My writings - and those of others.
Awe and Awful
Matthew Fox titled a meditation this way and I’m shamelessly stealing it. In a world as beautiful as the one I view every morning - with a clear sky, an indigo lake below, snow covered fields an roofs, it’s easy to remember what a gift life is.
Not so when I look at the morning paper - threat of war in Ukraine, translators stuck in Afghanistan,, disagreement about timing of reopening, government overspending, departing health care workers. isolation in nursing homes. It is hard to look for good news. Reality does seem much more awful than awesome.
Another recent article looks at how identity is becoming linked to political party in the USA. Canada does have its anti-vaxxers, but they are a mall proportion of the population and generally dismissed. Our oldest province has the highest vaccination rate, all all of them are well ahead of American states. We are still one country, whereas the recent study suggests that America has two.
American Journalism makes the assumption that any judge appointed during the term of a political party will always vote the party line - and backs this assumption up every time there is a Supreme Court vote. This amplifies the impression of identity - and is sometimes wrong. Surely a judge has more integrity than that. I fault the American press - and on occasion my own in Canada for falling into that trap. If they want identity politics to lessen, why do they mention it at every turn.
More than three quarters of those who have died n the US are over 65. Probably ours are similar in percentage - but the numbers are significantly smaller. The Canadian deaths are largely due to poor protocols in nursing homes. The American staggering ones in the US relate to identity. Only 13% of Americans over the age of 65 are very worried about becoming infected. But a full 65% of the population say they are going to continue their life without taking precautions in the middle of a pandemic. 865,000 have died so far. Most of them are unvaccinated - and most of them are Republicans.
Most people scratch their heads and give up on ways to persuade dissenters. It’s just based on politics and religion and they have now collided. I have a modest suggestion for both. Do you want to win elections? Do you want to have congregations in the future? Both of these depend on people being alive.
Metaphor and Meaning
The CBC had a recent Ideas podcast had a recent rerun of a one entitled The Greenest Metaphor. I’ve taken to listening to programs like these at 10:00 pm to wind down from too much looking at screens. All the programs are thought provoking and could actually work against getting to sleep, but I was able to come back to this one in the daytime.
Unless our religious or cultural background is fundamentalist, the place where we probably first encounter and start to understand how metaphors work is in scripture. The Psalms particularly are full of other names for the divine - fortress, rock, shepherd. The story of the Prodigal Son is rich in metaphor and as theologian Sallie McFague notes, metaphors and parables carry much more than a one-to-one connection between two words and their meanings and creates within us an experience that is much broader and rich. Since climate change - now climate emergency - is such a large subject, we are reduced to try and deal with it in a more comprehensive way that single words or concepts can convey.
The Ideas program suggested several metaphors - a race, a sickness, a puzzle, a war - and one more. I don’t recall all the comments on these, but I’ll reflect on my own response..
When I think of a race, I think of a challenge and a contest. The Tortoise and the Hare is a familiar fable. There is a sense of fun and games in a race - and of course, winning. In the case of this fable fable we run into the difficulty that we are already facing. Devastation is coming quickly, so patience is hardly the right response this time. It’s not a matter of fun and games either, but disasters that are destroying us and if we want to stay as the winners - as we have been up to now - it is at the cost of the earth losing. So this one isn’t working so well.
A puzzle is a possibility until we think that some puzzles are so challenging that we tend to give up - or never start. I never try Sudoku like a clever sister-in-law, who does them daily. if it is not the kind of puzzle I like - such as Wordle - now the new family craze - or those regular word puzzles in the New York Times. It doesn’t matter if I can’t solve those on a daily basis - but dealing with climate change does matter. Giving up or not starting - or even saying that I don’t like that kind of puzzle isn’t going to help. There is a lot of not liking the climate change puzzle going around.
We have learned through Covid that sickness is not as straight-forward as we had hoped. Some deny that a sickness even exists and persecute those who believe it. Caring is a good response - but its problem is that we can care passionately without ever doing anything. Taking an aspirin and calling in the morning if it doesn’t work, might not be bad advice for a minor infection, but we now know this is neither minor or simple. This one isn’t going away in a day or two. Pandemic arguments are mirrored in climate change ones. If we do one thing, we risk another. If we stop using fossil fuels, we harm the economy. So there are shortfalls in this one too.
War is a metaphor that is especially popular in North America - the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the War to end all Wars. It suggests aggressive action and it also suggests that we are protecting ourselves against an enemy that is evil and must be conquered. But doesn’t that reverse the roles? Nature isn’t our enemy. Over the past two hundred years of industrial activity, we are.
