This morning, it happened again. On a radio program they were talking about the open discussion of death and dying and the way our society, very geared towards individualism and social isolation tends to be death denying, and people are generally squeamish or downright scared of the subject. The fellow being interviewed went on to mention as examples those societies with religious roots: Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish and Islamic. Because they are socially cohesive and community oriented there is a relative openness about embracing the reality of death. Then I noticed something missing. The word Christian was not mentioned.
When spirituality and faith are being discussed in the public forum it appears that the Christian faith has become the elephant in the room, the ugly sister, the poor mentally ill cousin. Someone we don`t like to talk about nor even mention. An embarrassment.
There are many reasons and excuses for this. The most popular being that Christians of all stripes and denominations have done so much to disgrace their faith that no one is going to take them seriously. I accept that there is some truth to this. The scandals of sexual abuse of children in the Roman Catholic church, the religious conservative right in the US and almost every other odious absurdity in between has done much to discredit Christianity. I suppose there is no need to mention the burnings of witches, heretics and anyone else the Pope didn`t like during the Middle Ages in Europe and in Latin America until the eighteenth century. Yes, Christianity is probably the most discredited faith in the world.
Except...
When you explore the faith with an open mind and an open heart, something very different can occur. And there is also the possibility of meeting Christians who don`t validate the negative stereotypes of intolerance, hypocrisy and pure flakiness. Which is to say, the kind of Christians never mentioned in the media: people who care for the sick and infirm, who support and shelter the homeless, who feed the hungry, help impoverished communities help empower themselves and develop, provide disaster relief, work for social justice, visit and befriend prisoners and sex workers, care for the dying, comfort the bereaved...
Even though we live in a post-Christian era, the eponymous faith has done its share to define our civilization, our culture and our values and this still resonates in our understanding of liberal democracy, respect for human rights and multiculturalism, pluralism and inclusiveness. That`s right, Gentle Reader, all Christian virtues.
But, to condense and summarize within a few lines the four Gospels of the New Testament, this is what we believe as Christians: God became one of us, in the form of a helpless baby born to poor humble parents in a remote corner of the Roman Empire where he grew up in the Jewish faith. He shared all of our weakness, frailties and imperfections except for one small and significant detail: he lived without sin. As a young adult he came into the fullness of his ministry, preaching the good news of God`s love for everyone, especially the poor and vulnerable and he went about healing illness and restoring broken lives. The religious authorities hated him because of envy and they handed him over to the Romans who executed him as a common criminal. He descended to the realm of the dead where he liberated the imprisoned souls and three days later rose from the dead. He gathered together his frightened followers, encouraged them, empowered them, then ascended to heaven. Ten days later he anointed them with the Holy Spirit, empowering them further to spread the good news of his love and redeeming power throughout the world, to all people, even though they were ruthlessly and mercilessly persecuted to the death.
Those who are Christians have accepted Jesus as God made human and have received into their lives the power and restoring love of his Holy Spirit. This does not make us perfect and often our imperfections and frailties get in the way of this beautiful truth. By the same token, as we further surrender our lives and our desires to God we come into a process of healing, growth and maturation and our lives increasingly reflect the love of the God that so few people seem to believe in. There are a lot of Christians like this. The media tends to ignore us because we tend to be rather inconvenient to the popular narrative and the stereotypes of the intolerant, right wing pedophiles who hate freedom of choice and marriage equality and deny the reality of global warming from climate change. But we aren`t all like this and far be it from us to inconvenience the popular misconceptions of what Christians really are.
In the meantime, there are other religious faiths. Are we better than Muslims, for being Christians? Better than Jews? Buddhists? Pagans? But that is not the right question. I did not choose to become a Christian because all the other faiths are inferior. I don't know if they're inferior or not, and frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. I am a Christian because that is how God has called me. I respect other faiths. Beyond that I have nothing to say about them, because my reality, my experience, is uniquely Christian, and this is the faith that I am resolved to honour with the desire to respectfully coexist with others.
