Author: Matthew Civico

A Montreal church is getting a lot of attention for offering to help struggling students

Mark Twain once called Montreal the city of a hundred steeples, but not every church has a steeple—they’re expensive.

Take the church I attend as an example. Église du Plateau Mont-Royal is a small, francophone Protestant church that meets in the Plateau-Mont-Royal neighbourhood. The church-goers don’t meet in a church building because it doesn’t own one, which is common for new churches with small congregations. In fact, Église du Plateau Mont-Royal doesn’t own a building for the same reason I don’t own a house—real estate is expensive.

In early September the church started renting the auditorium at Jeanne-Mance High School for Sunday gatherings because the previous rental space was being filled to capacity.

You may think this all sounds benign, whether you consider yourself religious or not, so why are we talking about this? A recent story by Radio-Canada and later CBC has thrust my little church into the spotlight—even politicians are talking about it—but why?

Because Jeanne-Mance High School is a school with needs—needs compounded by austerity measures—and Église du Plateau Mont-Royal is big on community service.

From what I understand, the decision to rent space at Jeanne-Mance was motivated by a desire to serve the disadvantaged. The school is ranked third worst in Quebec, according to the Fraser Institute, and has a course failure rate of 49.9 per cent.

The problem is not that the church wanted to help by offering tutors (many congregants are university students) or volunteers to keep the library open when the librarian was laid off. No, the problem seems to be that a church wanted to help.

The Radio-Canada report also got a few facts wrong. The article says members of the church are already tutoring and volunteering in the library. We’re not, because we haven’t been trained by the school yet or agreed to the terms that would likely be imposed on any volunteers.

The majority of those who commented on the article seem convinced that the plan was to put on Jesus t-shirts and hand out copies of the Bible with students’ library books.

That’s ridiculous.

Regardless of what you may have seen on T.V., that’s not Église du Plateau Mont-Royal—and that’s not me. I get it though, I’m a native Montrealer and I know the history of religion in Quebec. People just aren’t comfortable with religion in schools since the Quiet Revolution—for good, valid reasons—and I think the de-confessionalization of school boards was a good thing.

I know what it means to live in a pluralistic society. I know that in Canada, and Quebec especially, my worldview is not the dominant one. Because of this I try to live out my faith humbly, answering questions instead of offering answers.

I have a question of my own: if my church didn’t meet in Jeanne-Mance’s auditorium and I wanted to volunteer my services as an ESL teacher, would I be allowed? I’m a Christian and sometimes I talk about that fact. If someone asked me why I volunteer anywhere I’d mention something about Jesus’ command to love my neighbour.

Église du Plateau Mont-Royal isn’t planning to put on t-shirts and proselytize kids. We saw a need and asked if we could help. I’m a one service-minded individual among many at the church and yes, that service mindedness springs from my faith but that doesn’t change the nature of my service.

If all this media coverage means Église du Plateau Mont-Royal is strictly forbidden from mentioning our faith while volunteering, that’s fine, I just want to help. If the school gets much needed funds out of this, even better.

But my motivation for helping will always stay the same.

Can a latte really deliver a season’s worth of meaning and feeling?

Lattes are liars, and Pumpkin Spiced ones are the worst.

Knowledge of their duplicity doesn’t scare me off though. Every year it’s the same: I want them in a bad way. I’m pretty embarrassed about it but I think I’ve learned a few things about gourds and frothed milk and, somewhere along the way, about myself.

I’m just a man. Weak, frail, and in need of comfort—warmly spiced comfort—when temperatures begin to dip below 10 degrees Celsius.

Naturally, I put on a sweater and some wool socks. I also swear off ice cream and start eating more soups and stews. You see, I take my autumns very seriously.

Now about that frothy fraud.

Pumpkin Spice Lattes are dangerous. They’re like politicians really, and we swallow them down every year, reelecting them as ambassadors of autumn while oblivious of our collective amnesia.

The PSL makes a lot of promises, but I’m on to it. It’s a seasonal drink though, and has Starbucks’ (and others) marketing muscle behind it, so it threw me for a loop this year—it added real pumpkin.

