Is “Me” going to survive Death?

 

 Is “Me” going to survive Death?

Mom, I said, where was ”I“ before I was born? You were in mom’s tummy she said. But before that? She said something about angels but I didn’t get it. Later in life, I came back to that question many times as I was learning new things but never got an actual answer. It was obvious why. No one ever told me who “I” was. It wasn’t my body, and it wasn’t my soul. I am the one who has the body and soul, but I don’t know who is “I am”.

Now I am considered “old” and I am asking where will I be after this life is over. When the doctor said, “You have a tumor, and it’s cancerous,” the question became more urgent. There is only limited time for me to find out before I’ll go there and folks rarely come back to tell us. Some people think they are experts on the subject, but they leave me full of questions. Heaven, they call the place of the dead, or hell if you were bad enough, but they don’t say who is “me” that will go there. Will I look like my body? I hope not. I never felt that my body was that great at all.

The church that I was born into has many books and teachings, but even if you read them all, you can’t find the answer to my question. Who is me? I have a body that is designed carefully for this life. It starts as an embryo, grows, learns, and later works. It is always waiting for something in the future.

When I first asked my mom the question, I was only less than three feet tall. I was always waiting to be older, stronger, and smarter, but when I did, I was waiting to be older and smarter yet. Never reached the point at which I can say I know. I waited to be an adult, to graduate, get a promotion, have kids, raise them, and every year go for vacations.

Life is a gift of time in a human body in which we play a game. The game has billions of potential moves since we play it with all the billions of people who are also playing and with the entire world. It doesn’t stop with the world since there is a universe that houses the world and it has no end. The part that makes it more interesting is the human invention called time. We are designed to function for up to about a hundred years and we know it. Do what you wish, if you can, but there will be an end. What comes after the end is a mystery that we can’t solve, only guess at.

I am not good at guessing. However, if I knew what comes after death, would I be the same? I refuse to believe that after this life I will sleep forever and all that I learned will be wasted.

As I struggle with those philosophical questions, another dimension arrives and gains popularity. It comes mostly with the young people playing with artificial intelligence gadgets. What if all that I learned is wrong and reality is not what we think it is? Young people are playing with very advanced virtual reality that keeps getting more sophisticated and convincing every day. When we will develop quantum computers, the border between what’s real and what is imagined will become blurrier. All we need is the computing power.

Serious scientists, including physicists, are awakening to new possibilities investigating old ideas with new technology. We built our modern science upon our ability to test and measure theories. There are many theories out there. Multiple universes, Matrix, and others. People have been questioning the validity of what we call reality for thousands of years. Major worldwide religions came up with ideas that seemed to contradict our Western beliefs until recently. Now, with renewed interest in spirituality, we see some similarities.

We are discovering astonishing facts when we use the latest technologies. The material world that we didn’t question for most of written history seems to be less solid than we thought. If we magnify what we assume are the building blocks of reality, we come up with nothing. The smallest particles of the atoms are mostly energy, with hardly any material substance at all. What we consider solid is only so at a certain frequency. 

Other scientists are deep into the study of dreams. In the biblical days, dreams were very important but later became fairy tales with no significant value. Now they are making a comeback. There is money invested into the study of dreams and their psychological values. There are books published by serious universities and professors.

Another so-called New Age idea that’s becoming a more serious study is the effect of human thoughts, not only on our own bodies but on events in reality. For a long time, people dismissed the idea as just prayers that do not affect reality, but now studies are designed to provide scientific proof that our thoughts can influence events. Researchers have recently been using water for demonstration purposes. The results are indisputable. Human thoughts and beliefs change material substance.

I don’t know where I was pre-birth or will be after this life. I am sure that, that which I call “me” will still be conscious.

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

Rural life and Communities.

 

 Rural life and Communities.

I am beginning to feel like a writer from the past. Often my articles start with a line similar to the old children’s stories that used to open with, “a long time ago in a faraway land”. I don’t have a time machine. The truth is that my stories were in my lifetime and here in Alberta. It feels as if it was in history in some other place. We like nostalgia and remember mostly the good things, but Alberta was a better place in many ways. People didn’t go on cruises, didn’t have homes full of unneeded, often unused stuff, and having a telephone and a black-and-white TV was the limit of technology we used. We had real walking talking friends instead of Facebook friends and told them what we liked instead of clicking “likes” and counting them.

Friends often met someplace and went together. Some groups met over kids’ activities, community sports, and, in those days, some church activities. Later, we went for coffee or even a meal together. Even those who made minimum wages could afford to go out. Since I didn’t belong to a social group with money to spare, we looked for places that cost little. One option in those years was to go to a hospital cafeteria.