It would be nice if the media began to understand this, stop believing all the bad press without considering the other side to the story, and stopped vilifying us, if only by default and silence. I think that we as Christians also have a role to play in disabusing the media of some of the inaccurate nonsense they have swallowed about us. But only if we are prepared to be true disciples, and also if we are prepared to steel ourselves against the unpleasant and chronic misunderstanding that we are still going to be faced with because not everyone is going to like or approve of what we are, nor of whom we represent.
Sunday, 13 November 2016
Saturday, 12 November 2016
That Dawkins Guy!
Here I am writing again about why I am not an atheist. It's kind of a default topic since I'm
sick of whinging about president-elect Dump. Basic Serenity Prayer 101: Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Funny, thinking of the Serenity Prayer, which I first encountered at the tender age of fifteen or so. I had a friend, named Sandra, twenty-eight years old (not that kind of friendship, so please get your head out of the gutter). She was a really cool lady, and not at all embarrassed to have a fifteen year old kid for a pal and she was one of my many mentors during my rather strange and tumultuous adolescence. I found her so refreshingly sane. She had two little signs up at her cash till where she worked at a budget department store (I sometimes visited her at work). One was the Serenity Prayer, already mentioned. The other said: When I get out of here today I am going to have a nervous breakdown. I worked hard for it, I earned it, and no one is going to deprive me of it! She had a really cool, ironic kind of humour.
Sandra and I were both Christians. We were involved in the same church, where we met, and in our different ways we both had dedicated our lives to Christ. It was really phenomenal, I thought, and still think, how God in his love would draw so many different people together in his love in friendship and community. And so was the undergirding theme, the very glue of our relationships. Love. Holy, accepting, healing and nurturing love. Unconditional love. It did exist, if only for a while. And we flourished.
By the same token I simply cannot relate to a fundamentalist atheist such as Richard Dawkins. With his hyper-scientific mind of evidence overdrive, I can`t help but get the impression that he has no time or appreciation for the fine, invisible details that undergird our human existence. Such as love. Such as a sense and appreciation of art, music and beauty. Such as the innate spirituality that makes us so uniquely human. His cacophonous and strident assertions that everything has to be empirically and evidence based leaves me cold, bored and uninterested. And this is not because I don`t believe in science. I do. But I don`t believe only in science. If there are any questions, here, Gentle Reader, about my intelligence, by the way, my IQ has been measured and I occupy the top two percentile.
Science is inherently and purely rational. Humans are not. We are partly rational. We are many other things: we are primal, spiritual, creative, romantic. The scientific grid is in itself not sufficient to fit the whole matrix of human experience. There are many features of our experience as humans that can never be measured by a scientific scale based only on research, experiment and measurable evidence.
Neither is the theory of evolution in itself conclusive as the exclusive explanation for the existence of life. I believe in evolution, by the way, but I often doubt that scientists have the complete story or the evidence to be able to accurately read or measure the progress of development of life on earth. Neither do I accept the binary of evolution versus creationism. I do believe that there is a divine influence and plan inherent in what is known and unknown of the scientific process. Sadly, many scientists are rather arrogant and proud of their intelligence and it would seem that only a few have enough humility to accept and admit that they do not have the answers, they will never have all the answers, and that at its very best, the whole scientific process is going to be one everlasting journey into the unknown and towards an ever growing state of unceasing wonder and bafflement.
In other words, Gentle Reader, please don`t expect me to know how we all got here. I wasn`t there when it happened. Neither were you.
I think where that Dawkins guy really slips off the rail is in his arrogant conceit when he makes some ridiculous sweeping generalizations about spiritual and religious experience. As if he would know. First of all, we are not afraid of hell nor of extinction. We come into faith through many and very individual journeys that lead us to an experience, perhaps one could say, revelation, of the divine. This cannot be measured or explained. It involves a completely distinct organ of the human being from the rational process. To explain it accurately to someone who hasn't undergone this experience would be quite like trying to describe the colour green to someone who is blind.
