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.