What is happening to us?

What is happening to us?
Humans are unique. We can see things through dark or rosy glasses, but we must maintain a balance. If you go “all-out” either way you lose credibility. I  see the slogan “No justice, No peace” and it scares me. A historian knows the price of revolutions and wars. There is a peaceful solution available to those who listen, not just talk. It makes Heaven available on Earth.
I go outside and look around. There are flowers in the forest, purple, yellow, white, and pink. The birds are chirping and a squirrel is running up a tree. I see a doe with two spotted fawns and another laying down on my lawn observing my wife trimming bushes. On the edge of the hill, a fox is trotting busily, going somewhere. Above is the forest crowned by mountains. I can hear a train disappearing in the distance and when it has gone, the rushing water of the river.
What I see and hear is most beautiful, but it is only a tiny part of reality. I am living in a country that most people envy. The world itself is improving as I look. People live longer than ever; poverty is being reduced and hunger is no longer rampant as it used to be. There are no major wars and technology connected us all together. I am alive to see this paradise thanks to medical advancements. Am I grateful? I say yes with all my might. The overall picture is better than I could ever even imagine in my youth.
I remember listening to a preacher some years ago. He was describing Heaven, but he didn’t have it right. His paradise couldn’t be reached in this life, but here it is. The only difference is that his was perfect with no possible improvements and ours here always leaves us with something to strive for. I think it’s good.
I blink and look again. My perfect world is threatened by a deadly virus. People are suffering and many are dying. Fear is paralyzing the economy while politicians strongly influence events to solidify or gain power. I see people around me destroying nature for profit or simply to change God’s creation to satisfy some personal needs or wants. Some people can’t leave anything alone.
Generations before me fought against slavery and genocide, while my generation battled to eradicate inequality. I observe a perfect world, but it looks as if we must fight a lot more or return to slavery and servitude. In the preacher’s Heaven, it is not so. Heaven is perfect and poses no challenge. Is that what I want?
I seek a place where people like me, born without privileges and perhaps marked by racial disadvantage could be happy and not feel inferior. Why is it not happening I ask? The word on the airwaves is “systemic discrimination.” It is most obvious when based on skin color but spreads to most people. What is it? In my mind, it is a system that favors some people ahead of others without being obvious, so people accept it. I am looking for an easy example.
I could use the example of the US breaking a peace treaty with Iran and forcing Canada to treat the Chinese as criminals for doing business there, but it’s too complicated. Let me use an example from here.
When I first saw Blairmore in 1995, it was a thriving little town. Mountain sheep and deer were wandering around, tourists were walking the streets and most downtown stores had little businesses. There was also a little indoor mall and two local newspapers. What we didn’t have were corporate franchises. Look at the town now.
We have two quaint little coffee shops owned by locals employing locals. They suffered greatly from the Corona related shut down and may survive if we support them. In comes an opportunity to help them. The Alberta government purchased too many disposable masks, out of our money, and decided to distribute some free back to us. A noble gesture, if you ask me. However, the government could have helped our private little coffee shops by letting them distribute the “free” masks and give them some free advertisement, but instead, they chose to support the Tim Horton’s chain. They forced us to wait in drive-through line ups. Most people who waited bought their daily coffee in the outlet they waited in line for.
This is just one minor example of how the powerful who are rich already receive benefits from our taxes while the hard-working family-owned businesses make do with the crumbs. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of our elected members who made the choice own  places that distributed “free masks.”
I have conflicting emotions about the News these days. The pandemic is a horrible thing that has killed some of my friends and is a great threat to me and those I love dearly. At the same time, it did some good. It showed us truths that were hidden. We can feed ourselves and keep the country going while producing much less pollution. We discovered that the primary engine of our economy are the low wage essential workers, not the great money traders and investors.
It has exposed the abuse of our seniors in care homes for what it is. Austerity measures against the most helpless often by those proclaiming to be the best Christians. Society realized the actual value of educators and childcare workers. We found out that our food is produced by foreign workers who can’t be replaced by our citizens who will not endure the low pay and poor living conditions.
Systemic discrimination is affecting most of us and must be dealt with, not by more policing but by balancing social powers. I only hope that it can be done peacefully. I wish for heaven on Earth made by our choices, not by a miracle or by force.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

Stars above or below.