Secondly, we do not solicit an invisible, nonexistent God to answer our prayers and make our decisions for us, except perhaps in the very early and immature stages of faith. Rather we grow into a deepening awareness of the divine presence inhabiting the entire universe, the earth, ourselves and in one another. We nurture this awareness and we seek a closer communion with God, not out of fear and not out of mental laziness, but because of a spiritual hunger fueled by love and the desire to love and the urge to become better and more complete human beings.
Neither do we ask nor accept easy answers about such trying questions as why is there so much misery and evil in the world if truly there exists a loving God. Rather, we accept that we live in a broken world, corrupted by sin, of our own doing as human beings. We acknowledge that this is our mess, not God`s. He has given us free will, and because of human sin and rebellion we have often abused this gift of free will, polluting our world and now we are going to have to live with some of the most grievous results of our rejection of God`s love: climate change from global warming and all the horrible fallout that could happen to us and our planet.
In other words, Gentle Reader, God created us to be adults. As adults we cannot fairly expect him to go on wiping our ass for us but it is for us to accept responsibility for our actions and do everything we can to clean up and heal the mess we have made of our humanity and this earth.
So then, the whole process of prayer, of spirituality, lies not in venting our selfish and childish desires by nagging God to do this and that for us or to give us that or this; but to make us more like him, to fill our hearts with love, to transform us into channels of his peace and empower us to become agents of warning and healing and restoration to this broken world in which we live.
Dawkins has it all wrong, but there is no point in confusing him with facts. His mind is already made up.
sick of whinging about president-elect Dump. Basic Serenity Prayer 101: Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Funny, thinking of the Serenity Prayer, which I first encountered at the tender age of fifteen or so. I had a friend, named Sandra, twenty-eight years old (not that kind of friendship, so please get your head out of the gutter). She was a really cool lady, and not at all embarrassed to have a fifteen year old kid for a pal and she was one of my many mentors during my rather strange and tumultuous adolescence. I found her so refreshingly sane. She had two little signs up at her cash till where she worked at a budget department store (I sometimes visited her at work). One was the Serenity Prayer, already mentioned. The other said: When I get out of here today I am going to have a nervous breakdown. I worked hard for it, I earned it, and no one is going to deprive me of it! She had a really cool, ironic kind of humour.
Sandra and I were both Christians. We were involved in the same church, where we met, and in our different ways we both had dedicated our lives to Christ. It was really phenomenal, I thought, and still think, how God in his love would draw so many different people together in his love in friendship and community. And so was the undergirding theme, the very glue of our relationships. Love. Holy, accepting, healing and nurturing love. Unconditional love. It did exist, if only for a while. And we flourished.
By the same token I simply cannot relate to a fundamentalist atheist such as Richard Dawkins. With his hyper-scientific mind of evidence overdrive, I can`t help but get the impression that he has no time or appreciation for the fine, invisible details that undergird our human existence. Such as love. Such as a sense and appreciation of art, music and beauty. Such as the innate spirituality that makes us so uniquely human. His cacophonous and strident assertions that everything has to be empirically and evidence based leaves me cold, bored and uninterested. And this is not because I don`t believe in science. I do. But I don`t believe only in science. If there are any questions, here, Gentle Reader, about my intelligence, by the way, my IQ has been measured and I occupy the top two percentile.
Science is inherently and purely rational. Humans are not. We are partly rational. We are many other things: we are primal, spiritual, creative, romantic. The scientific grid is in itself not sufficient to fit the whole matrix of human experience. There are many features of our experience as humans that can never be measured by a scientific scale based only on research, experiment and measurable evidence.
Neither is the theory of evolution in itself conclusive as the exclusive explanation for the existence of life. I believe in evolution, by the way, but I often doubt that scientists have the complete story or the evidence to be able to accurately read or measure the progress of development of life on earth. Neither do I accept the binary of evolution versus creationism. I do believe that there is a divine influence and plan inherent in what is known and unknown of the scientific process. Sadly, many scientists are rather arrogant and proud of their intelligence and it would seem that only a few have enough humility to accept and admit that they do not have the answers, they will never have all the answers, and that at its very best, the whole scientific process is going to be one everlasting journey into the unknown and towards an ever growing state of unceasing wonder and bafflement.
