Experience living in a mountain story.

What is the best heaven?

Experience living in a mountain story.

As we get old, we have the tendency to complain about the way things are and talk about the good old times. I can’t avoid doing it. A whole nation can fall for a promise to make a country great again. The trick is to plan the future that we want and just do it, the best we can.

I have a friend who regularly mentions heaven and hell in conversations. It is most obvious that he is concerned a lot about life after death and where he will be. I know the person quite well and I am sure that he is not heading towards eternal damnation which we call hell. To me, hell is most likely where you may meet people like Hitler, Stalin, or Emperor Caligula. Mind you, I am not the judge. I asked him once what he perceived heaven to be, and he went into a dream-like state describing.

His heaven is most beautiful he said, probably like a beautiful garden with mountains and beaches, all like a perfect painting. In heaven, he said there were only beautiful people living in harmony and peace with each other. There are angels flying and your long-dead relatives and friends exist all in the prime of their lives. You don’t have to do anything unless you want to and you only wish for something and it is yours. The best part, he said, is the closeness to God. We can’t even imagine the joy that a human can derive from being with God. Being a Christian, my friend looks forward to meeting the Christ that he said he always loved.

I have another friend who is an Imam. That is a priest or a preacher in the Muslim faith. His paradise is not far off from the Christian or Jewish version, but he added another dimension. There are people there created simply for the pleasure of the person who spent his life being devoted and doing good things. This is where the Holy Qur’an describes virgin maidens devoted to the soul of the departed. They please and are fully devoted to it. Well, we raise animals for our uses so I guess that it’s possible. I respect all religious beliefs.

I investigated some eastern religions and was exposed to other theories. There are billions of people who believe that the souls of people are reincarnated and I can’t dispute it or any other religion. If people believe it, it may be true. 

I believe that a human soul is eternal but that it must live the best it can here and now creating heaven all around itself. You know the story, everything that belongs to the father belongs to me, and everything that belongs to me belongs to you through me. (John 16). I also believe that we are the stories we tell ourselves, so we must have the right story. I go through life living one day at the time thanking the Lord for my blessings and not fearing the future in this life or the next. It works for me.

In my quest for the best life possible, I think about stories that I would welcome and imagine what it would be like. Children do it all the time. Matt. 18:3. I will give you an example.

In my story, I would like to live in a town just like our towns here but where life would be like in “the good old days.” In my pretend place people live as they did in the fifties and there is no unemployment. The place is “self-contained” with all the amenities and most products provided by its own people. This would not render the use of modern technology useless, just enhance it. An experience unavailable in other places. A sign could greet visitors saying: Here the lowest price is NOT the law. The joy of life is.

There is a main street in the town full of little family-owned and operated businesses. There is a butcher shop, a shoemaker, a dressmaker, grocery and drug stores, movie theatre, books and newspaper store, bakery, deli, and coffee shops, the list is long. People are not all walled up in their homes but are walking, greeting each other and happily paying up a little extra to keep the town going. It could be a real place that looks and smells like Thomas Kinkade paintings which are so popular. We could even have a horse and buggy available for in-town transportation and as a tourist attraction. The buildings could all be decorated in fifties style and some folks may choose to wear our own fashion instead of modern wear. The local radio could play old tunes and families can enjoy a farmers' market in the park.

If the people of a town or towns chose to live in a modern-day Heritage park, we wouldn’t be constantly trying to make the place into a copy of the modern-day cities. We could have free wi-fi service and bank machines, but our choice would be to walk into a bank and say hello to the teller. In our tiny corner of the world, human contact would be valued more than time or money. Here we would have no crime and people could leave their homes and cars unlocked since no-one would even consider cheating their neighbours.

In a place where all possible services are provided by humans, where you don’t clean your own table at a restaurant and someone washes your windshield, all people would have employment and we wouldn’t even look at the fudged up statistics making up stories about low unemployment and government-created jobs.

This is my story of heaven and you don’t have to die to get there. If the story of the world is stressful and ugly, a community of people could rewrite it. If people like it, they are welcome to join in. If all they want is to try it out on a holiday, they could.

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

Peter MacKay, a new but old name in the news.

Peter MacKay, a new but old name in the news.

When I was a kid when news broke out the “paper boys” used to shout in the streets, “breaking news, read all about it.” People used to line up to buy papers. Now the news is dispensed much differently but not necessarily faster. When I heard that Peter McKay became the first candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party I called a friend in Calgary. He didn’t know. He had to look at Facebook on his phone. I miss the days when people were interested in who is leading the country. I miss the old newspapers and the Newspaper Boys as well.

When I was young, Conservative meant something else as well. They were the people who advocated most good things insisting that we must do it right. To them, the government was responsible to make sure that society moves forward to better Social progress, planning the move properly and executing it according to plan. Their plans usually were a bit slow but well thought of and considerate of all the people. At some point, at the end of the seventies, a new style of Conservatives appeared. We didn’t even realize that something has changed.

It was the Ronald Reagan era and the whole idea of elections changed. Potential leaders used to promise us a better life and the news reporters played a big role insuring that they did. They would ask the questions, report the answers and tell us who won at the end. In 1976 the US Supreme Court declared that unlimited amounts of money could be spent on elections and history took a turn. Corporate money could practically buy elections and the news media became enslaved to expansive marketing campaigns. A new ideology entered the political arena in a big way. As the old true journalists died, the new generation were not journalists in the old sense but paid marketing agents. Media chains could and did determine elections and democracy lost its historical mission.

