Radical Transformation V4.0

 To date there have been three radical transformations in my life: when I became a junior lighthouse keeper, when a small Indian village decided to train me as their village pastor, when I met Myra and she taught me how to love. There are strong indications that I'm entering my fourth radicalization.  

The Life And Times Of Brian Waddington

I was 27 years old when I became a junior lighthouse keeper. Many events on the light led to my transformation, but the one that truly radicalized me was when I realized that the ocean was meant to be clear and clean. I had grown up in Vancouver and for the most part what I knew of the ocean was the muddy waters of English Bay. I could never understand how a duck could see anything when they swam under the surface. On Ivory Island I realized how much we had screwed up the environment.

After Ivory Island I became a deckhand on the United Church mission boat the Thomas Crosby V. From the Crosby I became an intended candidate for the ministry. This organically, though very surprisingly led me to become a minister in training in a small Indian village on the West Coast of Canada.

There was a church program in place at the time that was designed to help Indian villages develop spiritual leadership from within their own village. The trouble was that there was nobody with the academic and spiritual background that could be found that could start the program off. So, the church in desperation thought I might fit the bill. The village decided to give me a shot. The village taught me the old ways. They showed me the dark underside of Canadian/Native society. Transformation 2.0 had occurred.

As much as the village had transformed me, I was still a very sick puppy. Then Myra entered my life. I didn't know it at the time, but she was going to transform me in miraculous, and I use that word miraculous decidedly, ways. She taught me how to heal myself and she taught me how to love. That is truly a radical transformation to go through. 3.0 was well and truly underway. Thirty years later the miracle continues.

A week or two ago as we sat at our breakfast table, I explained to Myra that I felt a need to begin to understand the world from a view other than the western view I had been raised with. I thought that I might try to find educational material about China from China. 

As has often happened in my life, it was a great theory but a bad practical. Rather than finding information about China from China I found information about Palestine and the Palestinian situation from the Palestinian perspective.

I have only been looking at this for a few days. But in my spirit, I feel the hunger pangs for more information. I did not know that the troubles for the Palestinians can be traced back to Napoleon. I did not know that David Lloyd George who was the British Prime Minister shortly after the turn of the 20th century was a committed, signed on the bottom line, deal done Zionist. Nor did I know that Britain and France decided secretly to do a little ethnic cleansing and move the Palestinians out of Palestine and replace them with Jews. This is the beginning of radicalization version 4.0.

Like all great transformations in my life, I have no idea where this one will take me. But I believe I will be a better person the farther I journey down this path. 

Brian