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12
Apr
2020
People say to me, “When all this is over,” as if everything will return to normal -- whatever they think normal is -- as soon as the Covid-19 furore ends.
I doubt if things will ever go back to normal. At least, not to what we used to consider normal.
This may seem like a bleak subject for an Easter weekend, but it’s relevant – please read on.
A disease does not go away simply by restricting its transmission.
Suppose that Dr. Bonnie Henry’s isolation measures eliminate the Covid-19 virus within B.C. No new cases show up for, say, a whole month. All current cases recover. Our province becomes Covid-free.
The only way to stay Covid-free would be to deny entry to anyone who comes from anywhere that is not equally Covid-free. Other provinces, and neighbouring U.S. states, to say nothing of the rest of the world. Otherwise the transmission ripples start all over again.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: COVID-19, pandemic, normal, vaccines
9
Today is Maundy Thursday.
Maundy? Probably not a word you run across often. “Maundy” apparently derives from Latin mandatum, meaning commandment.
Traditionally, today celebrates the last evening Jesus spent with his disciples. Where he took pita bread, or some equivalent, and tore it up, and told his disciples, “This bread is (like) my body (which will be) broken for your sakes.”
And he poured wine into their cups (today it would probably be Tim Hortons coffee), and said, more or less, “This is like blood. You need it to keep your strength up. Drink it, and remember me in tough times.”
Treat those as commands, and you have “Maundy”.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: Jesus, Pilate, Maundy Thursday, washbasins
4
Tomorrow, Christian churches all over the western world will celebrate Palm Sunday. (Eastern-rite churches will celebrate a week later. )
Most of our churches will celebrate the day as triumphant. Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. All four gospels tell us that the crowds go wild. They hail him as the long-promised Messiah. They tear palm branches off the trees and wave them in the air. They rip off their clothes and throw them on the ground for the donkey to trample on. They shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!”
The streets of Jerusalem must have looked like downtown Toronto after the Raptors won the NBA championship, with Jesus playing the part of Kawhi Leonard.
But the crowds just didn’t get it.
Tags: Palm Sunday, Kawhi Leonard, Raptors, donkey, victory
2
With humour in relatively short supply these days, my own mental energy even shorter, and April Fool’s Day just over, I thought some biblical exegesis might be in order. So here is a reading from Exodus, chapter 16, (Disclosure: adapted from a version published in 2014).
The entire assembly complained about the leadership of Moses and his brother Aaron. They said, “Why did you lead us out of Egypt where McDonald’s was open 24/7, to bring us out to this wilderness where we will surely die of fast food deprivation?”
“Give us this day our daily burgers,” they chanted.
Tags: Moses, manna, Exodus, satire