“Authenticity!” I cried out, but too soon, because PSLs know everyone is a secret hipster and I was just being pandered to.

It’s still a disappointment. Still too sweet and too mainstream. No one loves a PSL the way I could love a PSL if I didn’t already hate them.

I hate calling them PSLs.

I want to love Pumpkin Spice Lattes. I want to find comfort and fulfilment in their warmth, the same way I want to find identity and fulfilment in early morning writing and afternoon walks amid bright, swirling leaves.

Packaged, frothed, and consumable—that’s how I want my autumns, and I’m ashamed. Maybe that’s why I can’t decide whether I love or hate Pumpkin Spice Lattes. They offer me exactly what I want in the way I think I want it, but I come away unsatisfied every time.

Sure, I could scour the internet for a gluten-free fair-trade non-GMO paleo alternative that would be better than the sugary gourd-slop Starbucks is peddling, but it wouldn’t matter.

The pure, distilled spirit of autumn I want can’t actually be distilled, let alone into a cheap syrup.

Maybe I’m an idealist, or maybe I just can’t get past how much more interesting metaphysics are than physics. One thing I know is that my perfect conception of autumn—and what PSLs should be—exists, it just doesn’t exist here.

But that’s what ideals are for. It’s why we idolize heroes and worship ephemeral experiences; we do this because it gives us something to reach for.

I’m deeply disappointed with the broken promises of Pumpkin Spice Lattes but I’m not cynical about what they offer. An unflagging idealism, or at least a willingness to dream beyond reality, is the only effective antidote against cynicism that I know.

So go enjoy a warm gourd beverage, but don’t believe the hype.

What’s there to like about the herald of winter dread?

What is it about dying trees, cold winds, and shorter days that drives me to wake up with the sun and go for a run with a toque on? It can’t only be me. Well, maybe you’re not a runner or a morning person—that’s ok—there’s plenty of other things autumn is good for other than chilly sunrises.

I’ve heard people say that autumn makes them sad, yet many others say that it’s their favourite season. The anticipation leading up to spring and summer is hopeful and light, and for good reason (Canadian winters), but the anticipation of autumn and winter are more like varying degrees of dread for some. While I do prefer sweaters to sunscreen I have nothing against summer, it’s great and I enjoy it to the fullest. Still, there is something about the onset of autumn that inspires me.

Fall is my favourite season precisely because it makes me a bit sad. Let me explain.

Like the conflict in a good tragedy, fall, and the winter that follows it, is unstoppable. Bad things are going to happen. You will need to find those gloves that you put away in a special place but, tragically, have forgotten their location. Just when it looks like you’ll need to buy a new pair for the third year in a row, you pat yourself down in your winter coat and, what’s this? You find your gloves in the pockets. Oh yes, you are a smart one. How could you have doubted yourself? With your hands thus outfitted you can now venture out confidently into the increasingly belligerent weather.

This anticipation of difficulty is what I find so attractive about fall. Historically this feeling had more bite for the average person because the concept of the harvest wasn’t just a concept—it was a matter of life and death. Rest after struggle is a particularly beautiful kind of rest, and I get a slice of that every autumn in a sort of microcosm, just like that little anecdote about the lost gloves. Necessity feels closer during the change of seasons.

Autumn inspires me because it anticipates change, changes that are more like challenges. While challenges like staying warm and fed are stripped of their risk for a city dwellers, they thankfully retain most of comforting reward. Snuggles, warmly spiced treats, and casseroles are definitely big players in fall’s popularity. There is more though, like the melancholy of gently falling leaves.

In addition to tea, autumn drives me to make things. I get all creative, and in a way that’s distinct from other times of year. Summertime demands activity and getting outside while winter is often an energy suck, but autumn quickens things. I get a desperate feeling of time running out.

Winter really is coming.

Actually, there’s not much time left. The fall passses quickly and soon shopping malls will be prodding us to quasi-Christmas consumerism and no one will want to go out because of the snow.

This season lives on borrowed time every year and it’s shorter than most, so don’t go wasting it. Slow down but don’t start hibernating indoors just yet, there are autumn sunrises to catch, and a finite amount of beauty to contemplate over warm cups of tea.