The old political parties, now obligated to cater to corporate money, changed also and began to lie openly at elections. After all, it was government regulations that kept them in line and now the government was a choice of Big Money, not the electorate. Now Canada ended up with a Conservative party that is too far-right for most voters, facing a Liberal party that is moderately right but able to appeal to left-leaning citizens. Of course, the star power of the leaders also plays a role.

I am looking at the possible political scenario of the next elections wondering, what is best for the whole country. We know from recent experience that the West could be united for the Right but not have the political clout to form a government. The West needs to sell oil and invest the profits in new forms of energy and so far it's been blocked or unable to do so. It must do so without hurting the social programs and regulations dear to most Canadians. At the same time, it must compete with the greater economy to the South but that one may change soon. The world is concerned with Global Warming and no amount of expansive marketing of oil will change it. The Liberals are responding much better than the Conservatives, indicating that the far-right believers must moderate or lose, and they do.

Who is most equipped to be a real competitor to the still popular Justin Trudeau and has an undamaged reputation combined with some good salable ideas? We can’t forget that we need people who care about the world’s climate, a plan that will provide the most needed jobs, and star power. In my crystal ball, I see only two faces with some faint shadows behind them. They are Rona Ambrose and Peter MacKay.

Rona Ambrose is an accomplished western leader and I would love to see her face off with Chrystia Freeland in an election. If she led the Conservatives and Christia the Liberals, we would do well either way. For this time I would like to see Peter MacKay face Justin Trudeau. Both want to see a pipeline taking Alberta oil to market, but Peter has the better plan. He wants to refine our oil in the east and sell the finished product to some of the most environmentally conscientious markets. He also talks about using the oil for a transition period which will allow us to develop alternative solutions to the energy problem, I am convinced.

Presently my biggest political problem is with the deceiving culture that has grown in our political system, where potential leaders don’t hesitate to lie. They trust that big money will insure their reelection even if they get elected promising what is impossible to achieve. We call it the far right. Peter MacKay is the son of a true old-world Conservative who still had honour and pride. This is why he was leading the Progressive Conservatives while Harper championed the Alliance.

My kids’ generation and their kids say there is no point voting or getting involved in politics. “They are all liars,” I remember, fondly, other times. Politicians led with integrity and the journalists kept them in line. I want to see it come back. I will never give up as long as I am alive.

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

Addictions, of body and the mind.

 Addictions, of body and the mind.

Is there anyone free of addictions? Are all addictions negative? Can we be cured of addictions? Would humans be better off if we didn’t get addicted? There is no end to the questions and no one correct answer.

I was sitting in my favourite chair at home enjoying the life which I worked so hard to have. A life long of hardships, constant risk-taking, and sacrifice, many fights, lost and won; and I was looking at a pill container, thinking. If I just swallow those, I will fall to sleep and … nothing. Just a short while before that time I almost died and was revived by some brave paramedics and now I was wondering if saving my life could have been a mistake. I considered the possibility that I am a burden upon my loved ones and that I finished my contribution and became a liability. Those who pay my pension would agree.

On TV a reporter was talking about Fentanyl. A new miracle drug that is by far more addictive than Heroine and causes people to commit suicide. On my back, I had a prescribed Fentanyl patch. The pain clinic specialist told me to get off it calling it an “end-of-life medication”. I was planning to talk to my doctor about it but just about missed the mark. If I swallowed the pills in front of me, I would not have to make difficult choices.

The new opiates that included Fentanyl were marketed as a great new discovery and doctors fell for the well-planned campaign which enriched a few pharmaceutical companies and their shareholders at the expense of the rest of us. Some people lost their lives to gun violence, but many more did and still do to the legal drug crisis. Soon after, the illegal element joined in. Thanks to our good Canadian public health care system which includes mental health components, my and other’s lives have been saved after a long horrible fight. Getting off an addiction is a lot harder than getting on.

My deadly fight against Fentanyl is one example of the fight against addiction behaviour, but there are millions of us at a lethal war with addictions at all levels every day in every walk of life. It affects our families, employment, studies, and the costs are astronomical.

When we think about addictions, many of us zoom in on smoking. Fifty years ago North America identified cigarettes as a main contributor to some illnesses, lung cancer and cardiovascular included. That war has been won but still, people with limited imagination are sticking to it ignoring new and old threats that should be dealt with more seriously. I see us ignoring major new addictions while chasing seniors and hospital patients who smoke, out into cold streets to freeze, while having a cigarette. There is a perspective problem here.

I observed common addiction problems during the recent holiday, on the people around. It wasn’t hard to find. I saw the alcohol addicts telling about losing jobs, driving privileges, families and all that mattered to them. Others live with addictions to harsh substances like Heroin and crystal meth. They all show signs of depression. Somehow life is not offering them what they want or often they envy others who live better, in their opinion. 

Addiction is a behaviour that often harms people, but they can’t quit doing it. My friend who is heavily involved in Alcoholics Anonymous says that it is a disease and must be treated as such. I don’t doubt it. It is not criminal behaviour and the infected person rarely is able to quit using what harms them without the help of others. Those who become addicted ruin their lives and commonly the lives of those around them.

It is easy to go to any major city and find an area where addicts roam. They are recognizable by their erratic behaviour and the willingness to do anything for the next “fix”. Some times they are people whom we knew at better times. We look at them and pray that it will never happen to us, but we don’t know. When someone is in the clutches of dangerous well-known addiction help is very limited, since it is costly. Another related problem is the more acceptable addictions, which are not so easy to see, but ruin lives just the same.

Just a note: In the US in 2018 every 7.5 minutes someone died from an overdose.

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