Spirituality

AT APPROXIMATELY 4 p.m. on Good Friday, | yelled
at my husband in the best fishwife fashion. This was not

supposed to happen. It was supposed to be a spiritual day.

ft was a minor incident — my
husband was trying to get some
test and i wanted to talk to him
— but u confirmed for me that
it’s not aiways easy leading a
spiritual life.

I think a lot more about
spirituality these days. Maybe I've
just seen one too many articles on
the reconstructive surgery boom
(as im ‘Liposuction helped me
believe in myself’). Maybe { think
too much about parents who have
given up criticizing television and
movies and who, in apathy or
despair, simply dump their
children in front of the latest elec-
tronic offerings.

Maybe it’s because | had my
first child six months ago.

On the hopeful side, it appears
many Canadians think there is life
beyond our relentlessly material
world. :

According to a study released in
March by University of
Lethbridge sociologist Reginald

By Catherine Atyeo
Conirituting Writer

Bibby, seven in 10 Canadians
believe in life after death, five in
10 believe in heil, about half the
population say they pray weekly
and six out of 10 believe in ESP.

Of course, just because people
say, ‘OK, you can put me down
for believing in hell,*" doesn’t
necessarily mean they are trying to
make room for spirituality in their
daily life.

The study confirmed that most
Canadians aren’t flocking to a
church to share their spirituality
with others; only 23 per cent of
Canadians now attend church
regularly, compared with seven
out of 10 in the 1950s.

Though I happen to attend
church regularly, I’ve never been
arrogant enough to believe that
one can only pursue a spiritual life

via. an organized religion.

In fact, } know that some bitter
and disgruntled ex-members of
churches would) maintain it’s
harder to pursue a spiritual path
within an organized religion. In-

44 ...0only 23 per
cent of Canadians
now atterid church

regularly. 9?

deed, many daily experiences can
be spiritual: hiking in the moun-
tains, walking your dog, lying in
bed with your infant and countless
more.

What concerns me is this: many
have abandoned the church ard

Fazay, Aprit 19,
Et AER SACD RAL TPT TAL EE aE TE

have chosen nat to expose their
children to any religious eaperi-
ence. But what have they replaced
it with?

For a lot of fotks, |} fear, it's
not a heckuva lot more than soc-
cer, Bart Simpson and the shopp-
ing mail. While I have nothing
against soccer, Bart and shopping
per se, they don’t exactly speak to
the spiritual needs of an individu-
al.

Taking care of our spiritual
side, |! offer humbly, doesn’t
mean getting your tea leaves read
once a month, or dragging the old
man and the kids off to church at
Christmas and Easter.

As Webster’s dictionary defines
it, the spirit is an animating or
vital principle that gives life to
physical organisms. We're talking
pretty basic, here. Taking care of
your spirit is not an option cut of
a list of multiple choices.

You can’t simply choose the
emotional, sexual and mental
categories and not expect certain
effects if you ignore the spiritual.

Though trained formally as a
scientist, the Swiss psychiatrist

199: - North Shore News - 7

is lost in a material world

and psychologist Carl Jung had an
intense, lifelong interest in the
spiritual side of human beings.

In his largely autobiographical
book ‘‘Memories, Dreams,
Reflections,’’ he writes about the
effects of an impoverished
spiritual fife: ‘‘] have frequently
seen people become neurotic when
they content themselves with in-
adequate or wrong answers to the
questions of life. They seek posi-
tion, marriage, reputation, out-
ward success or money and re-
main unhappy and neurotic even
when they have attained what they
were seeking. Such people are
usually confined within too nar-
row a spiritual horizon.”’

This isn’t just anyone’s opinion.
Cart Sung is considered one of the
giants in the study of the human
mind and behavior.

} wonder what Jung would have
to say about the bumper sticker
I’ve seen that seems to sum up
these times: ‘‘The one with the
most toys in the end wins.”’

Catherine Atyeo is a Vancouver
freclance writer.

