Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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THE VOYACEUR A CLEAIQEIQ IN AIBSENCE Chapel address by- Mold boyi' fohn Meisel, March 4, 1945. NE SUNDAY EVENING, some two years ago, I was sitting on a chair somewhere on the right side of this hall, and lVIr. Beer was standing where I am now. In his address, he pointed out that each of us had three loyalties that we carried with us all our lives:- Loyalty to ourselves, Loyalty to our family, Loyalty to our community, which, in this case is our school. It is about this last loyalty that I wish to speak to you. Whenever we are loyal to a friend we believe in the ideas for which he stands. We think that he is worthy of our following and of our support. The same is true of an institution. Tonight I will tell you why I think that Pickering is worthy of my loyalty. In so doing I would ask of you to bear in mind that I left the school only a few months ago, and that in many ways I still am one of you. I have- been away long enough, however, to have a picture of Pickering that is clearer than the one I had when I was here last year, to the extent that it is in a somewhat more distant per- spective. You have probably noticed that in the Chapel Sheet my address has the title:-CLEARER IN ABSENCE. These words are from the quotation from the Assyrian poet, Kahlil Gibran, given below: 'Tor that which you love most may be clearer in absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plainfi Come with me into the plain-and let us look to the mountain, for all of us are climbers on its perilous slopes. When I am in Toronto, and sit back at times to think of Pickering, it is not so much the building and its inhabitants that come to my mind, as certain ideals that are preached and, above all, practised here. Of course I think of my friends, and the experiences I had here, but I realize that all that is transitory. People and things come and go, they can be blasted from the surface of the earth in no time at all these days, but ideas and ideals remain. The better the idea, the more universally it is accepted. The closer it comes to truth, the more generally it is recognized. The philosophy of Pickering is really a very simple one. It is based on certain fundamentals common to all men, whether they be Canadians, Englishmen, Americans, Zulus, Hottentots or Czechs. These fundamentals are concerned with the happiness, both spiritual and material, of every man on Godis earth. Man wants to be free, he wants to live the sort of life he likes, undis- turbed by the dictates of another man. I'Ie wants to live in a happy com- panionship with his fellow-men. 31

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THE VOYACEUR He slumped into a chair, and sat, looking out at the milling people, striding towards their work, or wandering aimlessly through the streets. In the early morning light, the hard lines of his face softened, and a look of intense relief spread over his face. -JACK ATKIN THE END A MAN ONCE SAID: uAll things must have an end. In earthly terms, he may have been right, but in the true sense, he was very wrong. There is no such thing as time or space, or the measurement of either. Everything is infinity. One could start in any direction out into space and go on forever. The measurement of an inch is the same as that of many millions of miles, in relation to the whole, and one second is the same as a billion years. Yet we, here on earth, with our feeble intellects, must think of everything in terms of beginnings and ends, being unable to appreciate the idea of infinity. A journey must have its end, yes, but this is only a part of the journey of life, which has no end. What about death? Death is really only a point in the eternal journey of life. When one thinks of these things, one realizes that when we die, our souls cannot possibly become non-existent. What is the world, what is the universe, but something which is seen out of our own eyes? If we just faded out of existence, the universe would do the same. Perhaps we are reincarnated, perhaps we go to a heaven somewhere in infinity. To me it seems most logical that we are reincarnated, again and again, until we are ready for our departure to Paradise. If there is a hell, it is earth itself. It is a well known scientific fact that matter and energy may change their form, but can neither be created, nor destroyed. This, in itself, proves that all that is present in the universe, always has been here. and always shall be, in some form or another. Surely, it can be no different with our souls. - People have always wondered how life began. The answer is the same as the answer to questions concerning matter and energy. Life always was. Life is God. God is Life. There has always been a God and there has al- ways been Life. The spark of life is the God in us. In all forms of life, there is beauty, therefore God is Beauty and Beauty is God. It is the Cod in us that enables us to create and appreciate good Music, Art and Litera- ture, that gives us our own peculiar talents each one for its own purpose. It then stands to reason that God is Infinity and that Infinity is God, for Life and Beauty are part of Infinity. Thus there is no beginning and no end, all is infinity. In this infinity is Cod, the Omnipotent, the All-Beautiful . . . Life itself. --EDWARD BoND 30

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THE VOYAGEUR He wants to believe what he believes, undisturbed by the prejudices, the distrust and the hatred of others. He wants to have an equal opportunity with his comrades for making a success of his life. These desires of man are quite natural, and are, as I said before, common to men of all races, all colours, and all religions. Here at Pickering these aims are recognized, and not only are they recognized, but an effort is being made to organize school life in accordance with them. During the Iast three years here, I found a great deal of freedom, Won- derful companionship, and certainly, equality of opportunity to make my life a successful one. So much so, that I almost began to think that all the world was like that. But of course the fact that man has not yet achieved the satisfaction of these desires is quite plain. It is therefore our task to see that the dream becomes reality. lt is the job of everyone here, it is your job, and it is mine. I became conscious of it,While I was here at Pickering, and my conviction is closely relatedi to the school, because it is here that it lives. Another idea, closely connected with his happiness is that of the equality of man. This phrase is often being misused by people with very good intentions. As I see it, men are not exactly equal. Some are big, others small, some are beautiful to look at, others unattractive, some have strong bodies, others are weak, some are academically inclined, others are not. There are innumerable types of men, and no two men are alike. I think, however, that men are equal inasmuch as each is suited to a particular job. Everyone of us has a definite function to fulfil. A farmer is as important to society as an office worker, a ditch-digger as an architect, etc. It is obvious that for some of these jobs more intelligence and more training is needed, but we could not do without any of them. In a sense, therefore, all people are equal, no matter what their occupation may be. I They are also equal, in my opinion, in terms of their nationality, their race and their religion. We must understand that because a man carries a passport of a certain colour, because his skin is of a certain tinge or because he goes to a certain church he is not in any Way inferior to another whoselpassport, skin and church are different. Tolerance of this nature is an integral part of Pickering. Almost never, during my stay here, did I notice racial discrimination. Canadian, Ameri- can, Englishman, German, Austrian, Czech, Haitian and Mexican,-we all lived together happily, little conscious of the difference in our nationality. There are Catholics, Protestants and Jews at Pickering, and they Work, sleep, play and even argue together, without ugetting into each other's hair . V7 this respect for other races and religions is of extreme importance today. We have come to the final stages of this bloody war and are already working on the peace that is to come, unless we abandon this nonsensical hatred of people of another tongue, or another faith, we will be destroyed by our own folly. 32