pandemic insensitive Blooming like crazy Media searching For good news to give us hope And give them hope too. Choosing not to clean Because I know there will be Time for it later. Choosing to clean now Because I know I will be Glad I did later. Thinking of places I’m glad not to be in now And those I still love. Sweet whiff of supper Slow cooking tantalizing While I watch Frasier Counting on science Admiring the leadership Of our officials Dreaming a future When this time will be the past That made us all wiser.

A LITTLE MEDIA GOES A LONG WAY

Thanks to Cam Tait of the Edmonton Journal for helping us celebrate Hope Foundation's 20th anniversary with an article about our history. UNIQUE ORGANIZATION PROVES A LITTLE HOPE GOES A LONG WAY

broadcasting from denver

Thanks to Carol Jeanotilla and her Hope Journal program, I spent a pleasant 45 minutes chatting about hope. Rumour has it that feedback was received from as far away as Brazil. Here are Carol's instructions for downloading a podcast: Go to www.castlerockradio.com/archives.html Simply find The Hope Journal listing, click on us and then click on the air date - 4/26/12 - to listen any time 24/7.

HOPE, WOMEN, POLITICS, MEDIA

I am delighted that we have female party leaders running in our election.
I hope women will be as comfortable in politics as men are.
I hope to help them be comfortable by promoting a Name It, Change It a website that identifies how sexism in the media gives male candidates the upper edge when it comes to getting elected, and provides a media guide to help media write fairly about female and male candidates.
I hope our media will use that media guide.
I hope we will support the media writers who use the guide, and withdraw attention and support from those media outlets who choose to get attention by disadvantaging females in politics through sexist coverage.

HOW POWERFUL IS HOPE?

“What happens when the medical system and hope collide?” This is the question raised by MS WARS: HOPE, SCIENCE AND THE INTERNET an episode of The Nature of Things that aired February 9 2012 on CBC TV.
It all started in 2009 when Dr. Paolo Zamboni,
an Italian surgeon whose wife has multiple sclrosis, launched a small study in which favourable symptom reduction was achieved when some MS patients had simple surgery to open veins in their necks. After that, according to host David Suzuki, there began a race between hope—a phenomenon that spread among patients like wildfire over the Intrnet, and the long-trusted medical process of testing hypotheses and developing treatments. The medical establishment was directing money into long term projects—the development of stem cell research, for example. The patients, seeing a chance for some relief in the present, successfully diverted these funds to support studies of Zamboni’s so-called Liberation Therapy. It is still unclear how much of the benefit of liberation therapy is attributable to the placebo effect, but it is clear that many patients have achieved cymptom relief, often at great expense as they travelled to far-away countries for a surgical procedure which was routinely performed in Canada for other purposes, but disallowed as a treatment for the symptoms of MS.
Regardless of what the long term results may show, in the current battle that Suzuki frames as hope vs medical establishment protocol, hope is the clear winner.

THE DAYS OF MINT!

I love the way language changes—the new meanings for old words, the old words that make a comeback. You can see it everywhere, once you decide to notice. Look in the news, where our modern search capacities track such phenomena. Journalist Tom Spears, for example, has noticed that the Ottawa Citizen printed ‘iconic’ 370 times in 2011, not even once in 1990. By 2032 it might appear thousands of times, or maybe none at all. Nobody knows which word would achieve iconic status, taking its place and soaking up the printer’s ink in the event of its demise. If I had the tools I’d find out how often ‘hope’ appears in the news, whether its use has grown or shrunk. Perhaps some day I will have the tools, maybe even be lucky enough to know how to use them. But that isn’t likely to happen tomorrow. The question is, what shall I do while I wait?
A few stories come to mind, might as well take a moment to tell them. This Christmas season, with the family gathered for kitchen chatter, seemed like the perfect time to drop a phrase that once echoed in our house. “Beats for you,” I said. Everyone understood.
I don’t know what ‘beats for you’ means in other households. In ours, it means, ‘Turn the clock back 20 years and imagine us smiling at one another, giving a playful push.’ “Beats for you,” the pusher would say with a grin. A mutually understood implication bubbled unspoken just below the surface. The intended meaning could, I confess, have been delivered with more directness. But what self-respecting just-about-teen-ager would say to his brother, “You have been fortunate to avoid the full force of my wrath on this particular occasion?” If you wanted to make a veiled threat with a smile, you’d warn of potential ‘harsh beats.’
I have no idea where the language of beats came from. Maybe it started at school, maybe on television. I know I didn’t start it, but I will confess that I encouraged it. I used it, though probably not at the office. It is difficult to imagine what direction my career might have taken had I—assigned the job of disciplining an employee—opened with a grinning exclamation, “Beats for you.”
Childhood is a veritable breeding ground for the introduction of expressions. This, possibly, is because youth so often exclaim. Most of our out-of-fashion exclamations began with kids and youth—cool, neat, rad, mint! Mint! What’s that you say? You’ve never heard anybody say ‘mint’?
Well, if you’ve never heard young people exclaiming ‘mint!’ every 14 seconds, then it is clear to me that you never attended Jericho Hill School in the mid 1960’s. The school was out in Vancouver, many miles from my Alberta farm home. I was 11 when I arrived. “I’m from Alberta,’ I told my new roommate.
“Mint!” she said. Being the new kid in the dorm, I let it go, didn’t mention it the first time, or the fiftieth time I heard it. I knew her a little better by the next day, so I said, “What does ‘mint’ mean?”
“What does ‘mint’ mean?” she repeated, drawing a wondrous breath. “What does ‘mint’ mean? You don’t know what ‘mint’ means? They don’t say ‘mint’ in Alberta?”
“Well,” said I cautiously, not wanting to cast too dull a light on my ancestors, “I suppose it’s possible that they say it, and I simply haven’t heard it.”
“Mint,” said she, rising to the occasion with the gravity of a philosophy professor accepting an honorary doctorate, ‘mint means nice.”
“Mint!” I replied. Twelve hours later I had almost forgotten that there was once a time when I didn’t say it, except in reference to certain candies my Granny kept in her purse.
Some days I get down about language, start thinking that no new language is ever good, that all new words of exclamation start with F. Sometimes I long for the days of ‘mint!’ Most often it’s the talk shows that bring it on. It’s listening to the endless programs where callers are encouraged to call in complaining about how the language has gone to the dogs, how the apostrophe is wrongly used, how young people can’t even write a business letter.

