PILLARS GALORE
I discovered to my amazement the other day that the very notion of "Four Pillars" reaches way back into history and across many cultures.
For example,
The Four Pillars of Christianity:
Devotion to Mary
Devotion to Jesus
Education through Joy & Hope
Devotion to the Church
The Four Pillars of some wacky group which call itself the Church of Euthanasia are: Suicide. Abortion. Cannibalism. Sodomy. Go figure.
The Four Pillars according to one James MacDonald are:
Preaching God's word, without apology
Lifting the name of Jesus in worship
Believing in the power of prayer
Sharing Christ's gospel with boldness
And the Four Pillars of Islam are: fasting, prayer, alms-giving and a pilgrimage to Mecca.
So far so good. Sort of.
Now to Vancouver's famous Four Pillars Coalition.
In theory or according to their Official Spin, the pillars are: harm reduction, enforcement, prevention and treatment. But as we all well know by now, there is only one pillar and three utterly unattended match sticks. No money goes into prevention or treatment and in the last few days, we have seen City Council refuse to give the Police more money for more officers.But forget all that.
What is now most interesting to me is to look carefully at the Official Spin website and note the following:
There are dozens upon dozens of individuals, companies, corporations, non-profit societies and government agencies and departments involved. All this human freight! All this energy and thought and care and concern! All the meetings and interfacing and interacting and sharing and integrating. IT'S GREAT! IT'S BEAUTIFUL!
Just one little, humble question - Can they point to ONE human being who was a using dope fiend, who is now a non-using admitted addict, living clean and sober? ONE?
And the answer, boys & girls, is no, they cannot. NOT ONE.
Yet, I began with me and 2 aboriginal men fresh out of the B.C. Pen in 1967, and we can point to hundreds of clean and sober human beings as a result of our hard and human and hopeful work.
And we integrated with no one. We were too busy doing our necessary work.
Here's my suggestion: call their Number One resident genius, to whom they are paying in excess of $90,000/annum, Donald MacPherson at 604-871-6040 at City Hall, or email him at fourpillars@vancouver.ca and ask him to name one human man or woman that they have helped live clean and sober.
That means without methadone or free heroin or free pills. It means clean & sober.
Good luck.