In other words, Gentle Reader, please don`t expect me to know how we all got here. I wasn`t there when it happened. Neither were you.
I think where that Dawkins guy really slips off the rail is in his arrogant conceit when he makes some ridiculous sweeping generalizations about spiritual and religious experience. As if he would know. First of all, we are not afraid of hell nor of extinction. We come into faith through many and very individual journeys that lead us to an experience, perhaps one could say, revelation, of the divine. This cannot be measured or explained. It involves a completely distinct organ of the human being from the rational process. To explain it accurately to someone who hasn't undergone this experience would be quite like trying to describe the colour green to someone who is blind.
Secondly, we do not solicit an invisible, nonexistent God to answer our prayers and make our decisions for us, except perhaps in the very early and immature stages of faith. Rather we grow into a deepening awareness of the divine presence inhabiting the entire universe, the earth, ourselves and in one another. We nurture this awareness and we seek a closer communion with God, not out of fear and not out of mental laziness, but because of a spiritual hunger fueled by love and the desire to love and the urge to become better and more complete human beings.
Neither do we ask nor accept easy answers about such trying questions as why is there so much misery and evil in the world if truly there exists a loving God. Rather, we accept that we live in a broken world, corrupted by sin, of our own doing as human beings. We acknowledge that this is our mess, not God`s. He has given us free will, and because of human sin and rebellion we have often abused this gift of free will, polluting our world and now we are going to have to live with some of the most grievous results of our rejection of God`s love: climate change from global warming and all the horrible fallout that could happen to us and our planet.
In other words, Gentle Reader, God created us to be adults. As adults we cannot fairly expect him to go on wiping our ass for us but it is for us to accept responsibility for our actions and do everything we can to clean up and heal the mess we have made of our humanity and this earth.
So then, the whole process of prayer, of spirituality, lies not in venting our selfish and childish desires by nagging God to do this and that for us or to give us that or this; but to make us more like him, to fill our hearts with love, to transform us into channels of his peace and empower us to become agents of warning and healing and restoration to this broken world in which we live.
Dawkins has it all wrong, but there is no point in confusing him with facts. His mind is already made up.
Friday, 11 November 2016
What Is Being Remembered?
Once again, Gentle Reader, we are under assault with the selective memory process also known as Remembrance Day. The shrinking number of surviving war veterans, now almost all in their nineties, limp, stagger and totter or are pushed in wheelchairs outside for their annual vigil at the cenotaph, surrounded by their supporters, all under the auspices of gratitude for the sacrifices they made for our country's freedom.
I do not deny that they made sacrifices. Huge sacrifices. The survivors, now in the death zone, carry lifelong trauma for what happened to them. To imagine sending almost an entire generation of young men and adolescent boys to get shot down and blown to bits in a foreign war. The death, the destruction of souls, and the many ruined and broken survivors staggering back home for the victory celebrations. Not all were disabled for life. Many went on to be productive citizens, raised families and lived to see their children and great grandchildren. I don't think any of them have ever completely recovered from the shadow of war.
I generally turn off the radio on Remembrance Day. It is the pompous and maudlin myth making that impacts me. It is all about what they did for their country, what they suffered for their country, how they died for their country. When I hear these things I find myself focussing more on the things that are left unsaid.
I am not going to go into the just cause of fighting the Nazis. Something needed to be done about them and they will go down in histroy, along with Stalin's goons and Mao's henchmen, with generous camios from Pol Pot and the architects of the Rwandan genocide, as the most murderous brutes in human history.
However...
Very little seems to be said about why our old soldiers were traumatized. Was it just living as human targets for bombs and mortar fire for six years? Was it seeing too many of their friends and comrades being killed before their eyes? Was it seeing the thousands and thousands of innocent civilians wounded and murdered?
