Imagine That!

I was lucky last night to have been able to attend a fantastic cultural event. Which culture, you may ask?? Mine actually!!

Living in Canada, I’m surrounded by a vast array of cultural diversity. I LOVE it! I WANT my kids to look around and be part of a mixture of colours of skin, styles of clothes and so many beautiful languages! Canada celebrates that and as a Canadian, I celebrate that too!

The concert last night, was with Steve Bell. I found it highly cool that my husband managed to snag tickets pour gratuit – this fellow is from the same home town as us and we share many mutual friends. He is a hugely talented singer/songwriter/musician and it was a delight to be able to see him in such a regal venue as the one we were in last night.

People in Canada celebrate music, dramatical performances, symphonies, art shows and a multitude of other incredible cultural events. We have beautiful buildings dedicated to the display of this talent and while tickets are often way beyond what I can generally afford, I find even just living nearby, there are times (like last night) that tickets just find their way to you and the opportunity to enjoy is yours for the taking! What luxury! What freedom!

I love watching reality shows such as The Amazing Race and Survivor. Part of what I love is that they are in all these amazing different countries and at times, you get a glimpse of the culture. Dances, costumes, it is all so beautiful!

When I was younger and I would think about Africa, apart from the safari of animals that would come to mind, I would envision people in fantastically coloured clothing, amazing dancing & incredible music.

I recently had a thought, and it went like this; imagine if there was no conflict or civil war or oppression of any kind in the DRC. Imagine if men & women could go and farm the rich soils of their land and reap the harvest without fearing someone would come and take it – or worse, take their dignity or their life? What if some of them could go to work – even in the mines, but for fair pay, being allowed to return home to their family each night? Working for a business that trades on legal grounds with the rest of the world – and the rest of the world was OKAY with this set up. What if???

A dear lady sent me a blog post a few days ago. It was also encouraging people to imagine. The author was talking about a particular tragedy, but she commented that imagining is not limited to that situation alone – she suggested we DO try to imagine someone else’s hardship rather than just saying we CAN’T imagine. www.mollypiper.com

Rather than leaving the tragedies and atrocities at arms length and just relishing in the peace we have to be able to celebrate our own culture, let’s imagine for a moment what it would be like if we couldn’t.

Imagine your children are hungry – and while the richness of the land has the ability to sustain them, you are helpless to do anything but watch them suffer.

Imagine you have been raped and your husband has abandoned you or been killed.

Imagine the fear that your 9 year old child will be stolen away and forced to join a militia or become a slave labourer in the mines that supply the rest of the world with diamonds and electronic dependent coltan.

Imagine.

As this post was coming together in my mind, John Lennon’s song kept popping in - couldn't help it! An excerpt of the lyrics;

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world


Imagine a culture set free from oppression. Imagine the beauty these people possess being set free to soar.

Imagine if more people would be willing to imagine!