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5
Jul
2020
News reports have called it “a plague of biblical proportions.” But they’re not talking about the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Bible actually has very little to say about pandemics. About death from starvation or drought, yes. About death in war, oh my goodness yes. But very little about mass deaths from diseases – if I exclude the book of Revelation, which smacks its lips at the prospect of wiping out one-third of the world’s population in a single trumpet blast.
Rather, the “biblical plague” refers to locusts. Billions upon billions of flying grasshoppers that descend from the sky in clouds and eat the leaves off everything.
Rght now great plagues of locusts are demolishing agricultural crops across east Africa, Somalia, Yemen, parts of Iran, Pakistan, and India.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: Moses, Locusts, plagues
28
Jun
Starting next week, there will be more cars out on our roads. That means more accidents. And if Canadian Blood Services were to run out of gas, figuratively, people would die. Because you can’t get a refill of blood if the main tank is empty.
Earlier this year, there was a risk their tank could run empty. Because of Covid-19, fearful donors were staying away. Fortunately, after an appeal, giving went up 20%.
In fact, a friend who volunteers at donor clinics assured me, the agency takes so many precautions that you’re more likely to catch Covid-19 at home!
Canadian Blood Services maintains an online National Inventory of Blood Supply Products (https://www.blood.ca/en/blood). Earlier this week, the supply of some blood types was down to just three days. Only two common blood types had more than five days’ supply, across the whole country.
Tags: blood donors, gas tanks
27
t’s a four-hour drive from Edmonton to Jasper. Visually, the highway is slightly more exciting than any road out of Regina.
Joan was driving. I was bored.
I had read stories about people who believed that by concentrating, they could burn holes in clouds. I thought that was nonsense. Since I had nothing better to do, I decided to prove them wrong. I focussed all my attention on a small wispy-looking cloud up ahead.
It dissolved into blue sky as I watched.
Pure coincidence, I thought. I chose some bigger, puffier clouds. I found I could bore a hole through them, too.
So I picked one of the least likely clouds, one with a heavy dark base. I chose what seemed to be the thickest part of the cloud. I focussed myself totally on that cloud.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: clouds, mental energy
22
The name “Winston Smith” probably doesn’t immediately bring someone to mind. Good -- that’s what author George Orwell wanted. He deliberately made Smith, the central character in Orwell’s most famous novel, 1984, an unassuming, ordinary, fade-into-the-wallpaper civil servant.
Winston Smith did a very ordinary, unassuming, kind of job.
He rewrote history.
Every day, the Ministry of Truth had him amend news reports that had appeared in the pages of London’s most prestigious newspaper, The Times, to make them match to the government’s latest policies. If Winston Smith were alive today, he wouldn’t be working in a musty back room. He’d be out on the streets toppling statues.
Tags: history, 1984, Orwell, Winston Smith, statues
18
As a song says, what a difference a day makes!
On the last Sunday in May, my daughter called after church, to say that she might have found me a dog. She worries about me living alone since my wife died. Especially when Covid-19 isolation restricts me from visiting others, or having them visit me.
By 3:00 that afternoon, I had a dog named Pippin.
After three months of isolation, I feel like a February groundhog emerging into the brightness of a new day.
I am no longer alone.
I have someone who needs me.
What a difference a dog makes.
Tags: relationships, COVID-19, isolation
The follies of my youth have caught up with me. For a dozen years, I spent almost every sunny weekend out on the water, just bumming around in small boats. Sometimes up Howe Sound, sometimes up the North Arm, sometimes just in Coal Harbour.
But wherever it was, I got blasted two ways by ultra-violet rays -- from the sun overhead, and from the sun reflecting off the water.
It was a glorious time, I remember.
But now I’m paying the price. A dermatologist told me that I will need to have seven pre-cancerous patches on my face removed surgically.
“Ideally,” he said, “I’d like to see you living in the bottom of a coal mine.”
My instant reaction was, “I’d rather die!”
Tags: choices, skin cancer, ultraviolet rays
12
A friend gave me a little book to pass on to our local museum. But because Covid-19 closed the museum for the last couple of months, I’ve kept the book on my bedside table for occasional edification.
It’s called “Rules for the Conduct of Life” -- a large topic. Closer inspection reveals a less lofty goal. It was intended as an ethical guide for apprentices seeking to join the Freemen of the City of London.
The text contains 36 rules. I found it interesting that only four of the 36 rules were considered self-evident, capable of standing on their own.
All the rest include at least one text from the Bible. Sometimes two, or three. As if they needed an external authority to validate their wisdom.
Tags: rules, authorities. Bible
7
Following the death of George Floyd, killed by cop Derek Chauvin, which provoked days of protests and nights of rioting and looting, governor Tim Walz has launched an inquiry into whether the Minneapolis police force has “systemic racism that is generations deep.”
Of course it does.
Stop! Before you fire off flaming letters telling me that I’ve maligned the good people who maintain law and order in our communities, read on.
This is not about individuals.
Individuals may disavow racism. But the system they belong to can’t help being racist, because it defends the rights and privileges of a class that is fundamentally racist.
Tags: Police, George Floyd, Tim Walz, systemic racism
The dogwood tree stood as a pillar of creamy white blossom. The hawthorn tree celebrated with a joyful chorus of deep pink flowers. Azaleas flamed fluorescent -- white, orange, red, violet, yellow. Purple allium heads tried to look like computer visualizations of a coronavirus. The rhododendrons toasted the morning in deep claret and white.
Lilacs, shaded from Ming to Wedgewood, ensured that this was not a fragrance-free zone.
Tiny yellow, white, and blue flowers cascaded down the rock garden. A septet of humming birds danced around their feeders. A great blue heron rose lazily from the lake below, trailing his legs behind him.
And there was evening and there was morning, in the four billionth year, and God saw that it was good.
Joan would have loved it. She would have rejoiced in her garden. I could not imagine how she could willingly leave it.
Tags: heaven, death, Joan Taylor
31
May
As I write this column, the COVID-19 death toll in Canada stands at 6873. Plus one potential death, that no one talks about.
COVID-19 may finally have shaken the blind belief that private enterprise can do any job more efficiently than public.
When death rates in long-term care facilities soared, the governments of Ontario and Quebec called in the military to help out.
Some military members of those Augmented Civilian Care tears wrote a report on the care deficiencies they observed. Which they passed to their superior officers. Who passed it to the provincial governments. Who made them public.
Tags: long-term care, Doug Ford, cutbacks, military report