Big and Bigger

A few days ago Ken and I picked up a hitchhiker on the Trans Canada Highway. He was a young man from Barcelona, Spain, into his fourth month of travelling. He had started in Toronto, and was headed to Vancouver via Kelowna.

Here and there he has been helping out on farms, especially organic farms, through "WWOOFING" This stands for World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, and is a loose network to help workers link up with local organic farms.

I asked him how the reality of Canada was stacking up against the expectations that he had prior to coming here.

The first statement he said was about the consumerism of North America. He knew about this before coming, he said, and his experiences have made it vivid for him. He described this consumerism with the word "bigness" - big malls, big box stores, big vehicles, big consumption.

He also talked of the beauty of British Columbia and the friendliness of the people he has encountered in Canada, but what has stuck with me were those words about our consumerist society.

Our consumption, our North American love affair with cars and "stuff", are contributing to the planet's degradation.

Canada markets our wilderness and our beauty internationally - but then when tourists arrive, they find cars, congested roads, and malls.

We need a different kind of bigness if we are seriously going to tackle climate change. We need big thinking, big willingness to make big changes.

And, we need to find our joy in other ways than going to the mall or buying big vehicles!

I like the approach of my friend Isobel who is focussing on finding the beauty in small things. We can be content with what we have -- right here, right now.

Finding joy in the very small, at home (Photo Credit: Isobel Anderson, with permission)

And, here is an image of a small scene in Salmon Arm's colourful downtown. How could the spirits not be buoyed by scenes like this, at the Ross Street Plaza?

Background is detail from the mural at the Ross Street Plaza.