Hutterite, eh?

Hutterite, eh?
I went to the market in Blairmore. First, I wore a mask. I could see that no other people wear a mask, but the guy who sells birdhouses had one on a birdhouse that looks like an old man. A few teenage girls made eye contact with me and one smiled like she felt sorry for me. I took the mask off. We have no cases, right?
The “market” is such a community event here, and I like to take part. I always buy something, mostly things that I don’t need. When I came the full circle of venders I saw tacked away out of the shopper’s traffic the familiar Hutterite stand. They are not strangers, they have been coming here for years. I often bought from them and always enjoyed the experience. Their stock is good and they treat us with respect. Now they looked shunned. Stories are circulating about them being responsible for spreading the dreaded COVID since many colonies participated in a funeral for three teenaged girls who drowned in a boating incident.
I see flashbacks of all the young people partying without exercising social distancing. I see parks full of people and beaches with thousands acting as if we have nothing to worry about, and airlines reopening without social distancing, but the Hutterites are taking the brunt. Well, it will take some pressure away from the Chinese who are being blamed by the US president. Around me now there are some seniors wearing masks and I put mine back on. Social pressure has a way with people.
Hutterite people originated in the Tyrol, a mountainous area in Austria. My grandparents on my father’s side were from there. Occasionally, some people said that I look like a Hutterite. I put myself in their shoes. They are as Canadian as you can be, but now in this mess of people who aren’t careful about spreading the pandemic, they are being singled out for discrimination. I feel bad. They don’t watch TV and may not be aware of the news.
I just heard a story from Claresholm of a Hutterite being chased out of a drugstore trying to get his medication. In my drugstore, in Blairmore, hardly anyone is wearing a mask. Well, you can tell who is Hutterite by their clothes. They don’t wear $200 jeans with built-in holes in them. The bread they sell is homemade, the produce is not produced by abused foreigners and their woman sew the modest clothes that they wear.
At the beginning of Alberta, the government made a great effort to settle the West. Religious groups like the Mennonites, Hutterites, and Mormons were invited to come in. They were mostly simple, honest, hard-working people, and their community-oriented social system greatly increased their rate of success. The Anabaptist groups, of Germanic origins, were ideal settlers and didn’t make much effort to evangelize others. By economically acting like corporations, they increased their value and contributed. They were also self-sufficient.
In the nineteen fifties to the seventies, we witnessed resentment building against the Hutterites in Alberta. Land was no longer free or cheap and industrial farming was decimating the small family farms. Who is easier to blame but the pacifist communes who weathered the storm better than most? I found headlines in the Lethbridge and Calgary newspapers condemning Hutterites.
The prime reason the Anabaptists were chased out of Europe and later harassed in America, including Canada, is the fact that they will not join the Army or fight. They keep their old german language since they preach old historical sermons in the original tongue. This is true for many religions. Catholics used to say mass in Latin even when I was young. Right or wrong, they are not trying to be unpatriotic, only to be true Christians.
I visited some Colonies and was impressed by the simplicity, and sparsity displayed in the way of life. Here are people who refuse to compete to be better than others and wish to show care for all the community. They take care of each other from cradle to the grave, I can’t help thinking, we could be much better off if we believed as they do that all humans matter.
I know some people around who have Hutterite neighbours. They always talk about the Hutterite being helpful and efficient, hard-working, and simple. I did some research and often when there are floods, fires, and other natural disasters the Hutterites show up in force to help.
In my studies, I learned that the difference between Canada and the US is our ways of treating minorities. We even have a safety mechanism built into our political system to make sure that there is no tyranny of the minority groups by the majority. America is the melting pot and Canada is the mosaic. Our strength, which is so obvious on the international stage, is our ability to benefit from our differences. Every now and then it is threatened by some, but the Canadian advantage prevails. There are always more of us who remember why we are Canadians, and we are proud of it.
Our “reality” is built around an invented system called Capitalism, which propels us towards overproduction and environmental abuse. The basic Christian communities and more primitive cultures are leaning towards less affluence and more community-oriented systems. Both have advantages and disadvantages, and both treat a pandemic less seriously than what they should.
For years we have been championing “safety” and “saving lives” as the most important virtues. Now when it is costing money or making us change our ways, we are faltering and looking for scapegoats.
I think we should take a deep breath, evaluate our real motives and beliefs, and wash our hands for twenty seconds or more.