Polls don’t tell the whole story

I won’t lie: I don’t hate Stephen Harper with a deep and abiding hatred. I also think Thomas Mulcair makes a poor knight in shining armour, notwithstanding his highly laudable facial hair and penchant for promises.

Let the record state that I have made fun of Justin Trudeau’s hair and may have referred to him as “just a pretty face” at some point. I’m also among the jinxing masses that say Elizabeth May and her Greens will never win, even though they have some great ideas.

There, all my cards are on the table. Make of them what you will, because I will never, ever tell you whom I vote for. I say democracy’s effectiveness is proportional to how much you hate people who voted differently from yourself; let’s make it hard to hate, shall we?

Sometimes I’m tempted to call myself a cynic, but deep down, I believe democracy—while frustrating—is the least of a host of political evils. I’m not a political scientist but I’m pretty sure coups cost more than elections (unless they’re especially efficient).

So, although I won’t tell you who I’m voting for, I’m more than happy to muck around in a good old fashioned election edition of Who’s winning this thing anyway? powered by little more than my astute observations.

After one leaders’ debate and a whole lot of cross-country campaign stops, the NDP currently leads while the Conservatives hold a slight edge over the Liberals for second place, according to the CBC’s aggregate Poll Tracker.

Polls are polls however, not ballot boxes, so I confidently declare these numbers to be purely speculative. Therefore, without the help of pollsters, I somewhat less confidently declare Justin Trudeau to be winning this election thing.

Let me make my case.

I, like most humans, am not a purely rational being. Which is why my head hurts after listening to candidates throw policy promises around for a whole debate and on the campaign trail. Let’s be honest, everyone’s promises sound great—they’re designed to be appealing.

I want lower taxes, I want affordable daycare for the parents I know, and I want a strong economy and stronger infrastructure, because more than a few things are falling apart here in Montreal.

Maybe you can parse the numbers, but I can’t. Even if I could figure out which party made the best promises, how can I know they’ll keep them? How can I know they’ll even be capable of keeping them, despite their sincere intentions?

We just can’t. Maybe I am a cynic.

Since the Maclean’s debate and the subsequent campaigning, Justin Trudeau has impressed me with his rhetoric about recovering what’s Canadian about Canada. I disagree with him on a number of positions, but one key to democracy is allowing yourself to be led by someone you don’t wholly agree with.

If we aren’t willing to be led by someone who isn’t a carbon copy of ourselves, then we’re just little kings and queens—grubby sovereigns in front of mirrors, clutching at control.

You see, the parts of me that aren’t purely rational are subject to inspiration. So while he’s vague on details, and even though I’m not sure I’ll vote for him in October, Trudeau has inspired me.

More than any other party leader, Justin Trudeau has shown me that elections are less about looking in a mirror, and more about picking someone you can follow.

Normally when you roll a walrus in crude oil you get an ecological disaster—we got The Walrus Talks instead.

How-to advice for the anxious and confident alike

Settlers of Catan is the gateway to exciting cardboard worlds

I have one rule. No puns about board games being boring.

Board games are not boring and neither are they dead. They’re actually in the midst of renaissance and, as a pusher of cardboard tokens, I’m here to persuade you to play more of them.

A little bit of wisdom goes a long way when interpreting the law—uh, regulations

When Rania El-Alloul walked into Montreal’s imposing Palais de Justice she was probably expecting what most Canadians expect from their government: a headache and a long wait.

I don’t know how long El-Alloul waited to see Judge Eliana Marengo but, according to CBC, she “was in court to apply to get her car back after it was seized by (the) automobile insurance board,” so we can safely assume the headache.

What makes my head hurt is how El-Alloul, a separated mother of three, left the courthouse. She left without her impounded car and with instructions to return with a lawyer—all because she was wearing a hijab.

For the uninitiated, a hijab is a common feature of religious dress for Muslim women. This is not a niqab or burqa we’re talking about, so her face was not covered. It’s a headscarf, that covers the hair, and it’s not exactly off-putting.