And speaking of innocent civilians, what about the ones who were not the victims of Hitler, what about the children of Germans, Italians and Japanese? What about the firebombings of Hannover and Tokyo? The nuclear bombs that fell on Nagasaki and Hiroshima? How many of our veterans have been impaired by trauma because of guilt for the brutalities that they also inflicted?
I shall give you a moment, Gentle Reader, to recompose yourselves, and no, it isn't sporting to scream the word "treason" while reading this post.
Our soldiers went to war during an era when everyone thought in black and white. There was no room for peaceful negotiation because no one believed in it. I am not talking about appeasement but of real dialogue and authentic diplomacy. I do not know if Hitler could have been stopped. I do believe that he could have been prevented.
What I find unacceptable is that under any circumstances at all that any of us would still find war an acceptable alternative. I have no answers and no solutions, and quite frankly I do not have enough knowledge or information about the War to offer any. But I also suspect that no one really has all the information and that there have been so many distortions of our way of recording and writing history that we are not likely to ever know.
What is being remembered?
There is no way to peace...peace is the way.
I do not deny that they made sacrifices. Huge sacrifices. The survivors, now in the death zone, carry lifelong trauma for what happened to them. To imagine sending almost an entire generation of young men and adolescent boys to get shot down and blown to bits in a foreign war. The death, the destruction of souls, and the many ruined and broken survivors staggering back home for the victory celebrations. Not all were disabled for life. Many went on to be productive citizens, raised families and lived to see their children and great grandchildren. I don't think any of them have ever completely recovered from the shadow of war.
I generally turn off the radio on Remembrance Day. It is the pompous and maudlin myth making that impacts me. It is all about what they did for their country, what they suffered for their country, how they died for their country. When I hear these things I find myself focussing more on the things that are left unsaid.
I am not going to go into the just cause of fighting the Nazis. Something needed to be done about them and they will go down in histroy, along with Stalin's goons and Mao's henchmen, with generous camios from Pol Pot and the architects of the Rwandan genocide, as the most murderous brutes in human history.
However...
Very little seems to be said about why our old soldiers were traumatized. Was it just living as human targets for bombs and mortar fire for six years? Was it seeing too many of their friends and comrades being killed before their eyes? Was it seeing the thousands and thousands of innocent civilians wounded and murdered?
And speaking of innocent civilians, what about the ones who were not the victims of Hitler, what about the children of Germans, Italians and Japanese? What about the firebombings of Hannover and Tokyo? The nuclear bombs that fell on Nagasaki and Hiroshima? How many of our veterans have been impaired by trauma because of guilt for the brutalities that they also inflicted?
I shall give you a moment, Gentle Reader, to recompose yourselves, and no, it isn't sporting to scream the word "treason" while reading this post.
Our soldiers went to war during an era when everyone thought in black and white. There was no room for peaceful negotiation because no one believed in it. I am not talking about appeasement but of real dialogue and authentic diplomacy. I do not know if Hitler could have been stopped. I do believe that he could have been prevented.
What I find unacceptable is that under any circumstances at all that any of us would still find war an acceptable alternative. I have no answers and no solutions, and quite frankly I do not have enough knowledge or information about the War to offer any. But I also suspect that no one really has all the information and that there have been so many distortions of our way of recording and writing history that we are not likely to ever know.
What is being remembered?
There is no way to peace...peace is the way.
Thursday, 10 November 2016
Jesus, I Am Coping, Coping...
What more can I say, Gentle Reader? Two days ago the Dump was elected president of the US. We are all upset, depressed, sad, angry and we feel so damn powerless. We feel betrayed. Right now I am listening to the radio and they are talking about his ridiculous claim that climate change does not exist. He will be dismantling everything to do with environmental protections and putting the world in accelerated danger. No wonder we're upset. The only explanation for such an ignorant idiot in the most powerful leadership position in the world is all the ignorant idiot Americans who voted for him. Too caught up in rage, resentment, envy and self-pity to think rationally.
