Michael Zwiep of Christian Renewal covers Senior Fellow, Peter Menzies inaugural address on building a culture of aspiration.CALGARY - Peter Menzies, former editor and publisher of the Calgary Herald, was the keynote speaker at a public policy forum hosted by the Hamilton-based Work Research Foundation, Wednesday, April 11. Held in the coach house of historic Dundurn Castle, Menzies, a Senior Fellow with the Work Research Foundation, focused on the importance of civic aspiration in contemporary society, arguing for a return to the enduring Judea-Christian values that anchor Western culture. A number of key people were present at the forum, induding David Sweet, a local member of Parliament, broadcaster and columnist Lorna Dueck and Work Research Foundation President Michael Van Pelt and Vice-President of Research Ray Pennings. The Work Research Foundation is based on a Reformational understanding of labour, economics and public life. Menzies began his address by showing three photos on an overhead screen. The first, a photo of Alberta's 'Big Sky Country' with the Canadian Rockies in the background, reaching and yearning, Menzies noted, almost to be the sky itself. The second, a photo of the New York City skyline taken from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. "The sky is not as big as on the Alberta plains," Menzies remarked, "but the office towers, like the Rockies, nevertheless seem to stretch toward the clouds with a similar sense of yearning." The third, a photo of Ground Zero, now a construction site and memorial inscribed with the motto "Look back - move forward." Menzies pointed out St. Paul's Chapel in the background, a historic church rising from the ruins of Ground Zero. The house of worship contains the pew where George Washington prayed following his inauguration on April 30, 1789. Built in 1766, the Episcopalian church is Manhattan's oldest public building in continuous use. A haven for volunteers during the rescue efforts and cleanup following 9/1,. remarkably not one of the chapel's stained glass windows was broken. Called heaven's outpost, Menzies explained how St. Paul's served as a powerful illustration of the enduring foundation of Western culture - "The much maligned and incredibly unfashionable, and yet remarkably durable Christian faith." Menzies pointed out how all three photos depict aspiration. "The Canadian Rockies, the New York City skyline, and St. Paul's Chapel illustrate our collective yearning for the transcendent and hope for a better future," the well-spoken newspaper editor and publisher noted. A yearning and aspiration for something higher, argued Menzies, that not only infuses culture with a sense of optimism, but drives technological advance and rapid societal change. "Buffeted by the most rapid period of social change in history, humanity is at the vanguard of unimaginable technological revolution," Menzies observed. But at the same time, an advance that comes with a sense of anxiety and uncertainty. "The possibilities for change today occur more rapidly than our capacity to contemplate their meaning," Menzies noted. "We don't know, for example, if longstanding values such as kindness, hard work and ingenuity - values that have created the most prosperous society in human history - will survive the pace of change or what will replace them." Menzies pointed to a poignant example in Canadian history when cultural survival was pitted against rapid societal change. In 1877 Chief Crowfoot stood at Blackfoot Crossing in Central Alberta and said: "We all see that the day is coming when the buffalo will all be killed and we shall have nothing more to live on." Less than twenty years before, few of Crowfoot's people had seen a white European - and yet, a mere 20 years after Crowfoot's pronouncement, the Canadian National Railway and barbed wire fences crisscrossed the Prairies. Crowfoot's people survived. But their source of survival and culture were all but destroyed in less than a blink of history's eye. The Winchester and steam engine killed the buffalo. Today we see the day of the buffalo again as technology radically alters our culture, Menzies remarked, asking his audience if they were not standing in Chief Crowfoot's moccasins. From the cell phone to the Internet to the discovery of the genome to genetic engineering, our culture is experiencing a revolution of change. The key question we need to ask. argued Menzies, is whether culture's foundational values will survive the most rapid rate of technological change in human history. But the successful newspaper editor and publisher stopped short of blaming technological advance for destroying culture. 'Technology is just stuff," Menzies maintained, quoting fellow Albertan, David Goa, Director of the Chester Ronning Centre for the Study of Religion and Public Life at the University of Alberta: "Science has never claimed to be anything more than a method. It doesn't give you the tools of judgment - it doesn't have a worldview." Blaming technology for humanity's errors, Menzies argued, is akin to blaming the apple for Adam and Eve's eviction from the Garden of Eden. More importantly, Menzies added, blaming technology denies human responsibility. Instead of blaming technological advance for the destruction of culture, Menzies explained, we need to go beyond the realm of the physical. "We need to believe that culture is not temporary, that it doesn't die when the buffalo are gone. Life has an eternal dimension. And if human existence has an eternal dimension, then there is more to life than survival and reproduction. Life becomes a rare and precious gift with the potential for something of inconceivable wonder and beauty. Life will be filled with aspiration." Menzies defined the term "aspiration" by pointing to its Latin root "aspirare", which means "to instill or infuse an emotion or quality into a person or thing." In other words, he noted, "it means to breathe." Menzies recalled how the pioneers who built Canada, whether on the Alberta plains in big sky country or across Ontario's forests, rivers and lakes, could see the stars at night once the sun had set. 