The year of hope.

 

 The year of hope.

Life is a collection of years, beginning from nothing and finishing with nothing. If you do the entire journey, it’s mostly short of a hundred years. Somewhere at the end of the first third, you are young and full of hope, while in the last third you think about the future of those who will follow you. Mortality is a hundred percent guaranteed.

I wanted to write in the last edition of the 2021 paper a message of hope. Since I couldn’t find a reason to hope, I asked some other people what can we hope for. My generation witnessed some of the biggest changes that ever happened in human history. Fertilizers beat hunger back, no major world wars, advancement in health science (like vaccines) are prolonging life, and people in my part of the world can enjoy life better than only royalty could a couple of hundred years ago. What we hoped for sixty years ago was accomplished, but fresh problems were created.

When I try to remember the things that changed my life, I seem to focus on disasters. The great war was finished, and the Fascists were defeated. In its place came a cold war and we, the children, were told to hide under the desks if a nuclear war started. J. F. Kennedy was murdered and his mission for a diverse, more equal world died with him. Canada celebrated its 100-year birthday when I arrived.

It was a dreamland where simple people like me could dream and hope. We worked hard, studied, and developed an economic system that worked for most people. Even the communists in the Soviet block were thriving. A few years later, Reagan, Mulroney, and Thatcher got power. Our means of making a decent living were privatized and exported. Here Peter Lougheed was replaced by Klein and good union jobs disappeared. My kids didn’t have the opportunities that I did.

As the people who used to be middle class were milling around trying to figure out what hit them, we developed new methods of cheating in politics. George Bush presided over the fall of the twin towers which plunged the Western nations into a war against Afghanistan, which was lost 20 years later.

As we watched, while our population sold their freedom on credit, China changed. From a source of cheap labour, it became the new superpower rivaling the USA for world domination. In 2020, a new virus infected the world. The American president tried in vain to dub it “The China flu” but he failed. His efforts towards convincing people that to stop global warming we need to use more oil and coal failed as well.

If someone would have told me that a virus may kill more people of one political persuasion than another, I would have laughed at the idea. How can a dumb virus know about human political aspirations? Yet observing what is happening in the United Kingdom opens the door for exactly that. In the United States, where a political administration belittled the pandemic and people refuse vaccinations, we may yet see an explosion of cases of the Omicron. It didn’t happen yet and we hope it will not, but time will tell. I don’t wish this kind of death on anyone.

Looking for hope, I am lost in messages of gloom. In winter, the most unusual weather flattened parts of the United States. British Colombia is trying to reopen destroyed roots to the rest of the country. We add this to the problems we have with a shortage of labour and the hamstrung supply chain. Talking with my 18-year-old grandson I said, well it could be worse, and he answered, how grandpa? It left me speechless. On TV, our political leader was saying he would not cancel Christmas since people would break the rules. I remember him saying that mentioning blowing up pipelines is inviting people to do so. If omicron spreads as predicted, he will have to do political gymnastics again.

In the search for a message of hope, I researched some scientists who deal with related subjects. Some said that our follies will not harm the world much. Ocean warming, killer pandemics, destroyed civilizations, all happened before. The world bounced back and new species became dominant, humans being one.

Another option is humans under stress achieving their true potential. A Christmas song predicts that the son of God will become “the great I am.” The Bible said that through him we may have all that the Father has. Ancient civilizations and primitive cultures always believed in magic and miracles. Could esoteric knowledge be our hope? If it is, then we must go an extra step yet. Nature, the universe, or God can’t hand us supernatural powers before we learn that we are all one.

Could it be that we are learning an important painful lesson now? You know, “it tastes awful, but it works” kind of lesson? I don’t wish to see an example of a biblical disaster, but nobody asked what I want. I am just an observer.

I write to make people think and entertain them. I am in the same boat as my readers and there are lots of them. I will tell you about my splinter of hope. I live in a small community where people are nice to each other, animals roam the streets and there are many examples of kindness and caring. I hope little communities like ours, if the “stuff” hits the fan, will be spared like Noah’s ark.

Also, we can all look at beautiful Christmas art, listen to Christmas music, and send a wish to God. Please use your superior mind and find workable solutions. Don’t let the Grinch, me or anyone, steal Christmas. May this holiday be a preparation for a much better holiday next year.  

Merry Christmas to you all, and many more to come. Use the telephone, computers, and other devices until we meet again.

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

Imagine, understand, and Gurdjieff.