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Do I surrender my freedom by wearing a mask?

Do I surrender my freedom by wearing a mask?

I grew up in the middle east, but I never saw a veiled woman. It was in Calgary in the late nineties that in a major mall I came across a well-dressed lady wearing a veil. I looked at her in wonder and she met my gaze defiantly with beautifully made-up eyes. I couldn’t help but think she must be beautiful. Why is she hiding it?
After ten years in power, the Stephen Harper government declared before elections that they would block any woman wearing a veil from citizenship in Canada for “security reasons.” The Liberals chose the opposite way and won the elections. In Quebec, the fight was raging about religious symbols.
Now I find myself obligated to wear a mask in public. The governments of all stripes are making a strong effort to convince the population to wear masks because of the Corona Virus threat to people’s health and life. Here it became a sign of caring about each other. We are reminded often that you wear a mask to protect others, just in case that you may carry the virus. Some countries, like Viet Nam, where people wore masks religiously and followed doctors’ orders, are returning to normal. I silently think, Vietnam 2, USA 0.
The United States is our biggest trading partner. Wearing masks became a statement for them, not a safety issue. Over there the government politicized mask-wearing and they can’t dig graves fast enough to bury their dead. I remember when we acted that way. In the late Eighties, Albertans were divided about seatbelt legislation. I still remember people angrily declaring on TV that their personal freedoms were being trampled and they would never wear seatbelts.
Common sense is not the same for all people. Change is always resisted, and it is very hard to determine if a change is warranted or not. Often I witnessed people making changes simply to prove that they have the power to do so.
There have been a few cases of people murdering employees who told them to wear a mask. South of the border if you belong to one political party you deny that there is a deadly pandemic and if you belong to the other you wear a mask. Politicizing important social problems is very dangerous, and costly.
That brings me to my greatest worry. There is a problem with how we manage the world economy. Humans have the means to feed and house all the world’s population, to provide basic education and reasonable health care to all. We don’t have the ability to make everyone rich, or even hand all people full-time year-round jobs. However, if we consider how people lived throughout most of history, we are all rich in the developed modern nations.
There are various ways to handle the problem. We can do what we are doing and force people to work towards an ever-growing economy. We use more materials, energy and human effort towards a race to the top that only a few may win. It will come to an end.
The other option is to use what we already have and know, towards making this a better world for all people. If all the people reach literacy, including girls, the population levels will stabilize. Most people would like it, but seeing others much better off will tempt them to do better. (Lead us not into temptation. From the Lord’s prayer.)
I have a degree in history and I learned about revolutions, fights for independence, and the way ideas spread often leading to violence and the destruction of great civilizations. I can see clearly that we have politicized our opposing ideas of economics and so far managed an uncomfortable balance or a temporary truce. Both fundamental ideas we are following, Liberal and Conservative, are faulty. We need a new one.
I live in the woods slightly higher than Blairmore. This year there are a lot of mosquitoes. I do what I can to be protected from the blood-sucking insects and venture out. When the conditions favour them, I barely manage to do my work and they come in large numbers and chase me indoors. I think to myself, that if we don’t resolve our social problems, we will be overrun by the huge number of people who are not sharing in the Earth’s bounty.
There are seven and a half billion people now. We can describe only less than half a billion as well off. We saw that the West using combined forces could not win a war against the poor worn down country of Afghanistan, or any other poor country including Vietnam. Never mind winning against a reb+ellion of our own poor citizens within. Our option is to act now and reduce the significant gap between the haves and the have nots. We also must show the young people clearly that we will not destroy the world they must live in. In addition to it we must prove to the aging population that they/we will not be discarded to save a failing economic system. The time is now, and the place is here.
The Bible shows that when people disobey God, he sometimes destroys them to teach a lesson. I believe in God and I assume that I am witnessing warning signs. Call me superstitious if you want. I see floods, fires, wars, plagues, social unrest, and a comet. Instead of goodwill, I see digging in and attempts to force people not to complain about injustice. It scares me.
There is a new fashion developing selling masks. People are fighting about which historical figures should be honoured and which should not. Politicians are called to task for influencing who will make money on public projects. The country is using its vast resources to save its people. I see nothing wrong. Great sorrow for the victims, but joy for some long overdue changes. God is constantly creating and we his creatures are evolving.