Stars above or below.
Most of the people in my social circle pride themselves on how many places in the world they visited. There is a competition to tell where you have been and where you are planning to go next. My daughter talks about holidays versus “airplane holidays.” I understand. Society shapes us from an early age and we don’t realize that we do what is expected of us, often to line the bank accounts of others with money that we borrow. Lately, we found out how much of our economy is fed by tourism.
I have another way to enjoy my time on Earth, which doesn’t cost money. I enjoy looking at the stars. Those shiny specks above me that are visible at night fascinate me. We call famous people in entertainment and sports stars, but they are far from it. Often I will look at the stars above Turtle Mountain and move my gaze to see more. There is always more.
Most of those shiny pinpoints of light are far in a hostile universe. An unprotected human can’t survive away from Earth. Seven are planets, many are stars like our sun and many more are galaxies made up of billions of stars but visible as one speck of light. Recently we the humans figured out that material which we call matter can’t accelerate faster than the speed of light. Building spaceships and rockets will not take us to the stars. Also, if we managed to go, time would work differently. By the time we would return, the world we knew would be forever changed.
I look above me and think, most of the visible universe is no longer the way I see it. It takes light so many years to travel to my eye and what I see has changed by the time I see it. If I could travel faster than light, much faster, I would not find the stars I am looking at in the same place. Are there other planets like earth somewhere out there? Possibly, but there is only one planet that can sustain the kind of life that we know exists. It is Earth and we believe (mostly) that it was created by a deity we named God.  
I couldn’t find any records of ancient humans who didn’t believe in God. The modern-day atheists talk about Karma referring to what we used to call God. We have a great wealth of prehistorical and historical records of very advanced civilizations on our planet. The Babylonians and Sumerians seem to be our ancestors and they recorded some beings called Anunakies. Those are depicted in ancient art as having wings, and our Christian angels have wings. Our most holy people are recorded ascending to the heavens above. Of course, we could say that they went down depending on which side of the earth was up. People built the tower of Babylon to get closer to heaven. It is always people trying to get higher up, to be closer to God.
Why do people who are supposed to be made in the “image” of God wish to go “up” and be like God? He, or some say she, is almighty and eternal. We are told that He creates things out of nothing. All of us would like to have those qualities without considering that we would all be God like and we are not smart enough to deal with that kind of power. In the meantime, we just work to get higher and higher like a moth flying into a flame.
The most sophisticated existing thing that we ever observed is the human brain. We know relatively very little about our brains, but we are trying to increase its natural power by using Artificial Intelligence. We know that we are consciousness and there is a power greater than what we understand that we call subconsciousness. It operates our bodies and possibly the universe. If it evolved or was created it is superior to the part of our brains, we know how to use.
Biblical stories often refer to dreams. In dreams, humans interacted with God. Primitive people were using natural substances to heighten their natural abilities and even travel out of the body. As we gained scientific knowledge, we neglected the study and even killed those who specialized in the arcane before they could pass on their knowledge. The modern “science-religion” won over the old science of Shamanism spiritualism and magic, now considered primitive. An age of consumerism triumphed. We lost important supernatural know-how in favor of owning lots of manufactured “things” and airplane trips. Was it a good trade-off?
I think that the God part that is in us permits us to create and to travel to and beyond the stars. What we need to do is shift our great potential power to another channel and work in the right direction. There is no need to own a lot of useless material things at the expense of poor people who make them. We don’t need to always be in another place than where we are either. It consumes our resources and destroys our only world.
Instead, we have the option of working towards improving the lives of all who are around us, providing what they need to simply live an enjoyable life. It will bring down the ever-increasing population numbers.
There is an option to study the human God power inside us and the mysterious consciousness which never dies. It can change as we see in dreams and hypnosis or under anesthetics, but it is spiritual, not material. The soul which is the real us can travel to the stars and we can be more conscious of it than we are if we try.
My soul, which I  call “me” is able to grow me a body, travel, and according to my religious faith, be with God. I don’t need to be dead for it to happen, but I need more effort to discover its mysteries.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

Social Rebirth.