Then I go out shopping, and a cashier just past her 16th birthday asks me, “Will that be cash, or card?”
Out pops my credit card. She picks it up, peers at it, runs an affectionate finger over the security chip. “Perrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect!” she cries. And here is the message, the sign, the affirmation that the days of ‘mint!’ are still with us, albeit in a different form. I know that all is right with the world.
In 2011 Everything Became Iconic

DAVID JOHNSTON'S MESSAGE OF HOPE

Here, from our Governor General is a message for the future.
Governor General David Johnston

OTTAWA— In the little over a year since I was installed as Governor General, Sharon and I have had the opportunity to travel to almost every corner of our
country—and to meet with Canadians from nearly every walk of life. It has been a remarkable experience.

What has struck us most is the generosity of Canadians. Generous with their talents, their time and their treasure. More than 80% of Canadians make some
kind of financial donation to a worthy cause every year. And some 12 million Canadians spend over two billion hours volunteering.

Those are impressive numbers and speak to the kind of people we are—and the kind of country we’ve built. We are a nation of barn raisers.

Whether it’s because of the geography we share or the climate we endure, giving seems to crop up everywhere in our society. We are bound to one another.
And every day, in countless ways large and small, Canadians demonstrate their gift for giving.

I have been reflecting upon the generosity of Canadians while thinking about the year ahead. In every new year lies the promise of a new beginning.

An opportunity to improve our lives and enrich our country. And as Canada approaches its 150th anniversary, in 2017, it’s time to renew our efforts to imagine
the kind of country we want—and to start building it in the New Year.

Imagine a smarter, more caring Canada. A Canada where giving—in all its forms—time, talent, altruism become an even more integral part of our daily lives—a
main stream part of being Canadian.

During the holiday season, each of us can plainly see the effect that the spirit of generosity and goodwill has upon our lives and our communities. And
each year we ask ourselves, ‘Why can’t every day be so full of sharing?’

Indeed, ‘Why not?’ An everyday culture of giving is one of the defining features of successful societies everywhere. This has been the case throughout Canada’s
past, but we cannot take it for granted. Together, let us renew our gift for giving as we look to the future.

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

Two people sent emails early on Wednesday morning with stories to bolster my hope. I hadn’t asked either of them for that. Nevertheless, they had chosen the best possible day.
There are days when I really need somebody to tweak my hope. Wednesday was one of those. I was giving two hope presentations, one at the George Spady Centre, the other to the ATA Guidance Council. I was planning to say that you have to pay attention to hope, to notice it in amongst everything else. And there, offered on a silver platter, were two things I could notice—two things that gave me hope.
Jim had sent an article from the Globe and Mail. Secret Santas paying off strangers’ layaway accounts
Generosity, according to the story, had started with one person and gone viral, the way the urge to burn police cars tends to go viral in a riot. It happened in a store in Michigan, where an anonymous shopper paid off some debts for others. Publication of the story set off a trend of copycat behaviour in other stores, stores in other states. The very idea that generosity could be contagious was highly hope-enhancing, given all the Black Friday, threaten-and-crush news we’d been hearing, given the expectation that Black Friday behaviour will soon be present not only in the U.S., but also here in Canada. That alone would have been enough to put me in the mood for a presentation. But there was more.
David sent me a letter to the editor that appeared in The Edmonton Journal. Raise would close salary gap
Accompanying the letter was a note that said: “You could have written this.”
What he meant, but had not said, goes something like this. “Wendy, here is a completely straight-up no-nonsense letter saying something you’ve been harping about since the early 1970’s—that we can reduce the wage gap any time we choose to do so by giving equal dollar raises instead of percentage raises.”
It was affirming to know that one person has been listening to me. It felt good to see it written so plainly. It sounded good to hear somebody else say it. It gave me hope that we might actually begin to do something about the wage gap—some day. All this hand wringing about how we need to reduce the wage gap, need to reduce the need for food banks--gets a little tiring.
I do hope I will soon begin speaking out about one possible solution—to somebody other than David.