And that’s the conundrum - and the urgency of the last of the words in the Green Metaphor that the Ideas program suggested. It was love. For thousands of years people had positive metaphors for the natural world. Matthew Fox has a lovely series right now talking about Father Sun and Mother Earth - ways of understanding that countless indigenous communities had, until western culture decided that the Earth was something to be exploited. We haven’t loved it enough. Love involves some of the metaphors I have looked at already. Earth isthe great teacher. Its own journey has encouraged us to the challenge of the race, as we look at our own challenges. Its complexity has inspired us to puzzle over its enormous diversity. Its caring for us by providing light, food and air and so much else invites reciprocity.
Recent floods and fire suggests to some that earth is now wreaking revenge on us. But that points out the fallacy we fell into many times in human history and we are having to learn anew. We are not the centre of the universe - we are a species of it - one of its more recent creations. We were the last one to turn up - after stars, galaxies, planets, insects, fish, plants and animals. Watch a newborn calf or foal and we realize that we are also the most fragile of creations and are dependent on others to survive. We need to return that understanding to the earth itself - by loving it enough to start to take care of it.
4,000 Weeks
I’ve just finished a book with that title by Oliver Burkeman - the sub-title is Time Management for Mortals. Four Thousand weeks describes the amount of time someone has if he/she lives to be 80. My own life is now 4,260 weeks. That seems like quite a lot until it is compared to a universe of 13.8 billion x 52. As a cosmic comparison, it puts me in my place.
At the beginning of 2021 I promised myself that I would post something twice a week during the year. I fell off just before Christmas with some other activities taking precedence - and then felt guilty. Why? It’s not as though this site has many readers. It’s a perfect example of how we set goals for ourselves and then beat ourselves up for what we don’t do in comparison with what we do accomplish.
I received a Christmas gift that is an excellent choice for someone in in the 4,000 week plus category. It invites one to reflect on one’s own life by writing an answer to a question that is sent once a week. At the end of the year, it is compiled in a book. My father wrote a good family history exploring the ancestors so that let me off the hook. but this is a good assignment.
Burkeman has many ideas and the book is worth a read for anyone like me who has read too many books on time management. Perhaps the most important one is that we are time - time is spent not managed - especially in terms of working too hard toward some future that is unknowable. Another idea I liked - perhaps a better one for a retiree than someone actively working to earn a living - is to abandon a “to-do” list - which I have kept religiously using the Bullet Journal format - for a “done” list. It’s more honest and allows one to see whether time is being spent on things that really matter.
I’ll end 2021 - pandemic ridden as it is with cancelled travel plans - with an intention to write the blog once a week - and the memoir above for the other weekly assignment. In both cases the real gift is being here on earth to do them.
Happy New Year
Resilience in Pandemics
Mainstream press is full of ideas to keep us sane when we add a holiday to the stress of living in a pandemic for the better part of two years. Some of the ideas are mainstream, but one is quirky enough that you might enjoy giving it a try.
Take a set period every day to do things that you personally enjoy. You can set your own time limit - even 15 minutes of painting or playing the piano will help.
Chat with supportive people - in person if possible, but online if that is the only option. Strengthen those bonds and avoid people who weaken them.
Find moments for optimism - even among those that contrast with them.
In contrast, give yourself permission to feel stressed when it happens and is real. You don’t have to feel guilty about your feelings. The good thing is that feelings come and go.
One place near the door for everything you need when going out is a big help. Mask, umbrella, keys, purse, credit cards - seeing the items will remind you to take just what you need and make the load lighter.
Organize your fridge. Wasted food makes us feel guilty as well as costing us money. A Lazy Susan is a good device. So are glass containers that stack so you can see what is inside them. A whiteboard can remind you of what is left over. A generic shopping list pinned to the door means you can circle items for the next trip.
Do a short workout - seven minutes will refresh you. Call it an exercise snack.
Maybe you do all those things already. But here is something different. Watch Jellyfish:
Gratitude
I’m cheating by one day to try to post twice a week - but the last week was a busy one. As the American Thanksgiving weekend winds down and the news that Black Friday online shopping was lower than in previous years, perhaps we are discovering that being grateful is more satisfying than acquiring more stuff. In fact a recent article written by a physician and published in Fast Company backs that up. Here are ways to be ensure it. Nearly all religions and philosophies tell you the same things:
Be thankful for the beauties of nature and its constancy. The sun rises and sets each day
Compared to other living species we have been blessed with consciousness.
Good conversation enlivens us.
Love and encouragement of friends and family assures us.
Giving thanks in the morning and evening reminds us of how fortunate we are.
Writing thank you notes reinforces our gratitude
A journal allows us to record the good things that happen.
Seeking experiences rather than just buying things gives us pleasure.
Making gratitude a habit helps us through sorrow and challenges - so that we can remember that there are other good things waiting for us.