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Discrimination, the hardest thing to beat.

Discrimination, the hardest thing to beat.
Who is not against discrimination? I can imagine all who read my words here saying, I hate discrimination. But…..and here comes a list of reasons why discriminating against others is justified. Often it is the people from the group suffering from discrimination who speak most loudly against their own kind. We tie discrimination to people’s status and those who achieved a better status put down the rest who didn’t. I think in the bible there is a saying about the worst slave master is one who used to be a slave. I heard some of the best jokes about colored people, gay people, and women from gays, blacks, and girls. I repeated the stories. I am as guilty as any.
When I was young, I was a Christian kid in Israel and most people were survivors of the holocaust. Naturally, there was discrimination against Christians and my adolescent mind rebelled against being a Christian. When the teachers spoke about the cruelty of Christians, I hated it.
I arrived in high school about two months after the school year began, since we just moved. I came to the classroom, and the teacher introduced me and said pick an empty seat. There were three to choose from. One was beside a boy my age who by his features was obviously a Palestinian. I thought quickly that he looked most like Christ would and sat beside him. Later I learned that he was a Christian Arab. The other kids didn’t think I made a good choice.
Christ was not a white person, and Mary and Joseph were brown as well. Now some people are talking about removing statues and paintings that are not historically correct. Those who cry that we can’t destroy or remove our history only wish to preserve historical images of white heroes but not show the historical truth. They don’t like to worship a brown Jesus.
The popular outcry is that by acknowledging discrimination against darker hue people we are creating reverse discrimination against whites. Sad for them that also includes the females of the white society. If we look closer, we see that discrimination includes much of the white population. Gays, people of lower IQ, people with mental illness, some religious affiliations, and most of the poor, all suffer from discrimination. It is in the schools, at work, in the courts and even in some families. We find ways to make others inferior to us and keep them that way.
A white friend said to me, I am not responsible for my people benefiting from discrimination 200 years ago. You are right, my friend. I am innocent of Christians discriminating against Jews in Europe also. So why were the Israeli kids not sitting next to a Christian Palestinian in school?
We are preconditioned to fight for higher status from kindergarten on. That is our motivation for working harder and achieving a better life. We cannot do it without someone else being in some way lower than ourselves. It is very obvious in kids of High School age. You can just observe them wearing expansive popular fashions. We make a show of those who run or swim faster or get higher grades. Everyone wants to be a high achiever and many make a living by teaching courses or writing books about getting ahead of other people. 
It is great to be singled out for winning but those who lose, often born disadvantaged, are sharing our world. There are always many who are kept down by systemic discrimination. However, the world is waking up to it. I see more white than black people demonstrating wanting justice for black people. The world of tomorrow is going to be different.
First, there is growing momentum for saving the Earth. Young people are educated enough to understand that we are settling them with a huge deficiency. It is not the national debt of each country owed to banks; it is a carbon and pollution debt. They are demanding air, water and food for themselves and their kids.
Second is our focal point, which must change from animal to human. In nature, the strongest and largest dominates and eats the others. We were blessed with a higher level of knowledge. By having language, humans are able to communicate complicated ideas and act as a society not based on the strongest individual. Some of our most valuable thinkers are humans who couldn’t survive without the help of others.
Third, we are aware of the existence of an internal force we have named a soul or consciousness. A large majority of humans in the past and present sensed the soul and placed it higher than the physical animal body. It is the observer of the material world who is capable of love, hate, and so on.
The world is facing a new enemy. It forced us to fear for our lives and destroy the system we call our economy. It proved that we can live without everyone having jobs and forced us to function with money playing a new role. We are keeping ourselves alive and ignoring who will make money or not. It is working. The goal is to keep humans alive, not to get to the top by killing our humanity in the process.
I can’t believe what I am seeing. People are getting to know their families. Pollution is down, wildlife is rebounding. Politicians (aside from some,) are concerned with the wellbeing of kids and the elderly. People are demonstrating care for others by wearing masks. People relearned how to bake bread and visit places in their own countries. It is a new world we are waking up to.
I never thought that in this lifetime I will see the day when in front of the white house and the richest neighborhood of the world the street will display “Black Lives Matter” signs. There are many sides to history but the fight is ours.

