I am sitting in a classroom at the University of Toronto. I am in my third year, taking my third course in religious studies and the professor, Father Mosey, asks the class to describe a sacred place. I am slightly hung over, slightly distracted by the young woman who sits across from me and completely surprised that he asks me first. “My canoe” I blurt out. My canoe? How do I reconcile my canoe to a sacred place? Thankfully the professor moves on to another, let’s say, more earnest student but I am left with that answer.
The course was called Ritual: The Sacred and Profane and now that I look back on it, the sacred was the place that the religious see as special and the profane was for everyone else. Now, thirty years beyond that class, I am very happy with my answer.
My canoe is neither sacred nor profane. What it is, is a perfect metaphor for what it means to be human, what it means to be a humanist.
The canoe is based on a design by our Indigenous peoples. In that, it honours and respects the past and traditions of thoughtful people. It really is a tribute to science, thought and research, without which the boat would never reach its symmetrical beauty and its perfect balance. This is exactly what humanism offers as a philosophy for life. Rational thought and reason, built on the work of others, in order to provide a rational approach to the trials, tribulations and jubilation that we face as we travel around the sun.
My canoe has been on countless rivers and lakes with me. It has transported me down rapids, it has served as a kitchen table on camp sites and in one instance, served as a large beer cooler in my backyard. By any measure it is a practical thing. Isn’t this what we want most as people? We want to be able to adapt, to be able to rely on our own ingenuity, our own strengths. We want to use our minds to understand, to be empathetic and compassionate and to be able to react and respond to a particular situation with clarity. We want to recognize our weaknesses, our human foibles, and we want our friends, our family, our community, to help us out when we need it.
It is the freedom that my canoe gives me that I most value. I am free to navigate rapids, to paddle swift rivers and calm lakes, just as humanism frees me to think for myself, to listen to the arguments of others and to tolerate them but ultimately, I find comfort that my decisions about my life are mine and mine alone. This is very much like reading a rapid. Some may pray before they take on a raging curl or a large drop but I would prefer to rely on my wits, my experience and my knowledge.
Ultimately my canoe will fail. I will puncture it or wrap that beautiful body around a cold rock in a rapid. It will die. There will be no resurrection. There will be no rebirth. There will be no reincarnation. Most likely, its corpse will be left to rot in a river and eventually eroding to a point where the difference between it and the water will be indiscernible. Knowing this gives me some comfort. Knowing too, that it will live in my memory, in the stories I tell, in the memories I share with the people who went with me on those trips, that will be the comfort I will need.
I began with Father Mosey and I think I should conclude with him. While I reject the ideas of religion, and I reject the language of religion, there is no sacred and there is no profane, I have to give my professor credit. He argued that people need ritual. They need to come together to recognize the important moments of their lives. Whether it is a welcoming or a farewell, whether it is an end or a beginning, there is a need among humans to share these events with each other, to have them acknowledged by our friends, our family and our community.
We need these rituals. We need language and symbol to allow us to connect. Rituals and symbols, language and ceremony that is designed by humans, focused on humans, this is what we need. If it can be done with balance, and care, with freedom and tolerance, it would be as important and as rewarding as paddling in a beautiful canoe.