FUTURE PERSPECTIVE

Isn’t it surprising how way leads on to way? Last week the Hope Foundation got a call from the Guelph Mercury, the newspaper in Guelph Ontario. Joanne Shuttleworth had been contemplating hope when she found us on the web. Later, reading the article she wrote, (see below) I found myself remembering a day in 1993. It was graduation day at Central High, my old high school in Sedgewick Alberta. My nephew Todd was graduating and I had been invited to give the guest address. I recall how I worried about that address. You see, the economy was in a slump. The oil patch was pulling back. There was a worldwide recession of sorts. The Gulf War had recently ended. I wasn’t a hopey in those days. In fact, I hadn’t even heard of the Hope Foundation yet. But I was aware nonetheless of an abiding fear of the future, aware of it, yet not quite able to put it into appropriate words for a graduation address.
The ceremony began and I waited for my turn, watching expectantly for signs of pessimism. There were none. This, it appeared, was a grad just like every other grad. The students were leaving high school and going on to something new. Where, I wondered is the fear, the dread, the sense of impending doom? I waited and waited. But no doom came to call. In the end, after all, it was a grad like any graduation ceremony followed by a dance. Everybody, young and old, got up on the dance floor. So I danced.

The Guelph Mercury

(2009-03-09)
Joanne Shuttleworth

When the going gets tough, the tough, er, keep hoping

Two months after my husband and I split up, the small community paper I was working at part-time folded.

It was a brutal, sad day, and I thought, well now I won't even make the $50 a week I was earning.

It didn't take long to deplete the bank account and while I diligently sent out resumés and applied for any job that remotely involved writing -- the only
practical skill I had -- the bills mounted on the kitchen table.

I never questioned my decision to end the marriage -- at least not once I made up my mind. But I did wish I had thought this one through.

At least I could have planned the money better, I thought. If I had hung in another six months, I could have patched the leaky ceiling and fixed the car
before going it alone.

But there I was trying to figure out how to pay for these repairs, plus all the regular expenses that come with home ownership and single parenthood.

The kids had to tighten their belts too, and for that I was sorry. I made them choose just one activity and give up the rest. I pared down the grocery bill.
We didn't go out much and allowance disappeared.

Although I believed that in the long-term we would all benefit, in those dark days I was overwhelmed with guilt and worry that my decision was throwing
my kids into poverty. This was my choice, not theirs, yet they were deeply affected.

Then out of the blue, my daughter, who was 11 at the time, said something that fortified my resolve and, as is often the case with kids, taught me a another
lesson in life.

"You know what?" she said. It was a statement more than a question. "This is good for me."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, you're going after your dream, and you're showing me how to do it."

My jaw dropped. I could have kissed her. I'm sure I did.

That's what you're getting from this? A positive life lesson despite evidence to the contrary?

She didn't realize how much her words helped me. We've talked about it since and Laura doesn't really remember the conversation.

But she does remember the sentiment -- that something good will come out of hardship if we just hang in long enough, and together enough.

I've been thinking about that story since speaking Wendy Edie, director of counselling at the Hope Foundation of Alberta, an agency connected to the University
of Alberta, which does research on the physical and emotional benefits of hope.

Just as laughter can be infectious, negative feelings can spread too, Edie told me. Get one Debbie Downer in the batch and pretty soon the air is thick
with it.

"Each person has their own personal experience of hope," she told me. "We don't notice hope in good times. But when times are uncertain, nothing sucks away
hope more than fear."

Edie said her agency, once maligned for studying something as "intangible" as hope, is gaining traction as more and more people are facing uncertain futures.
Lost investments and lost jobs have most of us searching for reasons to be hopeful.

Edie said when she thinks of the stories her mother told about growing up during the Great Depression, it wasn't the hardships that stuck with her.

"She probably told me how bad it was, but what I remember is how resourceful people were, and how they helped each other out."

For those struggling to remain positive, Edie says we should try to focus on what we're doing now that we'll be proud of later.

Talk about reasons to be hopeful, especially with your kids.

U.S. President Barack Obama talks a lot about hope and that bodes well for us all, Edie said.

"I put his speeches up on our website," she said. "When he talks to the people about our hopes, it's really about our future. And we do have a future."


Here's hoping.

Mercury reporter Joanne Shuttleworth can be reached at jshuttleworth@guelphmercury.com.

Joanne Shuttleworth