{"id":664,"date":"2011-08-28T10:15:17","date_gmt":"2011-08-28T17:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/?p=664"},"modified":"2019-04-17T07:48:37","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T14:48:37","slug":"words-to-live-by-jack-layton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/uncategorized\/words-to-live-by-jack-layton\/","title":{"rendered":"Words To Live By – Jack Layton"},"content":{"rendered":"

I woke up way too early this morning. Jack Layton<\/a>‘s state funeral was on my mind. Yesterday, I witnessed an outpouring of love for a man who`s touched so many lives, as evidenced by all the writing in Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto. \"\"<\/a>Could he have orchestrated a better final exit? I thought his final words <\/a>couldn’t be topped. And yet, as I heard Stephen Lewis eulogize about Jack and the manifesto he’d left behind, I couldn’t help but marvel at how much he accomplished in his short life.<\/p>\n

Jack Layton didn’t shy away from big problems. He tackled them all – homelessness, the environment, poverty with seniors, health care, abuse of the aboriginal children in residential schools, and violence against women through the white ribbon campaign<\/a> he started in his kitchen.\u00a0 His daughter also mentioned the love he had for his family and the fact that he always gave his time to all of them–including on the floor teatime with his granddaughter and daily phone calls to his mother–no matter how busy he was.\u00a0 What a model for us all!<\/p>\n

He would’ve been thrilled to hear it mentioned during the service that he’d even proposed sitting down with the Taliban. Imagine trying to talk to your enemy! He was all about forgiveness, saying sorry when you’d wronged someone, and embracing all of our differences.<\/p>\n

I also wondered what some of the audience might have been thinking when the minister, Dr. Brent Hawkes, mentioned that Jack never forgot to ask him about his husband. Jack was spiritual and inclusive. He embraced everyone, no matter\u00a0 their race, religion or sexual orientation. And how fitting it was that the major religions were represented at his funeral.\u00a0 From the white feather given to Jack’s wife, Olivia Chow, by Assembly of First Nations’ National Chief, Shawn Atleo, to blessings from a rabbi and a reading from the Koran, Jack left us with lots to think about.<\/p>\n

Someone in the throngs outside Roy Thomson Hall, the site of the state funeral, held up a sign with the word Imagine. <\/em>John Lennon\\’s song came to mind. Also, there were echoes of Martin Luther King’s speech I Have A Dream<\/a> when\u00a0Jack’s son said, “my father always said- always have a dream that lasts longer than a lifetime.”\"\"<\/p>\n

Politics is a strange game, and Jack played it well, despite his naysayers. Even in death, there are cynical opinions, like Christie Blatchford\\’s article in the National Post about Jack’s final letter.<\/p>\n

But from what I heard and what I saw, I have hope that Jack’s dream will live on in all of us. In his final letter, he left words to live by: \u201cMy friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we\u2019ll change the world.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/em> What an exit!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I woke up way too early this morning. Jack Layton‘s state funeral was on my mind. Yesterday, I witnessed an outpouring of love for a man who`s touched so many… <\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[158,154,160,159,157,156,155],"class_list":["post-664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christie-blatchford","tag-jack-layton","tag-john-lennon","tag-martin-luther-king","tag-state-funeral","tag-stephen-lewis","tag-words-to-live-by"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LuVB-aI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":657,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/uncategorized\/life-doesnt-always-give-you-cherries\/","url_meta":{"origin":664,"position":0},"title":"Life Doesn’t Always Give You Cherries","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"23 \u0421\u0435\u0440\u043f\u043d\u044f, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"As a freelance writer, my days are my own and yet there are forces that pull on me and interrupt the flow of work. Many are welcome interruptions- family, friends, the garden, a bike ride, a hike on a beautiful trail. Others, not so welcome. Like yesterday, when I heard\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 \"Jack Layton\"","block_context":{"text":"Jack Layton","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/tag\/jack-layton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/bowl-of-cherries.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7486,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2026\/books\/heroes-ai-and-more\/","url_meta":{"origin":664,"position":1},"title":"Heroes, AI, and More","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"7 \u0427\u0435\u0440\u0432\u043d\u044f, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week, I published my Hearts and Pages newsletter through Substack about some heroes in our midst. One of them, two weeks ago at Vishyvanka Day, organized by the Comox Valley Ukrainian Society as part of an annual event held worldwide to celebrate Ukrainian culture expressed through beautifully embroidered shirts\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/71J-9G9A7L._SY466_.jpg?fit=311%2C466&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":774,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/writing\/hemingway-a-master-of-less-is-more-more-or-less\/","url_meta":{"origin":664,"position":2},"title":"Hemingway, A Master of Less Is More, More or Less","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"3 \u0413\u0440\u0443\u0434\u043d\u044f, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Ernest Hemingway was the master of saying a lot with less.\u00a0 Everything I read suggests novice writers\u2014and some published writers\u2014use too many words to get their point across. They use \u00a0too many explanations; they do too much telling rather than showing. Not for Hemingway, the use of unnecessary adjectives and\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/hemingway.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":296,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/writing\/more-thoughts-on-writing-rules-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":664,"position":3},"title":"More thoughts on writing rules","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"5 \u041a\u0432\u0456\u0442\u043d\u044f, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Paula Renaye, author of The Hardlines Self-Help Handbook www.hardlineselfhelp.com had an interesting response to my earlier post on writing rules. 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