The hospital kitchen served nutritious meals to patients, staff, and outsiders who could sit together at long tables and meet new people. It wasn’t fancy, but outsiders were welcome and had a nutritious, safe meal. We sat at the long tables and met nurses, doctors, and perhaps some homeless people.

Schools had cafeterias, daycares did, and some places provided meals for the needy, free of charge. The point I’d like to make is that we didn’t have situations where hundreds of people were catching diseases from one central kitchen. Now we do.

Last week a whole chain of daycares spread E’coli to their little trusting customers. Some kids are probably still hospitalized as you are reading this. It couldn’t have happened under the old system. They all share a central kitchen.

I look with tears in my eyes at the parents whose kids are fighting for their lives. Many had to stay away from work, causing problems all over the place and they don’t know where to leave their kids next week. They talk about class action lawsuits, but how will that help? We can’t buy kids for money or purchase health.

The Alberta that I remember, was built on communities that copied our rural life. A village had a doctor, a town had a clinic with some most needed equipment, and for big problems, we went to the nearest city. A village had a daycare where they cooked food for their kids. They cared. The same was true for a community in the city.

Now economics is the driving force. It is cheaper to cook on an industrial level, so we did away with kitchens in each hospital or school. Efficiency was prioritized over human interaction to benefit investors, but this caused a gap between producers and consumers. They don’t live happy lives but exist to produce and consume. They are always pursuing happiness, but happiness in the form of lots of money never comes close to most people. We buy lottery tickets even if only one in millions ever wins and mostly don’t keep it long.

I am not trying to tell you that Canada was perfect in those days. It wasn’t. The people who felt most oppressed were in Quebec and they rebelled in the quiet revolution. African Canadians and First Nations began to demand equality and acknowledgment of their legal rights. People who were different asked for better treatment. There was a big argument in the country about abortion and birth control rights for women. Draft dodgers from the US came by the thousands and we had demonstrations against the US policies about Vietnam. Canada was discovering its soul.

None of the disturbances were as noticeable as the women and their sympathizers fighting for equality, especially on pay. It was legal and common to pay women half or three-quarters of what we pay men for the same work.

Canada chose a new flag and a new Prime Minister wanted to bring the Constitution home and be free from British rule. Slowly the people won some rights but also lost the spirit of community living and small business being important for the new economy.

Now we can’t find anything made in Canada and we must sell our resources for a price determined by forces outside of our country. We can’t compete in the market if our local daycare cooks their own meals. We hardly have any communities left that can be as self-sufficient as they used to be. People in our cities don’t know their neighbors.

I owe my life to technical advancement and modern development. Yet I am nostalgic about the communities we had and miss knowing who cooked the meals in the hospital, daycare, and school.

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

Lucky or Blessed?

 

Lucky or Blessed?

These days when I have time away from my cancer concerns, we visit friends who also have cancer issues and we talk. Now we talk about fires. A friend’s daughter visiting from Vancouver told us happily that the problem with fires is over. It’s not Global Warming she said. They caught the people who were starting the fires. It was interesting to hear that the authorities caught the people who were starting the fires. They must have been very special to start thousands of fires from Kelowna to the North-West Territories. On their time off, they started fires in Greece, Portugal, Hawaii, the eastern provinces, the Western States, and much more. Global Warming is being blamed also for floods in many places, but perhaps “they” will catch who is doing it soon.

I hope we will catch those guys soon since we have other problems to deal with. The African nations are rebelling against their governments. As people are losing their meager ways to survive through hard work and saving what they can, they do the only other thing they can. Trying to migrate into the more affluent parts of the world is not working, but they still have guns. Give them more time and they will purchase more modern weapons and learn how to use them. We may catch a few careless campers setting fires, but Africa has hundreds of millions of people. Those people know how to build armies, buy weapons, and attack others who accumulate wealth from their resources. Fires, floods, looming wars, and it’s more scary than cancer.

When we see the migrants looking to get in, we wish them to go back to their countries. After all, Africa and other continents are rich in many ways. Why do they not develop their own countries and take care of their people? Because their ex-colonial masters take it all telling them to be happy they have some jobs. Sounds familiar.

I remember some sixty years ago or more when those countries were fighting for independence. The colonial masters figured it would be cheaper to join the freedom fighters and rule remotely. One after the other, the leaders of independence movements mysteriously found help in the old colonial powers. France trained a presidential guard to keep a powerful family in Gabon in power for years in exchange for resource exploitation contracts. It only worked until now when Global Warming is reducing people’s ability to produce and purchase food. Now Gabon is the latest African country to rebel against their government and lock up the president.