Social Rebirth.
I feel privileged to be able to communicate with my chosen community in the Alberta Rockies once a week. I am blessed to have a limited space of half a page in a local newspaper and I hear comments from readers all the time. I don’t mind doing the work, it’s a pleasure, but I have a hard time choosing the most relevant topic.
My favorite subject has always been something philosophical or spiritual, but events hijack my focus. Politics and economics are so important yet often ignored. The state of our world, be it peace or war or environmental justice must be dealt with or there will be an end to God’s creation as we know it. It may happen in the lifetime of my precious grandchildren. COVID attacks people, the economy is in ruins and politicians are demanding air time in the name of Democracy.
My fingers holding the pen above the paper, or something like that, and I am ready to write about “towers and the holy spirit.” I have been preparing for that. NO! The hand of God waves back and forth, ordering me to change the subject. I am an obedient guy, so I switch my computer screen to news and see what the Lord may want.
The world is up in arms about a well-publicized killing of a US citizen in the hands of police. The video is horrific. It shows a very tall, muscular African American submitting to police in every way, killed slowly. No mistake here. This is police brutality. Soon there are more videos surfacing and other cases are brought into focus.
In the last few years, I watched a constant increase in civil unrest. People seem to have reached a point in which they say enough is enough. Personally, I interpret the impatience as discontent with the way things are, based largely on the obvious and ever-increasing inequalities in society. I could be wrong.
The day after President Trump’s inauguration, we witnessed the largest women’s protest ever. The Black Lives Matter has been steadily growing. A “Me Too” movement sprung up when some very influential people were named for abusing girls and there is economy based unrest. People all over the world, especially in the US, are protesting measures designed to prevent or influence voting rights and the appointment of judges is being questioned.
Here in our province, we saw a great reaction to the way the government treats education and health professionals. In Ontario, the Premier reversed course and now people are talking about the New Doug Ford and the Old Doug Ford as if they are two different people. It is obvious that people no longer believe that the regular methods of advancing social change are working for their needs.
George Floyd’s funeral was televised everywhere. Many thousands of people in other parts of the world, including Canada and America, were protesting his killing, often facing police violence themselves. Some used the opportunity to create additional mayhem by burning and looting. George’s niece, a pretty girl who looks sixteen gave an emotional speech about the gentle giant who cried for his mother as they choked his life out of him. She said in a husky teen girl voice full of tears, “no justice, no peace.” The huge cathedral was full of silent Americans. They all looked human to me and I was thinking, their lives matter, as any human life.
Later a golden casket was carried by a horse-drawn carriage through the streets of Houston lined with people. I found myself thinking, here is a man who died for $20.00. Will the billionaire now in the White House have as many people at his funeral? I remembered the words I heard on June 5th, 1970, from Apollo 13th. “Houston, we have a problem.”
“When the US catches a Cold, Canada sneezes.” It looks as if people in both countries are ready to explode. I remember the sixties and the seventies very clearly. We had what became known as the Middle Class. Then something changed. No one event riled people up, only slow change. Here we had the usual switching over between Liberals and Conservatives every few years and so did the US, but life changed. 
One day my kids were grown and starting families and I noticed a significant difference. In the seventies, working folks could afford an education, keeping up with inflation, and even saved towards retirement. Some of us even managed to work a four-day workweek and most had delightful holidays. Slowly but surely the working class lost ground while earth-shattering profits of Corporations rose. Some people tried to protest, so they equipped the police with riot gear and ordered to fight the poor. We are a land of law and order, said those who purchased lawmaker’s positions. The laws favored the powerful, not us, in the name of “jobs.” 
People were ready to rebel as soon as they would find a just cause and now they do. What could be more just than systemic discrimination, first towards minorities but also against an entire class of people? Some educated people are predicting another vast setback for the working class after the COVID crisis. Together we who work make a majority and now can all see it.
I feel sorry for the righteous people who have the job to police this mess. They are being hit from all sides. The left fights them, the far-right fight them, and they are often punished for following orders. In New York, a whole lot of officers resigned already.
The way we do policing will change now by public demand. What we need is to bring those brave men and women back into the fold. They are like us, the lost middle class. We should all be working together to fix a system that no longer serves us. I urge people in my community to step over towards any of our police officers, even if he/she gave you a ticket, and say: thank you for what you do.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

Fear, hope, and reaction.