This is a sad but inevitable consequence of not making university education universally available. Without state subsidized post secondary education that emphasizes studying the humanities millions of people, because of poverty, are left in ignorance. Their worldview remains stunted, narrow and truncated and these same unfortunate dumbasses are allowed to vote! And they end up voting, alright- for cynical, venal and obscenely wealthy populists who manipulate, lie to and bamboozle them into believing that they are speaking for them and the uneducated, too blinded by rage and hate for their sense of disenfranchisement, are not capable of reflective or rational thought. They vote with their spleen.
I am finally feeling better, following twenty-four very difficult hours of coping with this bitter reality. I have decided how I am going to cope. I will begin by forgiving the Dump and his backers. They know not what they do. Then I will proceed with getting on with my life, with attempting to live in an exemplary manner that honours my faith and glorifies the Christ that I serve. I will live in the moment and enjoy the moment and live a life of thanksgiving and joy and I will continue to try to treat others with kindness and love.
I might not often succeed, but it's an excellent buffer against getting upset over things that I cannot control.
This is a sad but inevitable consequence of not making university education universally available. Without state subsidized post secondary education that emphasizes studying the humanities millions of people, because of poverty, are left in ignorance. Their worldview remains stunted, narrow and truncated and these same unfortunate dumbasses are allowed to vote! And they end up voting, alright- for cynical, venal and obscenely wealthy populists who manipulate, lie to and bamboozle them into believing that they are speaking for them and the uneducated, too blinded by rage and hate for their sense of disenfranchisement, are not capable of reflective or rational thought. They vote with their spleen.
I am finally feeling better, following twenty-four very difficult hours of coping with this bitter reality. I have decided how I am going to cope. I will begin by forgiving the Dump and his backers. They know not what they do. Then I will proceed with getting on with my life, with attempting to live in an exemplary manner that honours my faith and glorifies the Christ that I serve. I will live in the moment and enjoy the moment and live a life of thanksgiving and joy and I will continue to try to treat others with kindness and love.
I might not often succeed, but it's an excellent buffer against getting upset over things that I cannot control.
Wednesday, 9 November 2016
Tuesday, 8 November 2016
Countdown
Gentle Reader, I hope this will be the last time I will ever feel compelled to mention any US election on these pages. I have long considered politics to be a less than high calling. For a long time I refused to even vote since to me the only one worthy of my vote would never stoop so low as to run for public office. While waiting for the outcome of this most historic, most hysterical and most hysterically and historically ugly election in any long memory I shall be moving back and forth to my keyboard to provide an update. So far it seems clear that the Dump`s only version of a fair election is one that he wins. He has already threatened one lawsuit today, in Nevada I believe, for alleged voter fraud. I only wish that large, bloated whiny spoilt rich over aged brat would once and for all shut his repulsive trap and give all our ears a rest.
The first results can often be very discouraging. The Dump is enjoying a twenty-four percent lead to Hillary`s three percent. Of course the results have all come in from Dumb-Ass America, which is to say the traditional Republican heartland of the US South, so there is no surprise here. I have to say that this is the only US election I have ever paid close attention to. We in Canada are the mouse living next door to an elephant so of course we are going to have to notice. We have no choice. Still, this is alarming. Never has the US presented a more overwhelmingly frightening presidential candidate as the Dump. If he wins the international ramifications are going to be huge: from trade, to war, to irreversible global environmental degradation to all-out nuclear war. It is frightening and sad that so many people of voting age in the world`s most powerful country have allowed their reptilian brain such full control over their judgment. And anyone with experience working with others can tell you how difficult and often impossible to argue rationally with anyone whose thinking is dominated by fear, anger, hate and rage.
