Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Money Talks

Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts? -Gabrielle Roy


Suggesting the church could function as a Third Place (the place of community that is neither home nor work), the workshop leader asked us to take out a five dollar bill and look at the fine print on the side of the bill showing Canadians at winter play – hockey on the pond, learning to skate, tobogganing. My middle-aged eyes had a hard time with the tiny text, but when i got focussed, i was delighted to read this:

The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We had three places – the school, the church and the skating rink – but our real life was on the skating rink.

This sent me on a quest to see what other quotes are on Canadian money. i discovered that we put out a Canadian Heritage banknote series between 2001-2004. Check out the Bank of Canada web page (you’ll have to poke around a bit to find the series, but once you do, scroll over the bills, and all kinds of elaborations pop up – www.bankofcanada.ca).

i am not a student of money (seems i can’t hang on to it long enough to be collector), but i wonder if Canada is the only nation to have quotes and images from our artists on our money? For the record:

$5 – the above quote from Roch Carrier’s The Hockey Sweater and the image of children at play;

$10 – “In Flanders Fields the poppies blow/between the crosses, row and row,/that mark our place, and in thy sky/the larks, still bravely singing, fly/scarce heard amid the guns below” from John McCrae’s poem, In Flanders Fields. The image is a Peacekeeping scene.

$20 – “Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts?” Gabrielle Roy, and images are by Haida artist, Bill Reid – Raven and the First Men, and Spirit of Haida Gwaii

$50 – from the UN Declaration on Human Rights, this quote: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” and the image is Barbara Paterson’s statue of the Famous Five women who made sure that Canadian women are considered persons

$100 – “Do we ever remember that somewhere above the sky in some child’s dream perhaps Jacques Cartier is still sailing, always on his way always about to discover a new Canada?” from Miram Waddington’s poem, Jacques Cartier in Toronto. The images are of exploration: a canoe (is anything except Maple syrup more Canuck?), maps, radar.

Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts? Our money talks, and says something about who we are as a nation.

Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts? Can you think of some arts that have helped you to know a culture (your own or another’s) more deeply?

Have a look at the Canadian money in your pocket/purse. What does it tell you about what Canadians value and celebrate?

Have a look around your church, both inside and outside. What does it tell you about what Christians value and celebrate? (below is the Jubilee Church in Rome)


If you were designing a new building for your congregation, what would it look like? How would you communicate visually what Christians value and celebrate? (below, a different kind of church)

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