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17
Jun
2022
Thursday June 2, 2022
As far as I know, none of my friends are in imminent danger of dying – thanks to pills, pacemakers, and physiotherapists.
But we have all had warnings of our mortality. The future is not infinite anymore.
The editor of my elementary school’s newsletter mused about her shrinking mailing list. “When I don't know what's happened to classmates,” she wrote, “it makes me sad. Sort of like I haven't said a proper goodbye.”
Goodbye.
We don’t like goodbyes. As Rabbi Kami Knapp wrote, “People feel uncomfortable with the feelings associated with goodbyes, or we become too busy to take the time to properly say goodbye.”
Many of our words for parting deny the possibility of permanent separation, whether by death or circumstance.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: death, goodbye, partings
Sunday May 29, 2022
Yet another school shooting in the U.S. Nineteen children and two teachers dead -- plus the shooter himself.
As I write this column, authorities are still trying to fathom the teenaged shooter’s motives. Was he influenced by extremist ideologies? By prejudice? By social media?
I suggest that the terms we use, in examining motives, are themselves part of the problem. Traditional interpretations of “right” and “left,” liberal and conservative, get in the way of understanding.
We need to start again.
Try these definitions on for size. The right worships the individual. The left worships the group.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: politics, labels, right/left
Thursday May 26, 2022
A rhythm was running through my head when I woke up: “Dah dit dah dit dah dit dah…” No words, just a mesmerizing beat.
Ever had one of those earworms that won’t go away?
During my shower, a word inserted itself to the relentless rhythm: “Patsy.” Then the rest of the words came trickling back: “Patsy Atsy Or-ee-ay… Workin’ on the railroad.”
I cannot imagine where that memory came from. It wasn’t in any of my dreams that night. The last time I remember singing it, I was a teenager, sitting around a campfire, each of us trying to holler louder than everyone else.
Tags: Earworms, hymns, interchangeability
Sunday May 22, 2022
This May, Americans are all riled up about abortion. A leaked draft of a forthcoming judgement, written by the conservative judges on the U.S. Supreme Court, suggests that the Court is likely to overturn the 1973 Roe vs Wadedecision that has, for almost 50 years, allowed American women to have safe and legal abortions.
In Canada, May is Cystic Fibrosis Month. Cystic Fibrosis is a much less divisive issue than abortion. But the two are linked together for me. You’ll see why.
Our son was born with Cystic Fibrosis, CF. It’s a hereditary illness. Both my wife and I had to be carriers of a recessive gene. Our two genes combined to give our son CF. He had nothing to do with it – he was the innocent victim.
Tags: abortion, Cystic Fibrosis