I am concerned about the threats of many well-educated Americans to move here to Canada should the Dump be elected. It isn`t that I wouldn`t welcome them. I have three dear friends in the US: two in LA and one in New York. I for one would love to welcome them here should they choose Vancouver. I am only concerned that the resulting brain drain in the US could make things historically even worse for that country as the basket full of deplorables is only allowed to grow and increase. Nature abhors a vacuum. And there are a lot of empty spaces in those poor unused minds just waiting to be filled.
I have shut off the radio. I cannot gut the sound of the Dump`s voice. A grating, whining, angry, hateful, scowling yell that cannot be rationally addressed. Better to know when to protect ourselves, Gentle Reader. At the very worst, if he does win the election there isn`t a lot he can do here in Canada, outside of invoking trade policies to make us miserable. Unless he proves to be a little more than we reckoned possible to be like a certain Austrian born despot with a weird moustache and bad hair, and a similar patent for yelling irrationally and screaming public hate, quite a few years ago in a country in central Europe...
I just checked Google Elections. The Dump is still leading but Hillary is catching up. I refuse to turn on the radio because I don`t want to be in a state of perma-anguish and whenever they play the Dump`s voice I get very upset. I never imagined there would be ever a worse contender for the Oval Office than Dubya. In the meantime, I have just enjoyed an early supper of homemade pea soup with homemade bread while watching an episode of All In The Family, which I am still binge-watching these days and is an excellent therapeutic entertainment considering everything else right now...
Well...It looks like the Dump is already getting set to use Hillary as toilet paper. Still, it ain`t over yet. On the other hand, it would appear that Melania Dump has already picked out the curtains to go with the new upholstery in the Oval Office. Ha! And to think this unlikely first lady also posed in the nude. (leave those search engines alone, boys!) I would imagine that now this aging faked-up bimbo collects air miles with her plastic surgeon...
I have just turned off the radio after listening for the last half hour to election updates. Depressing. Time for another episode of All In The Family. God bless YouTube...
I`m done. I`m not waiting up for the results. I`m tired, bored, frustrated and saddened by what is going on. It still looks like Hillary could make a turn around. Even if she doesn't, even if the Dump does settle his vile presence in the Oval Office we can still hope for the best. He might soften some of the ugly rhetoric he's spent the past year and a half offending, frightening and insulting our intelligence with. We don't know what's going to happen. Even if it is happening in the US of A it is not my country and whatever the outcome we are going to go on living our lives the best way we can and we are going to go on caring for one another and taking even better care of one another. This is Canada, the country where we apologize when someone steps on our foot.
My heart goes out to my dear American friends who are going to be impacted by the outcome of this historically bizarre election and I will continue to reach out to them in support and love...
Good night, Gentle Reader...
The first results can often be very discouraging. The Dump is enjoying a twenty-four percent lead to Hillary`s three percent. Of course the results have all come in from Dumb-Ass America, which is to say the traditional Republican heartland of the US South, so there is no surprise here. I have to say that this is the only US election I have ever paid close attention to. We in Canada are the mouse living next door to an elephant so of course we are going to have to notice. We have no choice. Still, this is alarming. Never has the US presented a more overwhelmingly frightening presidential candidate as the Dump. If he wins the international ramifications are going to be huge: from trade, to war, to irreversible global environmental degradation to all-out nuclear war. It is frightening and sad that so many people of voting age in the world`s most powerful country have allowed their reptilian brain such full control over their judgment. And anyone with experience working with others can tell you how difficult and often impossible to argue rationally with anyone whose thinking is dominated by fear, anger, hate and rage.
I am concerned about the threats of many well-educated Americans to move here to Canada should the Dump be elected. It isn`t that I wouldn`t welcome them. I have three dear friends in the US: two in LA and one in New York. I for one would love to welcome them here should they choose Vancouver. I am only concerned that the resulting brain drain in the US could make things historically even worse for that country as the basket full of deplorables is only allowed to grow and increase. Nature abhors a vacuum. And there are a lot of empty spaces in those poor unused minds just waiting to be filled.
