Worth Losing Sleep Over

I just finished reading “The Circus Train “ by Canadian novelist, Amita Parikh. Her debut novel earned her instant recognition as Toronto Star’s pick as best historical fiction of 2022. “The Circus Train” is a captivating read that kept me up until midnight intent on finishing the last seventy-eight pages.

Not wanting to be a spoiler, I offer the following general comments hoping to spark your reading curiosity. “The Circus Train” introduces us to the daily workings of the travelling circus, World of Wonders, and the daily life of a circus troupe travelling through Europe in the 1930s and 40s on a specially converted steam train. As a sideline, the tale reveals polio therapy in its infancy.

The plot revolves around three main characters, Lena, Theo, and Alexandre. Lena Papadopoulos, the central character, is a young polio survivor. Theo, a renowned illusionist in the circus is the overprotective father of Lena. Alexandre is a young orphan runaway. Alexandre’s Jewish identity within the circus milieu is protected. With Theo’s encouragement, Alexandre becomes Lena’s best friend and supporter.

The story skillfully intertwines the threads of circus life, father-daughter relationships, war time dilemmas, bonds of friendship, secrets, and true forgiveness born of understanding.

I present to you a delightful reading experience!

-Sister Nancy Wales, CSJ

12 Steps to a Compassionate Life - A Book Review

Reviewed by Barbara Stanbridge, IHM, Detroit, MI.

Karen Armstrong, prolific author and religion historian, won a TED grant in 2008 to create a process for reinfusing our global society with compassion. Scholars from six major world religions created a “Charter of Compassion” and have been working ever since with nations and groups to sign on.

In this brief but inspiring book, Armstrong shows how compassion is fundamental to all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions and using the scaffolding of 12 steps, lays out a process for individuals and groups to build their compassion competencies.

Each step is examined and illustrated by way of practices: learning about compassion; looking at our world; compassion for yourself; empathy; mindfulness; action; how little we know; how we should speak to one another; concern for everybody; knowledge; recognition; and love your enemies. This is not another self-help, new age book, but rather a deeply spiritual book for the spiritual seeker with the capacity for reflection. It is in the best tradition of Confucius, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, the Dalai Lama, Etty Hillesum, Dorothy Day, Florence Nightingale and Nelson Mandela.

Perhaps there is nothing more important for us to get a grasp of in these days of polarization than compassion. Karen Armstrong lays out a path.

-Barbara Stanbridge, IHM, Used with kind permission.

The Sport and Prey of Capitalists

The front cover of the 2019 book by the brilliant journalist, Linda McQuaig, captures in six words and one picture the theme of her latest work, an exposé of the blatant betrayals the Canadian people have endured at the hands of their own governments.  The words SPORT and PREY above the dying Canada goose plummeting to earth, its feathers trailing behind it, encapsulate a century of greed, arrogance, and robbery of our nation’s public institutions.

The phrase “the sport and prey of Capitalists” was coined by James P. Whitney, Premier of Ontario in 1905. He was expressing his wish that the Hydro system in Ontario forever remain in the hands of the citizens and not fall victim to privatization.

McQuaig introduces her examination of 20th-century institutions transferred from public to private hands with this story of the scandalous current case of the Canadian Infrastructure Bank promised by Justin Trudeau following his election in 2015.

The Prime Minister’s team to head up the creation of the bank was led by Bill Morneau, former Canadian finance minister, who chose for his advisors several Wall Street profiteers anxious to lend their millions to a project that would bring them ample returns. Consequently, the plan presented to Parliament for approval was molded to fit the dream of the private investors for significant returns.  The original plan to borrow from “the people’s bank” the Bank of Canada, at a modest rate was replaced by one that suited the greed of a small team of avaricious millionaires from the United States. Thus, Canadian citizens will be required to pay unnecessary millions for their own roads and bridges while a few investors proceed to, as Kevin Page, the first parliamentary budget officer, declared, “rob us blind”. (p.30)

Following this example from our own time and place, McQuaig plunges into the scandalous historical details of some of the worst deals done by prime ministers and premiers against the best interests of the citizenry. The sale of the Connaught Laboratories,  and the privatization of Hwy. 407 are two examples.  

