Willi and Anita Gutowski's 50th Wedding Anniversary

I was priviledged to be invited to Dr. Willi Gutowski and Nurse Anita Gutowski’s 50th Wedding Anniversary in their home on Little Mountain, Chilliwack today. Of all their myriad of  accomplishments and the honours they’ve known,  the honorifics they most appreciate are husband and wife, father and mother,   grandfather and grandmother.  Their love is family and family is the lens through which they view the world.
I arrived with Gilbert, my cockapoo who was immediately befriended by one of the many Gutowski grandchildren.  Thanks to Anita and Willi’s love there are lovely daughters and handsome son in laws.  The beautiful house on the hill overlooking (of course) the golf course, was overflowing with friends and family.  Gilbert fit right into the groups of children running this way and that on the large lawn.  Hugged first by Willi then by Anita I had food offered to me by both.  Lots of those dainty girl things that looked ornate and hardly warranted a bite except to taste beside much more manly sandwich fair.  A very good ‘spread’ in the jargon.
I took a seat on the balcony in the glorious sun and was soon hearing story after story from those who’d known Willi and Anita since early days in Minnetonas, Manitoba. There were stories of University of Manitoba,  Africa and tales of British Columbia and California.
In a rough time in my life, following a divorce, following a crisis of direction as a doctor, after too much drinking in Mexico I came to Willi to ask him what I should do next.  Willi thought it was good that I’d stopped drinking and stopped smoking marijuana despite what other psychiatrists had said. He knew too the corruption in the system but didn’t think that I should focus on that but rather look to spiritual ideals. I remembered when I’d had Dr. John White as my mentor in psychiatric residency he’d said the same.  So with Willi’s direction I stayed at church, stayed sober, made no decision further about quitting medicine or giving up being a physician and psychiatrist  but rather focussed  “recuperation”.   He mostly told me that Jesus had said “Do not be afraid.’  I was very anxious at the time and couldn’t help but dwell on Freud’s statement ‘maybe the paranoids are right’.  But Willi, always calm, encouraged me to “not be afraid’.  I’ll be forever grateful.
With Anita he introduced me to the Christian Medical and Dental Society.  I'd met Dr. Lam at the Evangelical Medical Association and soon was among the finest caregivers.   I’d been drawn to medicine after praying in the chapel of the United Church at the University of Winnipeg.  I’d most admired Dr. Albert Schwietzer. I’d sought out Dr. John White in Psychiatry. When I wanted to go off as a missionary doctor in Africa, romantic that I am, Dr. Jack Hildes convinced me the greatest need was with the Northern Medical Unit.  I was happy serving.  Indeed I saw medicine as service.
Thanks to Wili’s sage advice and Anita’s meals I stayed in medicine and returned to psychiatric practice a year later.  That year off was an amazing time of learning.  I spent a lot of time in church and in prayer and met doctors thereafter who I could admire. I remember Dr. Graeme Cunningham telling me, “some people run with the cheetah’s, some people run with the turkeys, sound’s to me you’ve been running with the turkeys’.  It was an amazing life lesson. I had come to believe the little circle of the world I had inhabited at the time represented the greater whole.  I came again to be amongst the finest and best of physicians and psychiatrists and would once again love my career.
Later I  worked with Willi and Anita in Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands.  There I met  the greatest of nurses and the best of colleagues on this island where Willi and I were the sole psychiatrists.  Often I’d know the delight of Anita’s cooking and share the generosity of their home. At the hospital we’d share patients and I was so impressed with his consummate skill as a clinician and psychiatrist.  We’d both trained at University of Manitoba and we both shared with the nurses an appreciation of the wholeness of people. There weren't any ‘part objects’ in our care.  Patients were always biological, psychological, sociological and spiritual.
I remember Willi and Anita telling me stories of their early days as missionaries in Africa. One day helping Willi, the consummate handyman, fix something in Saipan, he told me “I learned to fix things as a missionary. Everything breaks down in Africa.” He and Anita sail and I sail.  They didn’t get tattoos, though.
Willi and Anita were very much apart of the the Saipan Pentecostal church. I had a wonderful time getting to know the pastor there and joining in the uplifting exciting Pentecostal worship.  Willi and I studied the Holy Spirit together and meditated together. I remain more ecumenical, a Baptist, who’d become United and finally Anglican who attended the Methodist and Pentecostal church and enjoyed Catholic services as well.  It was Willi though who enlightened me to the Holy Spirit.  My friend, Dr. Bernie Klassen had prayed as well to the Holy Spirit while I’m more likely to called out to Jesus, “ the god within” in a kind of 911 way of prayer. There’s wisdom in the distinctions which I’d later learn more about studying with Dr. James Houston thanks to the foundation that Willi and his minister encouraged in addressing the details and not just the generalities.  
Then we would golf.  Willi and Anita both loved to golf, as happy to haul clubs around the course as to whip about on the little electric moon buggies called golf carts. I’ve golfed more with those two than I have in my life and expect they were practicing Christian patients.  I learned a whole lot about Mulligans.
Late Friday after noon we’d either go golfing or go scuba diving as our ‘staff meeting’.  I loved to scuba dive and Willi was a great buddy. He ‘d carry the hospital ‘beeper’ in a water proof pouch and only occasionally would either of us get called and have to slowly ascend to the surface to call our covering family physician colleague. I’d actually write up minutes about the work we’d discuss leaving out all the theology, philosophy, history and politics that got addressed as well.  I was sorry to leave Saipan.  My mother was sick. I was homesick for Canada.
What was amazing though was learning one day sometime after we’d met that Willie’s family farmed in Minnetonas. That’s where my grandfather’s ranch and logging operation was. Not only that my cowboy uncle, a true character out of Louis L’amour novel,  had worked for the Gutowski farm at one time.  Small world.
Now here I was listening to Willi’s daughter read from a love letter Willi had sent to Anita in medical school. It was so touching. Then the daughters, one from Winnipeg, one from Oregon, and one from Chilliwack with hardly a rehearsal here, sang the most beautiful collection of Christian songs, the favourites of the parents.
It was truly a privilege and an honour to be invited.  Their 50th Anniversary was such a testimony to the breadth and depth of their love.  They don’t just talk Christianity and Christian Love.  They live Corinthians.   Thank you, Willi and Anita.