Fear, hope, and reaction.
Fear is an emotion that is physically changing functions in the body and taking over the mind. I think it is a feeling that we may be harmed, perhaps seriously, but we can’t do much about it. The first time that I can remember being struck with fear happened on the farm in my pre-school days.
We lived on the farm, and it was summer. The window was open and louvered shutters were closed. I was in my bed and could see light reflecting on the wall from the kerosene lamp in the kitchen where my parents were. Outside I could hear the jackals (wild dogs like coyotes) howling at a distance. The most powerful animals in our environment were the hyenas. They are similar to a big dog and make a distinctive sound that is like a crazy man laughing hysterically. Scientists believe that the sound paralyzes nerves.
One of these beasts somehow got close to my window and howled/laughed, leaving me frozen with fear. Immediately I heard my dad opening the closet where he kept a shotgun. I heard it click and the front door squeaked and slammed shut. In seconds there was the flash and a shell exploded followed by some crunching of his feet on the gravel followed by another shot and the night was silent more than ever.  Young me had been introduced to one major human emotion called fear.
There were many more brushes with fear in my life. I learned that we can ignore fear, inflict it upon others, and use it to control humans and even animals. It is not always rational yet very powerful. Often fear is connected to our imagination. We imagine a scenario that may happen and compute the probability of its materializing. In other cases, we are just paralyzed with fear yet unable to explain it.
Fear is contagious and can easily infect enormous groups of people. I, for example, have a fear of communicable diseases. I never had one worse than the flu but I have seen movies of great plagues and I will go through great trouble to try to avoid being infected.  I remember in my childhood when so many kids were inflicted with Polio. I had a friend in school who lost the use of his legs. I know that invisible little critters can do a lot of harm to us, the almighty humans. My imagination makes fear mightier. I assume that a virus with the ability to mutate and quickly reproduce could destroy all humans.
My other great fear is that humans will destroy themselves. My parents, and all the people I knew as a child, were refugees from Europe. They survived since they were smart or lucky enough to escape the two greatest enemies that threatened humanity, both ideologies. My parents escaped both Fascism and Communism and I fear both.
I know that to avoid the two most dreadful ideologies we must keep a healthy balance. People must have a reasonable way to stay alive, be safe, and raise children while also taking care of the old. Without that, we will abandon our love of life and head towards extinction. The opposing emotion to fear is hope.
The survivors of the great war, who raised me, all had hope in common. They faced the armies of both Hitler and Stalin. Most have been in concentration camps or war prisoners’ facilities, yet they always had an escape plan or devised possible scenarios of coming out alive. They all knew instinctively that the way to beat fear is by fighting. It is the nature of humans. The other most important ingredient is sticking together. You can’t win alone but sure can in numbers.
Last week I watched with horror the President next door, acting seemingly without understanding the basics of human nature. His own people came in great numbers to make him aware of a huge social problem in his country. Discrimination against poor people, mostly visible minorities. As always, some hotheads acted criminally, but most were doing what they should, letting the government know that a change must happen.
The President first displayed fear and later came brandishing weapons, gassing and attacking. The government is a tool of the people designed to organize action that the people want. This time the President did the opposite of what is logical. He threatened to use the defense force to subdue the people. Does he not know that the army is made of people from his country?
The ruling class of the greatest country, which I admired all my life, has just deteriorated a great deal. I have friends in the US whom I care a lot about. There are Americans who live here and they are good people. Now I am helplessly watching as steps are being taken towards what could develop into a civil war. I have seen it before in other places and studied it in school. How can anyone risk taking all those wonderful people towards such a significant danger? I feel fear creeping into my bones.
I am witnessing a possible breakdown of all that I believed could not break down.  We humans reached a new point in which we demand action and improvement. We are fighting for the environment, for life on the planet, for an end to systemic discrimination, and for an economy that will sustain us instead of build empires.
With information breaking through, no longer dependent upon the official media, our dreams and hopes are now attainable. In comes, the “old guard” threatening to rule by fear and force. Consequently, we see millions of people demonstrating all over the world. The “old guard” are trying to use their laws and our armies to subdue the popular movements, but it will not happen.
Calling the armies at this point will only bring war and violent revolutions. I pray that peace and love will win the day as was predicted in the bible that Trump was holding upside down in front of the White House.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.