By Peter Christensen

Op-Ed Commentary

My father prided himself on being humble. That is a contradiction. How can one be proud and humble?  Yet that was the kind of man he was. His grace served his community; other times I think he was angry with himself for being unable to live up to his own expectations.

He used to say with a hint of irony in his voice, “We all come short of the glory of God.”

It was a different time and place. We lived in small, rural farming community where Bethany Lutheran Church hosted a well-attended service every Sunday and most social, recreational and spiritual events took place either before the carefully carved alter or underneath it in the church basement. Life revolved around the congregation or the farm. Whatever our needs as a homesteading family, whether a ride to Innisfail to retrieve a serviced machine or a way to get to and from the hospital, we turned to our neighbours for help.

There were many good things about being bound to the belief that it was “God’s work” to help one another. One needed a certain amount of success to be able to do so, however my father considered too much success vain and arrogant, even evil.

There was a dark side to fundamentalism. My father, who had little education, did not rationalize contradiction but lived the literal truth.

One time we had a very good year on the farm and it looked like the sale of fatted calves would bring a nice profit: he deliberately overfed the calves. Three quarters of them bloated and died. I can still see the ‘deadstock truck’ hauling the carcasses away.  It drove my mother mad, a condition from which she never recovered.

The other day an opportunity came our way to go to the Mediterranean and cruise on a Superyacht for a week. A friend we met while living on our sailboat at Port Edward invited us.

Linda, who was orphaned when her parents were killed at a railway crossing, had grown up in a residential school and later as a single mother raised two boys. The boys became very successful by developing real estate and solar farms. Their company purchased a 165-foot Superyacht that plied the Mediterranean and chartered to ‘the rich and famous.’

The superyacht was being moved by its crew of six from Genoa, Italy to Monaco, France over a seven-day cruise. Linda wanted to share her success and invited us to join her on the yacht while it was being moved. All we had to do was get there.

I was not at ease with the 14-hour flight and travel as my health likes stability; however, we decided that Y should gather up a girlfriend and go.  Without thinking, I warned Y not to tell everyone about this, “after all, not all would appreciate such luck and luxury.” That didn’t go over well!

Where did that come from? It was one of those situations where a long-buried prejudice rose to the surface and gloated! I had considered myself open to most ideas, especially when it came to celebrating someone else’s success. But not really?

My father’s notions about the evil of success had suddenly and without urging arisen, a kind of second coming! It was an implanted old-style Socialist’s Dilemma! While believing that success was needed for everyone’s welfare and a good thing, on the other hand one did not want to see anyone get ahead. I was acting out my father’s beliefs. Getting ahead was okay, but only a little!

I had, without thinking, become my father. His unsorted beliefs had risen unbeckoned and driven my comment!  It was good to be humble, but if I shared in someone else’s success, I could not feel morally superior.

Bon Voyage!

– Peter Christensen is a Columbia Valley-based writer and poet.

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