Tourism Today

Tourism today

There has always been tourism.  Over the centuries the explanations have changed.  The Australian term ‘walk about’ is perhaps the best explanation ever.

The question of “Why” you are going on a “walk-about” is different, especially depending on whose is asking and often the personal reason for going ‘exploring’, “visiting”, ‘wandering”.

Buddhist genius, Trungpa, described Western motivation as “spiritual consumerism’.  There is a kind of “Pacman” mentality to the tourism of the secular materialists who deny their own religious frenzy for tourism while mocking medieval ‘pilgrimages’.  

Often tourism has been coupled with war and conquest.  Certainly the navy has attracted many sailors interested simply in visiting brothels in different ports.   It certainly wasn’t a good reason to sign up for WWII but many a GI returned with tales of Paris after his tour overseas.  

In the days of DH Lawrence some time ‘abroad’ was considered essential for the well rounding of the English upper classes. Byron’s journals are a great read of a writer ‘abroad’.  Today there’s a regular ‘travel journalism’ that has flourished as it’s own genre.

I have been a tourist and indeed like many Canadians look forward to the opportunity to do more ‘travel’ if ever I can retire.  The great times of prolonged tourism in the west are in one’s 20’s before or after completing an extended stint of schooling or at retirement when one has acquired sufficient assets to afford the cost.  In between, tourism is often about a week or two, maybe four, away from home as part of an annual holiday.  This competes with the obviously less costly alternative of kicking back in the yard barbecuing or hanging out at the local beach.

What has interested me in the last decades is the increase in ‘tourism’ of a sort that may well have always been around but was less in the normal consciousness.