'They breathed in the natural wonder of creation and were filled with a yearning for the transcendent, for something greater than themselves," Menzies stressed. "In today's urban culture, we deny ourselves those natural moments of fear and wonder inspired by constantly coming face to face with the enormous reality of infinity." Menzies quoted Oxford University Professor of Historical Theology Alister McGrath: "The stars may evoke an unspeakable sense of yearning for something that seems unattainable - a sense of longing for something significant, which the night sky can heighten, yet not satisfy. Maybe the stars point to something mysterious, something unfathomable, which somehow lies beyond them. Something seems to lie beyond the whispering orbs of the night. But what? And how is it to be known?" Stargazing has always intrigued humanity, Menzies explained. "Maybe these are the musings of people who cannot cope with the sobering thought of mortality and meaninglessness," Menzies remarked. "Yet maybe we are meant to think such thoughts." Menzies pointed out how the brightness of progress and technological advance today hides the nightly reminder of eternity. 'The 21st century urban world cannot see the Light for the light. We cannot clearly hear the voice of aspiration. There is just too much noise." Menzies urged his audience to go beyond the city lights and noise. "Those of you who truly aspire - who seek something higher; who understand the need for spiritual and philosophical meaning in our existence - must find the light through the mask. You must listen for the voice amid the noise. And, because cultures are built and sustained from the top of the sociological order, you must lead." Cultural aspiration is not about thinking bigger, Menzies explained, but about reaching higher. Menzies argued that this aspiration is only found in the Judeo-Christian values that lie at the foundation of Western culture. "Todays society - the most prosperous in human history - was built for better or worse on a certain set of values that evolved in Western culture from a Christian worldview - something many, if not most Canadians have completely forgotten." The challenge for citizens and leaders is to build something higher than a sense of shared ambitions and understandings, Menzies stressed. "The challenge for our citizens and leaders is to aspire." Leaders may and do aspire, the former editor and publisher explained, pointing to a recent Calgary speech by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Canada's role in the world and a 1905 speech by Liberal Prime Minister Sir Wilfred Laurier on the occasion of Alberta's entry into Confederation. "Prime Minister Harper noted that Canada wasn't built by the services we use, but by the sacrifices we made," Menzies explained. "Canada, as a nation, is urged to aspire for the higher ethic of sacrifice instead of consumption" Menzies pointed out how Laurier, in his speech, issued a call for new immigrants to settle Canada's west. "We do not anticipate and we do not want that any individual should forget the land of their origin or their ancestors," Laurier said. "Let them look to the past, but let them also look to the future: let them look to the land of their ancestors but let them also look to the land of their children" Menzies pointed out how Laurier urged immigrants to not only honour their past, but more importantly, aspire for a greater future. The aspirations of both Prime Ministers are rooted in the best of what the Judeo-Christian tradition has to offer, Menzies argued - sacrifice and optimism for the future. The speaker concluded by referring back to St. Paul's Chapel at Ground Zero in the wake of 9/11. "While the release of hate and madness on 9/11 turned the symbols of our commerce quite literally into dust on one side of the street, this humble little church, a symbol of our culture's roots, survived," Menzies noted. "For the next eight months, while workers struggled through the horror of Ground Zero, St. Paul's Chapel became a haven. For 24 hours a day, seven days a week, St. Paul's doors were open to those who needed food, those who needed rest and those who needed comfort. People still seek comfort there. What happened at St. Paul's is that the very best of Christian values were released. People were being loved and cared for with wild abandon. A site of tragedy, pain and despair was turned into a place of hope and aspiration. It renewed the souls of broken people. This, then, is the challenge for citizens and leaders who understand the failure of relativism and how it pales against the beauty of the absolute when it is freely understood and released." Such an aspiration, Menzies explained, is for those who, like the mountains and skyscrapers, yearn for something higher - those who truly aspire. An aspiration rooted in the elevated virtues of the Christian faith. The event at the coach house ended with a stimulating question and answer period and the hope that those present would engage contemporary culture with only the highest aspirations of truth and virtue. Michael Zwiep is a Researcher for Crossroads Television's 'The Michael Coren Show', aired every weeknight at 8:00 PM, and a confessing member of the Vineland Free Reformed Church.