 

Imagine, understand, and Gurdjieff.

An adult told me that Jesus probably walked on the path I was walking on back in Israel. We found a Roman coin, but it was after someone dug a hole in the ground. Jesus may have walked under the path. When my mom wanted to show the kids what a Christmas tree looked like, we couldn’t find a tree like the one in the pictures anywhere. They don’t grow in Israel. People in Israel didn’t celebrate Christmas and the word “Betula” didn’t necessarily say virgin, but a young woman. The total story sounded a bit far-fetched to me.

We emigrated to Canada and Christmas became alive. Downtown Calgary had lights with tinsels over the streets and I saw a real shopping mall decorated for the holiday. People were shopping as if a disaster was coming. Carts and bags full of stuff disappeared into vehicles and shoppers went back for more. The first midnight mass I saw in a church was something out of this world. People all dressed up filled the cathedral, live choir music, and tons of decorations. The birth of a saviour (Yeshua) was celebrated and we wish you a merry Christmas, Peace on Earth and other slogans appeared everywhere especially in the black-and-white TV commercials.

I knew the figure of the saviour from the tortured figures I saw on crosses in churches in Israel, but now we were celebrating the virgin birth and the pretty little baby under a German tree (Weihnachtsbaum) with lights. Father Christmas changed from a forest hunter to a hefty guy in a red suit, drinking cola and smoking a pipe. Later on, a priest tried to explain it all to me, but the explanation was insufficient. Beautiful music, shiny decorations, lots of stuff, and dressed-up people couldn’t explain the Joy to the World that came from the young Semitic Israeli Rabbi who taught simplicity, selfless giving, forgiveness, sharing, and taking care of the less fortunate. This guy told his uneducated followers to go on a journey without spare clothes or extra provisions.

How did the message get mixed up? I knew Christians did the worst atrocities in the Second World War, some of who even went to church on Sunday and sang beautiful hymns to the sound of a pipe organ. My generation knew Nazi hunters and families who lost all their relatives and were seeking justice.

I remember mom talking to a friend who said. If Jesus came back, the Christians would crucify him again. They would call him a socialist, progressive, or whatever is the lingo of the day and send him back (by crucifixion) upstairs while selling shavings of the cross as souvenirs.

In my early days, people talked about the most popular philosopher from Europe at the beginning of the century, Gurdjieff. An Armenian name. Like most serious philosophers, his work was pretty intricate, but I will simplify. Gurdjieff believed people exist in some kind of sleep or perhaps dream state. Something similar to the modern idea of the Matrix where we are existing in a supercomputer. Both ideas assume that reality is inside our brains. Gurdjieff talked about three brains controlling mind, body, and emotions, yet having a hard time connecting the three. He emphasized our natural short attention span as proof. We jump from one thought to another and act as if we are different persons each time. In his opinion, we all have some level of split personality.

When we read the Bible, we get a story about a young Jewish teacher who told people that being rich and powerful, possessing material things, and winning fights are not the most important things in life. Life in another dimension, he called the “Kingdom of the father” is eternal and valuable. Although there are details about his origins and birth, he seems not to talk or brag about it.

I try to think what the Messiah would teach if He was to return today. First, he would want to know why we are destroying the world we live in. To live life without physical work wouldn’t be an acceptable answer. The number of people employed to kill each other he would not welcome. That so many children don’t have reliable homes because of poverty and/or genuine commitment from the adults wouldn’t sit well with him. Seeing that a small percentage of humans own such a huge amount of humanity’s wealth would bother him. Realizing that banks and large institutions create money, lend it at interest, and don’t practice the Jewish law of Jubilee would bother him. Realizing that millions of people have no safe, sustaining piece of the world to live on wouldn’t be welcome. The wealth hoarded and squandered by some religious institutions, now more than ever with TV evangelicals would hurt him more than the nails in his hands did. We can go on.

Christmas or a celebration of the turning of the season existed for much longer than any known religion. It is a time to celebrate hope. A new beginning.

I decided to make a list of what I would ask Jesus for Christmas. Surprisingly, all can be obtained without miracles.

Solve the energy problem. Reduce wasting it., like walking instead of using a golf cart. (if we can) Develop clean energy and discourage the dirty kinds.

Do away with military built-up and divert the money and talents to peaceful means.

Block the efforts of those who compete to rule humanity by setting limits.

