two generations of philosophy, theology and community care

Madelaine

I am the daughter of a theologian and a blues musician. Sister to a businessman and a revolutionary. Wife to a budding gardener. Mother to toddling perfection. Carer of an unruly dog. With all of their influence and support, I am a philosopher.

In practice my vocation involves grace-formed asking, generous listening, intentional writing, and collaborative speaking. The greatest gift philosophic inquiry can offer is bursting one’s mind wide open so that they see the world in a new way. This happened to me when I read Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, Iris Marion Young, and now Bayo Akomolafe. Each thinker breaks down the status quo and offers an alternative vision where people might live more fully in connection with themselves and others. I believe this hospicing of old systems is necessary in order to open up new possibilities of healing.

My philosophic research is based on a relational ontology and explores how human and non-human beings shape one another. To me, our primordial intersubjectivity inevitably raises ethical questions about how we should treat each other. I have studied this question in the context of hospice care, touch in medical settings, digital intimacy, the future of work and engineering education. I am currently finishing up my final year of doctoral degree in Philosophy/Ethics of Technology at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, where I research care ethics and robotics, arguing that robots are often manifestations of uncaring ideology and culture.

Guiding much of my work on care and connection is my twelve-year experience with a Toronto-based charity, Boarding Homes Ministry (BHM) which serves those suffering from mental health struggles, addiction and poverty. BHM’s mandate is radical in its simplicity: no fixing, no advice, just bring food and companionship. I call it “agenda-free presence” or “radical hanging out” and it is an urgent revolt against our culture’s proclivity towards optimization, linear progress and profit. When my mentor, the founder of BHM, died in 2017 I stepped in as Interim Director for one and a half years. In this position I spent more hours in boarding homes, helped train volunteers, and led workshops on deep listening and on companionship as a justice issue.

Candice

I am a wife, mother, grandmother, neighbour, and community elder, all of whom are practiced in the economy of grace and the deep wisdom of Kairos. I am a scholar, writer, poet, lyricist and artist, living out and recording the big questions of life as they are woven into the everyday. Spiritually, I rest comfortably in the mystic tradition whose only sacraments are wonder and fierce tenderness, and whose single commandment is, Choose Love.

As a white person living in Canada, my viewing of the world is formed by European/Western thought. I am, therefore, complicit in the on-going grievances of racial divides that continue to hold humanity in its grip. By heredity, I bear the sorrow of having displaced the ancestral peoples of Canada, overridden their rich traditions of working in concert with one another and the natural world in which they were, and are, immersed with a binding affection.

I am uncertain of many things,  but this I hold as the most urgent thinking in this time of transition: that contemplation, opening as it does to infinite possibilities, working in concert with the practical discipline of compassion,  will release unimagined possibilities in all fields of study and living, and will draw us further into the already re-awakening shift in human consciousness that moves from separateness to communion, and towards a renewed understanding of interconnectedness, not just between persons in the human realm, but by recognizing the personhood in all creatures and matter, known and yet to be known.

I am ordained as a minister of word and sacrament in the Presbyterian tradition having spent twenty-two years serving in the church formal, as well as the community at large. I am trained as a Spiritual Director in the Jesuit tradition, and am an inducted member of Alpha Sigma Nu, the Honour Society of Jesuit Institutions of Higher Education for scholastic standing, service to Jesuit ideals, and service to one’s community. In addition to my Master of Divinity, (Knox College, Toronto School of Theology, Gold Medal Winner), I hold a Master in Theology (Regis College, TST, With Distinction) in spirituality and practical theology and a Doctor of Ministry in ‘Spiritual Renewal, Contemplative Practice, and Strategic Leadership’ from Claremont School of Theology, California, Presidential Award of Excellence. My thesis: Contemplation. Compassion. Creativity. The Sacred Trinity of Possibility.’ Earlier in my life.

I am currently curating my considerable collection of writings while practicing the fine art of anchorholding in the rural hills of Mulmur, Ontario. I am developing a book that offers a reimagining of this ancient, creative practice.