1. War Tourism – In the Civil War of the United States the gentlemen and gentle ladies early in the war road out to the ‘observe the war’.  Today the military describe increasing numbers of non combatant military and non military in the war zone. As one grizzly war worn Canadian sgte said, “I get tired of being the guy that shows the Ottawa desk brass around like tourists so they can get their promotions.  I’m supposed to ‘show’ them the war but they’re not supposed to get hurt. They’re at least military. There’s all the other government officials and dignitaries. Some are just voyeurs.  They’re there for titillation and to tell their friends at home.   Sometimes all we’re doing is showing people around the theatre. “  In addition to that there’s the hoards of “journalists, photographers, paparrazzi and general media’ today who flock to war zones like migratory birds.  There’s a thousand different ‘reasons’ given for everyone there ‘observing’ and those ‘observing so others can see’ but the fact remains it’s all about the killing. The soldiers are the game and everyone else is a tourist by comparison.
2. Poverty Tourism – I confess I liked going to Mexico when a dollar or two bought me a hotel room.  Tourism for many has been going somewhere ‘cheap’ .  Paris was famous with artists at the turn of the century and then in the 30’s simply because it was cheap. Today it’s no longer a place for artists but rather art dealers and their banker art buyers. “Moveable Feast” of DH Lawrence and Hemingway era describes a Paris of poverty where poor artists could live cheap.  To day this is more likely to be found in Eastern Europe or Asia.  Young people commonly explain their flocking to such meccas as ‘ideological’ but the fact remains that in the cities where the booze, drugs , food and shelter are cheapest and the political climate is relatively safe, there will be the young intellectuals and artists.  The Greek Islands were that for Leonard Cohen and countless others. What is interesting is the ‘reason’ today for some of these tourists is that they claim they are there ‘in solidarity’ or for some ‘nobler reason’ than simple ‘tourism’.
3. Missionary Tourism – I was amused to see a fellow sailor trying to raise funds for his cruise in the Pacific by declaring that he planned to ‘distribute bibles in the Polynesian islands”.  This was in the 21^st century and since I’ve considered doing the same myself. The fact remains that I did sail my boat to Hawaii and thoroughly enjoyed sailing the Hawaian Islands as a ‘simple’ tourist.   Where ‘education’ was once sufficient explanation for ‘tourism’ increasingly there is a need to wed simple voyeurism with a religious motif.  So many ‘missionary’ projects depend on their maintenance by inviting rich and influential westerners to Third World countries offering them a chance to visit an orphanage and help build a church or some such thing while really providing a kind of tourism for those who might not otherwise leave the safety and normalcy of their own homes.
4. Ecological Tourism – as Ecology has become the new Religion and Gaia or the Earth Mother as the new Goddess, a variation of Missionary Tourism has developed in the Secular Materialist sets with various ‘tourist’ projects set up for usually young and impressionable people to join the ‘war against climate change’ by visiting a damn or irrigation project.  
5. Sex Tourism – I suspect this has been around since cave man times, men being men.  One caveman might well have said to another , “Hey, mate, care to search for a bit of strange”. Given the barreness of northern Ireland and Scotland and lack of riches, it’s historically recorded that the Viking and Europeans and countless other cultures were attracted to those regions perhaps solely to steal the incomparably beautiful women. Indeed the men there may well have taken up wearing skirts in hope of having a sailor get them away from Hagis and Porridge fare.
6. Health Care Tourism – Since the time of Delphi and before the sick have been wandering off looking for cures wherever. Pain is as great a motivator as lust it seems even today when Mexican dentists , Thailand Sex Change Surgery and American Mayo Clinics compete for the sick tourists who today demand far more than the ‘baths’ or the ‘healing waters’.  I’m personally fond of Harrison HotSprings Spa near Agazziz, British Columbia.  Cosmetic surgery has long had a ‘global’ competition for tourist dollars with many competitive sites.  In the end the decision of one comparable surgical team with another might well be decided by whether there is a nearby golf course or beach depending on the procedures. Certainly Addiction treatment facilities, like Betty Ford, have catered to the tourism consideration of spas and pools and massage facilities.  Of course the end of the road poor and wasted patient is more likely to be dependent of a local church based service without any of the more ‘attractive’ amenities.
7. Adventure Tourism – This industry has literally sky rocketed in the last decades.  It’s not new given the original Hudson Bay Company was called the “Company of Adventurers’. Though in those days ‘profit motive’ was associated with ‘adventure’ Today it’s more likely that the tourist servers will be the ones that make the money as opposed to the tourists who are willing to pay exorbitantly for anything from swimming with sharks, climbing Everest or flying to Antarctica.

In the end it's just a 'walk about' but it's always best if someone else pays.  I think Columbus did it best by getting the King and Queen to pay for his little adventure.  Of course today the favoured 'tourism' package is the 'government investigation' .  In Canada countless government officials took the opportunity to leave dreary cold wet snowy Canada to visit the hot Caribbean Island, Haiti, to "assess the islands need for foreign aid'.  Whatever.  A walk about is a walk about however one explains or packages it.  

Machine Gun Preacher

I loved the Sam Childs movie about the Christian orphanage in East Africa.  Kony and the LRA account for 400,000 murders and 40, 000 child abductions. The children are raped, beatten, sold as sex slaves and forced to be children soldiers.  Sam is a real life ex convict ex addict ex junkie trailer park gun toting  biker gang member  The story tells of his finding Jesus with his ex stripper wife.  He meets a preacher from Africa and decides to visit Northern Uganda and South Sudan eventually building an orphanage for children rescued from the depraved "LRA - Lord's Resistance Army".  His construction worker skills, people knowledge and gun and gang skills all contribute to his becoming known  as the "Machine Gun Preacher".  When the orphanage is attacked and he has a price on his head for stealing future child soldiers he fights back with bullets.
The screen play is written by Jason Keller, director Marc Forster.  Gerald Butler plays a mean and fully believable Sam Childers.  The beautiful grounded Michelle Monaghan plays his wife Lynn Childers.  The filming of the people of his town in America and the people of Africa is amazing.  So much character and such a hopeful story in a terrible crisis.
When Constantine made Christianity the religion of the  Roman Empire he did so because the Christian soldiers were the greatest of the day. It was mainly Christian soldiers who fought the Nazi terror.  Jesus physically threw the money lenders out of the temple. He taught peace but his message of 'turning one's cheek'  was not unliimitted.  Not all Christians were born to be martyrs and certainly not all Christianity is about milk toast values.  While I admire the peaceful Mennonites and Quakers I am glad that Sam Childs is saving children from the armies of Kony by fighting force with force. God uses each of us according to our skills.   A great man said that for evil to grow all it takes is for good men to do nothing.  Sam and Lynn Childs are definitely doing something still.