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Big and little bullies.

Big and little bullies.
The year was 1958, and the world was changing as it always does. My parents moved from the farm to a new town and I discovered bullies. I was a skinny tiny kid with a heart condition, (no running and jumping) with a name that singled me out as a minority. By the end of the first day of school, the two worst bullies in the class were already competing for the title of who will harass the new kid worst.
One day both were on me twisting and punching when a young soldier on leave from the army scattered them and lifted me up. We sat down under a tree and he gave me some advice. Those guys will not leave you alone, he said. But my mother said not to pay attention and tell the teacher, I sputtered. Does it work? My big new friend asked, and I shook my head from side to side. It doesn’t he said. They pick on you because it’s easy.
Bullies, my friend went on, will pick on you and other little kids until they are made to pay a price. But, I have a heart condition, I mumbled, and he reached over pinching the skin on my belly hurting me and said with a cold, stern voice, they must pay a price. I am small, I answered, how can I hurt them back? He answered. God will help you will find a way. There are many.
The young man stood up, and I noticed the confidence and power in him. Thank you, I started saying, and he cut me off. Don’t thank me, he said, only make a promise. When you get rid of the bullies, you will help others do the same, as I am doing here. We, the little guys, must help each other, and he was gone. My life was changed forever.
The year now is 2020. I lived my life trying not to abuse or bully others, and I always stood up to bullies and made them pay a price. To change someone’s behavior, you must first communicate in a language that they can understand. Bullies only understand hurting. After that, you can be a Christian and forgive, help, and forget. It works with humans and even with animals.
I watched a Canadian TV show interview John Bolton, the now fired national security advisor to Donald Trump. The interviewer asked what should we do about China’s retaliation for Canada arresting Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at the request of the U.S.
Bolton replied in a way that reminded me of the Godfather who said, make them an offer that they can’t refuse. He bragged about what the US is doing for Canada, including “protecting us.” The US made us renegotiate NAFTA to give them a better deal at the expense of our people. They slapped tariffs on our products and tried to force us to spend more money on USA made weapons. What is he saying?
Looking at his eyes squint above his famous mustache, I realized. The bully is hinting that if we don’t pay for protection, (against whom?) something will happen to us. Perhaps Trump and Putin may divide Canada between themselves or even just take away the “northwest passage” which in the future could make us a lot of money. Bolton did say to think about our next step hard and long. He doesn’t remember that Canada went to war ahead of the US after Pearl Harbor.
I look at the world today and count my blessings that I am not the Prime Minister. All three major world bullies are sitting on us, each wanting us to take their side or they will hurt us. There is no-one bigger who can step in. I go back to the advice I received as a child. “God will help you find a way.”
The major powers are all being hit hard by a pandemic and their haste to save their economies set them back significantly. All have serious internal rifts with their own compromised populations.
The soldier who saved me from the bullies in fifty-eight said that the little guys must help each other and stick together. I don’t have a crystal ball, but the picture is becoming clear. It is one possibility out of many, but it can happen.
The US, European Union, China, and India who are made of many nations are all erecting borders within. The Soviet Union and the British Empire are gone. We should fear great wars flaming up, but something else is happening.
People all over the world are restlessly demonstrating against governments. I read their signs and a new reality is emerging in my mind. They are fighting now for equality amongst humans, for a cleaner environment, for freedom from oppression imposed by the old ruling elites. There is even sympathy in Canada for the native population demanding decision power over the lands we permitted them to keep.
Surely there are many who wish to keep the advantages they gained by force, but the less powerful are waking up and gaining momentum. Scores of white people are supporting “Black Lives Matter” and churchgoers are speaking for gay rights. Old religious institutions are struggling with women clergy filtering in and young people are fighting for the welfare of handicapped old people to live with dignity and receive care.
As the symbols of old-world oppression are being toppled, there is a feeling of “resurrection” in the air. People armed with new technologies, disillusioned with the consumerism fake rewards and the short-lived pleasure of vacations, are demanding a stop to the culture of bullying. There is a yearning for a solid wholesome simple life instead of a “chance” of being like the Trump family.
“But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it.”   Micah 4:4

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