For this reason, it’s hard to imagine why the court proceedings turned out the way they did.

When El-Alloul finally stood before the judge she wasn’t asked about her case or told how to go about retrieving her car. Judge Marengo asked why she had a scarf on her head.

Now, I haven’t completed law school or worked for years as a lawyer (as judges do before being approved to apply our laws) but I know exactly why Rania El-Alloul was wearing a scarf on her head. Even if Judge Marengo was ignorant of this particular form of religious dress—which is nigh near impossible given recent legal hoopla surrounding veils and the like—she was quickly enlightened.

Spoiler alert: it’s because El-Alloul is a Muslim, and she told the judge as much, expecting to move on to the more relevant and pressing matter of her impounded car. With no explanation, Judge Marengo then called a half-hour recess, presumably, to deliberate on this startling scarf development. The CBC report goes on to provide a recording of what followed.

“…you stated that you’re wearing a scarf as a religious symbol.”

“Yes.”

“In my opinion the courtroom is a secular place and a secular space; there are no religious symbols in this room, not on the walls and not on the persons. Article 13 of the regulations of the court of Quebec states: any person appearing before the court must be suitably dressed. In my opinion you are not suitably dressed.”

Judge Marengo goes on to compare El-Alloul’s headscarf to a hat or sunglasses, all of which, according to the judge, would violate proper decorum.

I went ahead and dug through the regulations of the Court of Québec, Division II (Order, Dress Code, and Decorum), and found that most articles referenced the proper attire of judges and attorneys, all agents of the state.

Article 13 is sandwiched between regulations on maintaining good order by not reading newspapers or taking unauthorized court selfies, and a clear-cut rule about not speaking unless spoken to.

I’m going to go ahead and call Judge Marengo’s interpretation of that regulation (Div. II, Article 13) loose. I believe she mistakenly conflated the necessary secularism of the court with petitioners’ freedom within proper decorum.

I imagine that someone appearing in court with one shoe, a Concordia Stingers toque, and ‘McGill sucks’ painted on their uncovered chest might be fairly branded as “unsuitably dressed.” Go ahead and throw that guy out, he’s being disrespectful and might be intoxicated.

El-Alloul, on the other hand, enters the court as a petitioner expecting the apparatus of the state to fulfill its function. She expected to plead her case and be served justice, which likely would have included first paying a fine and then retrieving her car. That being the just fulfilment of the appropriate law.

Québec is a pluralist society. It would be downright silly to ask someone to dress up in the Canadiens’ tricolour before appearing before a judge, unless of course the official state religion was Gohabsianism, in which case I wouldn’t expect a fair hearing for any practising Bruiners or Leafites. But that wouldn’t be pluralism, right?

I’m not sure if Rania El-Alloul thinks in hockey allusions, but according to reports she did the right thing. When she was given an ultimatum to remove her scarf and commence with the proceedings, or to leave and return with a lawyer, presumably after the judge had recessed for 30 minutes to reflect, El-Alloul left the court. She explained the nature of her headscarf, which did not infringe upon the good order of the courtroom, and she calmly received a scolding.

Montreal has rioted for less, in case anyone needs reminding.

Protests may not be necessary though, since the court may yet resolve, what I consider a blatant error, all by itself. According to another CBC report, an official complaint has been lodged and the province’s judicial council, the Conseil de la Magistrature, is looking into the matter.

It was also reported that a spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper weighed in on the matter, stating that, “if someone is not covering their face, we believe they should be allowed to testify.”

“I’m not making harm for anyone with my hijab,” El-Alloul told CBC Radio’s As It Happens after the incident. She went on to say that the complaint she is making is not just for herself but for all people and religions, “for Sikh people, for the Jewish men who are wearing the kippah, it is a freedom.”

It’s that freedom that brings people to our shores; the freedom that settles desperate refugees and hopeful immigrants alike. I don’t know what circumstances brought Rania El-Alloul to Montreal, but like many before and after her, she was likely expecting Canadian freedom. The freedom Canada offers includes the right to appear before a secular court without compromising one’s religious conscience, doubly so when there’s no impediment to the good order of the proceedings.