The give-away of Alberta’s oil for the most meager of royalties, combined with the Alberta government’s deference to Big Oil, resulted in massive losses for Alberta’s citizens who owned the resource but were denied the profits.

McQuaig compares successive Alberta governments to the national government of Norway that insisted that the oil in Norway’s territories belonged to the Norwegian people, not the big oil companies. “…Norwegians have managed to save up about one trillion dollars more in their rainy-day fund than Alberta.” (pg. 198)

Thankfully, when the reader has turned the last page of chapter seven, now scandalized and outraged, she or he will find that Linda McQuaig sings the praises of “the common”, which Canadians know, have experienced, and are good at. In most of her examples of Canadians being sold out, the institutions in question were being well run, were self-sustaining, and sometimes made a profit for the people. Once in private hands, it was the share-holders that mattered. The workers and the general public mattered not a whit, as we all witnessed at the closing of Sears Canada on December 18, 2017.

The author's last words are to urge us who care to practice the courage of the Norwegians who realized early on that even if a corporation left because it didn’t like how the government defended its citizens, it couldn’t take the oil with it.

Reviewed by Joan Tinkess

Our guest blogger, Joan Tinkess, is an avid book club participant of nonfiction. Her years of empowering women’s groups in the Dominican Republic broadened her local and worldview.

For a deeper dive, and some interviews with the author

Please Read This Book.

“Racism should never have happened and so you don’t get a cookie for reducing it.”

-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

‘Oh my. Even the title of this book incites discomfort in me' was my first thought when I found online at my local library the book "Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World and Become A Good Ancestor" by Layla F. Saad. And that was my signal that I had to read it.

In all the events over these past months especially since the murder of George Floyd, there has been much said about white supremacy sometimes sugar-coated in the more palatable expression of ‘white privilege’. This book called me out to examine how I and the society in which I live has participated and supported white supremacy in the many forms in which it expresses itself: fragility, tone policing, silence, apathy, Saviourism, tokenism, colour blindness, and optical allyship to mention just a few.

Each section of the book asks:

a) What is ________________?

b) How does ________________ show up? (with practical examples)

c) Why do you need to look at _______________?

The end of each section then offers some reflective journaling prompts to help us examine how we both individually and as members of various groups of which we are a part have experienced each of these things and to look at ways and means by which we can move towards the eradication of racism in all its forms.

I ask everyone to read this book.

-Sister Nancy Sullivan, csj

A Book Review

LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE by Celeste Ng

This story takes place in Shaker Heights, Ohio a suburb of Cleveland.   A real place where the author grew up which was the first planned community in America.  And it existed with its own set of rules, from the colour of your house even down to where you could put your garbage bins.  The plot begins dramatically with a blazing fire of a rich house.

But the characters are the focus.  Elena Richardson is the third generation of her family to live in this community.  She is one of the movers and shakers, living by all the rules, written and unwritten.  As she says, “Rules are meant to keep you safe.  If you follow them you will have success.”  She has four children, all different.  The eldest girl, Lexie, has her path set for going to Yale and she is accepted for the following year.  In high school, she joined the right groups, become involved in the right clubs/activities, and did well academically.  The next child, Tripp, is the handsome jock who attracts girls but loves and leaves them.  Third is Moody, a sensitive artist with a well-hidden rebel inside.  He is belittled by Lexie and Tripp.  Finally, there is Izzy who rejects the rules of her mother and community.  She constantly acts out, pushing angry responses from her mother when she dresses differently, becomes vegetarian, and refuses to comply with her mother’s plans for her life.

Enter Mia Warren who is nomadic and lives in her car with her daughter Pearl while settling into their next community.  She is an artistic photographer who moves from project to project.  She supports herself with odd jobs and devotes her time and energy to her photography and to her daughter Pearl.  Circumstances have Mia renting an apartment from the Richardsons and later, working as a cook/housekeeper in the afternoons at their home.

While the characters appear opposites, their interactions give them nuances that allow for much reflection on parenting, mother/daughter relationships, values that order our lives, and how or if we change.  This is both a good story and a thought-provoking look at daily life.

- Jackie Potters, csj Associate