I have shut off the radio. I cannot gut the sound of the Dump`s voice. A grating, whining, angry, hateful, scowling yell that cannot be rationally addressed. Better to know when to protect ourselves, Gentle Reader. At the very worst, if he does win the election there isn`t a lot he can do here in Canada, outside of invoking trade policies to make us miserable. Unless he proves to be a little more than we reckoned possible to be like a certain Austrian born despot with a weird moustache and bad hair, and a similar patent for yelling irrationally and screaming public hate, quite a few years ago in a country in central Europe...
I just checked Google Elections. The Dump is still leading but Hillary is catching up. I refuse to turn on the radio because I don`t want to be in a state of perma-anguish and whenever they play the Dump`s voice I get very upset. I never imagined there would be ever a worse contender for the Oval Office than Dubya. In the meantime, I have just enjoyed an early supper of homemade pea soup with homemade bread while watching an episode of All In The Family, which I am still binge-watching these days and is an excellent therapeutic entertainment considering everything else right now...
Well...It looks like the Dump is already getting set to use Hillary as toilet paper. Still, it ain`t over yet. On the other hand, it would appear that Melania Dump has already picked out the curtains to go with the new upholstery in the Oval Office. Ha! And to think this unlikely first lady also posed in the nude. (leave those search engines alone, boys!) I would imagine that now this aging faked-up bimbo collects air miles with her plastic surgeon...
I have just turned off the radio after listening for the last half hour to election updates. Depressing. Time for another episode of All In The Family. God bless YouTube...
I`m done. I`m not waiting up for the results. I`m tired, bored, frustrated and saddened by what is going on. It still looks like Hillary could make a turn around. Even if she doesn't, even if the Dump does settle his vile presence in the Oval Office we can still hope for the best. He might soften some of the ugly rhetoric he's spent the past year and a half offending, frightening and insulting our intelligence with. We don't know what's going to happen. Even if it is happening in the US of A it is not my country and whatever the outcome we are going to go on living our lives the best way we can and we are going to go on caring for one another and taking even better care of one another. This is Canada, the country where we apologize when someone steps on our foot.
My heart goes out to my dear American friends who are going to be impacted by the outcome of this historically bizarre election and I will continue to reach out to them in support and love...
Good night, Gentle Reader...
Monday, 7 November 2016
"Wake Me Up When It's All Over"
While reading this, please play this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y_KJAg8bHI
1.Then listen to music you really enjoy.
2. Watch your favourite videos and movies.
3. Go out for a walk.
4. Make a pot of cocoa from scratch.
5. Drink something nice, but not too much.
6. Make your favourite meal for supper.
7. Email or phone a friend.
8.Tell someone you love them.
9. Pet a dog or a cat.
10. Read something funny, meaningful, inspiring.
11. Draw or paint something.
12. Sing.
13. Do exercise.
14. Clean your home.
15. Bake.
16. Give money to a beggar or to the food bank.
17. Forgive someone who has hurt or offended you.
18. Take a nap.
19. Pray. If you don`t believe then think kind thoughts and direct them towards someone who is hurting.
20. Do something kind for the environment.
21. Get some sleep.
22. Laugh.
23. If you are an American, vote tomorrow for Hillary.
1.Then listen to music you really enjoy.
2. Watch your favourite videos and movies.
3. Go out for a walk.
4. Make a pot of cocoa from scratch.
5. Drink something nice, but not too much.
6. Make your favourite meal for supper.
7. Email or phone a friend.
8.Tell someone you love them.
9. Pet a dog or a cat.
10. Read something funny, meaningful, inspiring.
11. Draw or paint something.
12. Sing.
13. Do exercise.
14. Clean your home.
15. Bake.
16. Give money to a beggar or to the food bank.
17. Forgive someone who has hurt or offended you.
18. Take a nap.
19. Pray. If you don`t believe then think kind thoughts and direct them towards someone who is hurting.
20. Do something kind for the environment.
21. Get some sleep.
22. Laugh.
23. If you are an American, vote tomorrow for Hillary.
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