It would seem that Rania El-Alloul is fighting for a freedom I thought I already had, but if Judge Marengo’s reactionary attitude is not just an anomaly, those of us who enjoy a secular state without practicing secularism have reason to support El-Alloul’s complaint.

Though El-Alloul said in her radio interview that she didn’t know what has prompted recent criticism of overt religious symbols, I believe it stands to reason that the current coverage of the international problem with ISIS has played a role, although the debate in Québec has been simmering much longer.

I cannot speak for Judge Marengo, and wouldn’t presume to, but I invite her to clarify or defend her ruling, because as it stands her ruling could be seen as an alarming threat to pluralism.

The state should not and must not wield secularism in the same manner as the failed theocracies of old wielded religion. If it does, the secular state becomes the very problem it sought to fix. An independent and intelligent judiciary is key to preventing this.

For the letter of the law kills, but the spirit of the law (that is, its reasonable application) gives life—that’s why we have judges—but now I’m paraphrasing my own holy scriptures, and apparently there is no place in a public space for that nonsense.

We can only hope that, at the very least, common sense will be allowed to appear in court.

Throwback Thursday has always been a thing and now it’s easier than ever

Most Concordia students have never lived in a world without “Saturday Night Live” and that’s probably a testament to the show’s quality, or at least our hunger for topical sketch comedy. The recent SNL 40th anniversary show was pure nostalgia, like the kind you may have felt visiting your hometown haunts during Reading Week.

SNL’s retrospective special walked me through the halls of my high school, where good friends reenacted sketches so hilariously that I didn’t care about having missed the show. But I’m not 40, I’m 25, so why am I already nostalgic for the past? Throwback Thursday shouldn’t be a thing among students in their 20s, right?

Well, a big part of nostalgia is reliving formative experiences. I’m not the person I was back in high school but, the person I am right now owes a lot to the experiences of a certain lovesick bookish nerd with self-image issues: me. We rehash our foundations in university to arts students studying classical works and the sciences reviewing foundational axioms and theories.
When you’re considering how to go forward, it makes sense to look back.

This is especially true in relationships. Remembering the good times we’ve had and the trials we’ve lived through together can ground and strengthen our confidence in our friends.

So nostalgia can be good, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be dangerous.

Our long term memories can be rather selective and, just as in life, we often find only what we’re looking for. Bouts of nostalgia are a way of looking for comfort; specifically, the kind of comfort a stack of cookies provides.

As much as I’d like to, I simply can’t go back to being a headstrong (but very promising) Jedi Padawan, aged nine. Neither can I go back to the furious digital brotherhood of Halo 2, circa 2004. Those were good times but life is a straight line, not a series of circles, therefore a touch of nostalgia has its uses but should be handled with care.

While nostalgia sounds like the problem of the middle-aged, trending hashtags like #ThrowbackThursday (#tbt) show us how the digital age facilitates the ever-popular practice of the “throwback.” Facebook’s timeline scrolls through the years and, for active users, probably works better than our own memories. But #ThrowbackThursday is a symptom, and symptoms have a source. That source is, in all likelihood, the relentless pace of change in the 21st century. I graduated high school before the iPhone existed; I remember passing notes and LAN parties. As change continues and continues to accelerate, it’s safe to assume that the pull of nostalgia will live on, unchanging.

The “good old days” will always exist. For me that’s Saturday mornings with my brother playing Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda, but when we look back, and want to go back, we’re dreaming an impossible dream. We’re longing for something we’ll never ever touch again.

I say this as a shameless lover of the past with a history degree: steer clear of excessive nostalgia. Feel free to indulge in the helpful bits but consider these final thoughts when tempted to go too far down the rabbit hole.

Do you miss ‘90s cartoons? Fine. Can you draw or write? Well, you can be a part of forming defining experiences for the next generation. Plug-in anything you’re nostalgic for and do an inventory of the skills you can bring to bear on that slice of culture. The only good reason to look back is to find a way forward.

Nostalgia’s a mixed bag, but there’s not much worth in wishing we could have our good old days back. Instead we can start making some great new days for someone else.