Spirituality and Wellness
Lloyd Den Boer
Better Vision
Something — maybe a bird bigger than a crow, but
white — was perched on a fence post not more than
twenty metres ahead. Fascinated by its uncanny
beauty, I moved closer. The bird sat strangely still even
while I inched ahead, keeping my eyes fixed on it. Then,
as suddenly as it had captured my attention, the bird
was gone. There was no explosion of wings, however.
Instead, my perception was changed; I saw, not the
bird I imagined, but the thing that was there. What that
thing was — maybe something my dad had nailed to
the top of the fence post — I have long forgotten. What
I remember, after almost sixty years, is a compelling
vision of a white bird that was not there. Even mistaken
perceptions have staying power.
Perceptions have power to shape our understanding
in big matters as well as small. Take, for example, a
perception that large-scale disasters reveal the worst in
people. In the panic that accompanies fires or floods,
we tend to think that people will look after themselves
first. Even more, when chaos overwhelms public health
and safety, we tend to fear that people will seize the
opportunity to prey on the defenceless. The novelist
William Golding took this even further. In Lord of the
Flies he showed how a group of boys marooned on an
island descended into savage behaviours as soon as the
internal constraints supported by civilization began to
fray. In this perception, the civility we normally extend
to each other is no more than a convenient set of
arbitrary conventions. Natural disasters disrupt these
restraints and reveal people for what they are.
This dark view produces compelling stories, but is its
perception of human nature satisfactory? Mr. Rogers
comforted children disturbed by traumatic events by
advising them to “look for the helpers.” That spoke of
his confidence that, after any traumatic event, helpers
will be there. In fact, as Rebecca Solnit explained in
A Paradise Built in Hell, helpers will show up because
the victims of large-scale disasters will help each other.
One of the outcomes of large-scale disasters, according
to Solnit, is the renewed awareness of community and
common purpose that arises as victims and volunteers
work together to make things better. Many Albertans
know this first-hand. Whether it be in fires in Slave
Lake and Fort McMurray or the floods in Calgary and
surrounding areas, people want to help each other.
Dark perceptions of human nature may have staying
power; however, if large-scale disasters reveal people
for what they are, then most people are kind, generous,
and care for others.
Should we be surprised that kindness, generosity,
care for others, community-mindedness, and purpose
— the human qualities that thrive in large-scale
disasters — are also factors that protect communities
during a pandemic? Every now and then, events take
a turn that disrupt our settled ways of seeing things,
realigning our perceptions and helping us develop
new understandings. The pandemic may be one of
those disruptive events, revising and renewing our
ordinary perceptions of many things, including what
communities need to be healthy and strong.
The pandemic will not be with us forever, but we
can currently see that communities do best when they
practice kindness, generosity, and care for others.
Extreme conditions highlight things that pass almost
unnoticed in ordinary times. New perceptions can
recede. What vision for the future do we want to
build as the pandemic conditions pass? Will our new
perceptions last to help us find a better vision?
Lloyd Den Boer is a retired educator. His career
spanned every level from elementary school to
university level teacher preparation.
news&views AUTUMN 2020 | 35