Jobs, Anarkisseds, Bush and Jizo

Tuesday afternoon I received a call offering me the job I had an interview for last week. I’m off into the great web of change that is starting a new job. I’ll be leaving the best job I’ve ever had for uncertainty in a few weeks and I must confess mixed feelings about the move. Working as a night watchman has been quite a blessing; I’ve loved the work, hours, wage and time to read and write it offered me. My new job as an auditor will be a challenge and offer me advancement, though, and those features are all my current job lacked. Here’s to change.
Who’d have thought a year ago two I’d have two jobs I can take pride in? For those of you who haven’t followed my exciting ride from rags to cleaner rags, I was unemployed for much of 2004, caught in one tangled mess of stagnation and simply far worse off in nearly every respect than where I am now. Here’s hoping my luck will continue. If not, I’ll still be further on the path than before and my thankfulness for that will not end.

I’m a big fan of The Hipless Boy, one hell of an amusing and often insightful blog. The other day, after pushing aside my enthusiasm for his Scrabble pins, I read a recent entry detailing his time at the Montreal Anarkissed Book Fair. One paragraph I found especially amusing and I’d like to share it here in hope you’ll check out his site.

This made me think on my own introversion and my deep wish to benefit the world. I’m certainly more of a socialist than an anarchist (or even an anarkissed, seeing that romance has been fleeting – ok, non-existant – of late for me), and I’m not one for going out, but I do find myself compelled by activism and take part in it when I’m able to. I must say I’m moved by and driven to contribute to the community building and artistic side of movement toward compassion (which is ultimately what I view as the motivation of both socialist and anarchist thought), and perhaps that leaves me more amid the zines-makers as invisioned in that excerpt. Either way, I’m up for killing hate with love and other cliché truths.

Another site I regualarly read, WoodMoor Village Zendo, shared an freshingly direct open letter from a Christian university taking on George Bush Jr.’s policy as opposed to core Christian values. Nacho also helped to disect the contradiction of Bush’s sneaky use of the metaphor “army of compassion.” To the point, he said, “armies are not engines of compassion.” Give the entry, “Of Armies, Compassion, and Calvin College,” a read.

Jizo is a Japanese divinity, perhaps the most popular, who acts as a saviour for those in hell and protector of expectant mothers, firemen and travellers. His (note that the god underwent a change in sex as it came from India) significance and story is quite facinating and he’s a jolly, benevolent fellow. Jizos for Peace is a project that is using the image of Jizo to mark the 60th anniversary of the tragedies of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which left nearly 270,000 men, women and children dead soon after and countless others with shortened or impaired lives.

I’ll be at least creating a Jizo image soon and perhaps contributing to the 270,000 the project is intending to take to the sites of the bombings. Meditating on peace is always important and doing so in such a creative and involving fashion is especially rewarding. Just looking at the submissions at this site is heartwarming.