Patronage
is the name
of the game

Dear Editor:

Whenever the provincial elec-
tion is called the Secred Party will
have a power base which will pay
off handsomely,

You only have to go to the
Union of B.C. Municipalities
Convention to appreciate how
complete Socred control over
municipal councils is. There, from
the little towns of British Colum-
bia, are the aldermen and mayors
who some time in the past were
urged to run for local council,
usually by the local Socred-
dominated business community.

After getting their local train-
ing, many of them will go on to
Victoria to serve as MLAs. By so
doing, they will continue to bond
between Victoria and the grass
roots provincial hinterland.

In the small and medium-sized
towns in B.C. there exists a close
relationship between municipal
councils, the local press, and the
business community. Together
they determine the economic, po-
litical, and social climate within
their jurisdiction with the press
playing a key role in keeping
things under control.

To ensure control over
municipalities, Victoria has work-
ed out a remarkable scheme.
Grants to municipalities to pro-
vide adequate services, to renew a
failing infrastructure and meet
environmental challenges, fall far
short of what is needed.

Unconditional provincial grants
to the District of North Van-
couver, for example, are less to-
day than they were 10 years ago,
even chough the provincial budget
has more than doubled in that
time; and even though both Or-
fawa and Victoria have dumped
numerous additional and expen-

sive responsibilities into the
municipal courtyard without
compensation.

But Socred-controlled councils

rarely speak up. Councils make up
for this shortfall by raising taxes
to homeowners instead. Either
that, or they pose as champions of
the taxpayers and cut badly need-
ed services.

On the other hand,
municipalities, at least those which
see the Socred ‘‘light,’’ will get
goodies handed out by Victoria
for special community projects
under programs such as GO B.C.
Funding for such projects is
money that should have gone to
municipalities in the first place.

Until it is understood and
changed, the Socred power base
will remain intact and the Socreds
will laugh all the way to Victoria
on election day — dire predictions
of their imminent defeat noi-
withstanding.

Ald. Ernie Crist
District of North Vancouver

Ceeacce CKCCCEELS.

<

Speed up Westview, Ms Johnston

Dear Editor:

I note that the Westview
overpass is on the back burner,
due to a lack of a final high-
ways ministry budget
(‘Westview project put on
hold,’’ April 5).

I have written on this topic
before and no doubt will do so
again. For years nothing was
done, then plans were discuss-
ed; then the green light was
given for Lonsdale; then the

great debate of diamond versus
Joop raged on; now we must
await a provincial budget.

With the current mess in
Victoria, that may be a long
time.

Perhaps our only salvation is’
that the former highways
minister is now the premier.
Can you speed up this project,
Madame premier?

Jeremy Dalton
North Vancouver

History
will be
the Judge

Dear Editer:

British Columbians should take
note: over the past four years we
have been witness to an amazing
phenomenon — the wilful,
calculated and seemingly in-
evitable destruction of a man’s
career on a scale heretofore in-
conceivable to a believer in justice
and democracy.

There will be lessons to be
learncd when the fever has sub-
sided and cooler, more sane,
minds may assess the record of
political deceit imprinted upon the
public process by numerous per-
sons of influence and power in
government, business, the media
and other spheres.

And there can be no doubt that
history, if it aligns itself with the
truth, will judge Bill Vander Zalm
quite differently than do his cur-
rent pack of detractors.

Adrian du Plessis
Vancouver

Remember
the Polar 8

Dear Editor:

Re: Polar 8 - Versatile Pacific
lay-offs

On behalf of North Vancouver
Liberals, I wish to express our
concern with Versatile Pacific’s
current difficulties.

There can be no doubt that had
the Federa! Government been
genuine ia its commitments to the
people of North Vancouver re-
garding the construction of the
Polar 8 project, Versatile Pacific
would not be facing this crisis.

We are certain that the people
of North Vancouver will not have
forgotten this Polar 8 fiasco when
they elect their new Member of
Parliament.

Vincent Santacroce
President - North Vancouver
Liberal Riding Association