Give all humans a way to stay alive, but let them improve their condition by working with the most rewards for the most beneficial work.

Eliminate COVID by sharing the vaccine formula with the world.

Maintain good honest information for all. Begin by supporting little local media outlets available to all. We could start by giving subscriptions to local papers as gifts for Christmas.

A Christian Christmas is available to all if we only want it to be.

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

Positive attitude is enough?

 

Positive attitude is enough?

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere we go, but I am hardly going anywhere. 80% of humanity is unvaccinated and I (foolishly?) wish to remain alive. People accuse me of being a “slave to the government lies”. Somehow my mind is stuck on the idea that all the world’s governments are not trying to reduce the population by injecting us with slow-acting poison. Our governments invested heavily in developing means to combat an alien life-form that kills us. Now we are discovering a new old truth that we are not OK unless all of us are.

It’s tempting to make a lot of money on selling a vaccine, but we may die if it keeps mutating in those not vaccinated. A mirror is placed in front of our face and a voice is saying. We can't be OK unless all of us are OK. Strange message considering that we learned something else. Beat the competition. Each for himself. On the other hand, a chain is as strong as its weakest link.

If we consider my age and health, I should be more interested in sales on funeral services than what may destroy humankind in a few years, or perhaps the world’s atmosphere in a hundred years. However, I have an intellectual interest. That and a bunch of grandkids. In my days, there were still people around who were willing to die with honour or die for the country. The country I always thought of was the Earth and its people. Archeologists so far never discovered which race or nation Adam and Eve came from.

The latest threats popularized by our instant but not perfect media are pandemics, this one or the next, and economic collapse and damage to the thin layer of air we call atmosphere. We don’t need to worry about any of them. Long before they kill us, we will kill each other.

When there is trouble in the world, a strange thing happens. The people demand that the governments will fix the troubles if they caused them or not. We pay little attention to the news and what the governments are doing until there is trouble and we blame them if they don’t fix it fast. They are hammered from both ends. Above them, there is the high society that usually finances their being in power. They demand a return on investment. Below them, there are the billions of people who always want better conditions, easier life, the things that the high society has and they do not. What should the governments do? They try to get people’s attention away from the problems that they can’t solve. A proven way that always worked is to go to war. When we are busy killing each other, we rally behind the leaders. The high society finds ways to make money on wars.

Most things that humans used to associate with the powers of gods now can be done if you have the money to make it happen. We fly, see in the dark, raise the dead, level mountains, beat pandemics, you name it and we can do it. The hand of a very rich man can smite nations as well. People worship money and its power. Money can finance scientific research and buy technology that yet doesn’t exist. The world is being shaped according to what the few with most money desire.

I receive messages from people telling me that the way things are is not bad at all. Looking around, I see that the train we are on is speeding towards disaster unless we take action to stop or divert it. There is a bright future but we must aim for it.

The prophets of old used to say, repent and God will solve the situation, and at times, people did.

Global Warming is hurting us tremendously but it only just began. We can take hard steps starting now. Our existing technology is such that in a few moves we should be able to develop and use cleaner and soon clean energy. We must divert many resources to it starting immediately. Thorium reactors, small nuclear cores, new vehicles, and so on, can go on the production line. With some coordination and global will to unite efforts, the dream can come to fruition.

Changes to consumption habits are another solution. We know that our treatment of food and its use are major pollution producers. First, wealthy nations can develop and popularize less wasteful habits. We don’t have to discard half of the food we produce. It can be controlled simply by not trying to use food as a major money-making source but a needed commodity. It happens naturally when there are shortages. Next, we can easily get our proteins from less polluting, less wasteful foods and distribute them more evenly. Easy to do if we convert public opinions. We know how to do it; we have done it in the case of smoking. Yes, we will have demonstrations and crying over freedoms, but yes we can.

All we have to do is champion a new way. We built our entire history around groups of people, nations, and races competing with each other for resources and world domination. The competition served us well by advancing human civilization to where it is now. It is time to apply the breaks and start filling the gaps we left behind in every aspect of life.

We could apply the Canadian experience to the entire world and make it into a quilt of enormous proportions. All the beauty and usefulness of all the pieces can be preserved, but the primary goal would change. Instead of fighting, competing, and winning or conquering the world, we would aim to make it a better place for all. Using the united power of all, we can transform the planet into a Heaven for all. Just the money that we spend on wars and weapons is more than enough to do the job. The entire world could be like our little paradise in the mountains.

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