"The civility we need will not come from
watching our tongues.
It will come from valuing our differences."
Parker J. Palmer
And words from Yeats:
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Prime Minister,
Your voice will become more important on the world stage now. Your job is not to preserve the traditionally strong relationship between Canada and the States; that is far secondary to remaining true to the values of a Prime Minister who went to Pearson Airport to welcome the first Syrian refugees. Be that man. That is who Canada and the world will need.
Bon courage.