We have a worldwide problem. The Particulates that are produced by burning things act as a blanket over the planet, keeping heat in. It’s a blanket that we can’t take off. Droughts and dryness caused by heat lead to more burning, increasing the problem. When the hot air meets cooler temperatures, it releases the collected moisture, leading to floods in places we never imagined. Governments are responding to public pressure and helping the devastated areas. None of us knows if we will not be next.

The money that we spend on fighting fires and floods is not available for regular government expenses or to help those affected by the droughts and floods, which brings food insecurity and makes people consider war as a possible solution. I end up thinking that perhaps dying from cancer will be easier than living in the world we made so hostile.

Looking through my window, I see paradise and realize that for some reason my community of the Crowsnest Pass is doing very well compared to the world I see on the various news. I go for a stroll downtown and notice how the community picked up in the last little while.

Some people believe in luck. Am I and so many others lucky to have cancer, heart problems, and other issues? Of course not. But we are here and even with governments that have been causing problems to our healthcare system over and over, we still have a great system. We have a problem with Global Warming but here the climate is moderate and even the winters are fun. Yet, how often can a person be lucky? I choose to skip the popular idea that we are lucky and change the word to “blessed.” You can be lucky only sometimes. The casino always wins, but you can be blessed all the time. It has something to do with the Universal Mind that governs the universe.

Ours is a place where there are many faiths living in harmony with each other. I am starting to consider that perhaps the Universal Mind, or God as I call it, is using us to demonstrate a point. Here there are older folks who worked underground and lived modestly. Their children built a community that is resourceful and welcoming. Others noticed it, and the natural beauty, and moved in. It is not the playground of the rich, but life here is more attractive than in the cities and their bedroom communities.

Each day I meet kind and helpful residents mixed with a steady stream of visitors who are reading the real estate boards and considering life here.

I place cancer aside and enjoy the place I am in, remembering to be grateful for the blessings. Somehow, the universe knows. I also pray for a tomorrow.

Warning from the Universe.

 

Warning from the Universe.

It was 1967. We rented a one-bedroom apartment by the Holy Cross Hospital for the four of us. Newcomers can’t afford much. Next, I went for a walk to look for a place to buy groceries. I passed by a Safeway but couldn’t figure out what they do. Looked inside and concluded that it must be a wholesaler’s place. How could there be a space this size for people to grocery shop? Two blocks away there was a small corner grocery store and to my surprise, the owner could speak Hebrew. It saved me. We had food and shelter if we could get a job that would pay before our money ran out.

There were private little food stores every few blocks, many laundromats, bakeries, and even little shops selling and fixing TVs. Unemployment wasn’t a problem. Little private businesses filled the city, paid taxes, and provided employment even for the most unskilled folks.

Two years later, we had a used car. It was a Chevy ll ($900) 1965, and we took care of it better than people today look after $50,000 vehicles. I was now a regular at the local gas station with a two-bay garage where the local guys hung out most days. There were gas stations and garages almost at every corner. Little mom-and-pop restaurants filled the rest of the space.

I loved how capitalism worked. Half of the people were self-employed and street competition kept prices low, leaving little room for small business owners to boast about their work. The others were wage workers. They mostly made lower income than those in private business but had fewer things to be concerned about. Someone else took care of pensions, health care, keeping up with inflation, and all the rest. Unions were just as concerned about the well-being of the business as the owners. We hadn’t yet grown to believe that workers were a resource to be exploited and considered employees to be our most valuable resource. When I quit one job, the big boss came out with me to convince me to stay, even though I was the vice president of the union. We all worked together.

The years went by. Slowly the lives of the workers became just a bit harder every year, as the wealth of those who “made it” ballooned out of proportion. In Europe, the cradle of our colonial civilization, the emphasis was to look after their national population, while in America, the winner took it all. No one cared about the people who were not born in the affluent part of the world. We let them in slowly, just to keep the wages of unskilled workers low.

The period between 1967 and the early two thousand is significant in one way. Humanity did advance in some respects but was overproducing to satisfy the industrial sector. Marketing ensured that we would borrow, buy, and exploit the planet without consideration of what was coming. Now the results are in. Garbage is killing nature, air, water, and all. Some of us are trying to fix the problem while others are making it worse. Both sides are not doing anything unless it gives them political points.

I believe in a universal mind that silently oversees what humans do and uses natural forces to make corrections while letting us make our own decisions. We don’t expect a rock called Earth flying in space to have a mind and take action, but it does. When we hurt it, it fights back, using us to punish ourselves.

Our scientists are all interested in what we can see and not at all in anything else. The smartest people from the past had other ideas. They believed in a universal mind that doesn’t register an image based on light and human vision. We are just now starting to investigate the possibility that invisible “things” can exist and be intelligent or able to act. Some of us even noticed that most of the universe is not an empty vacuum as we imagined, but something that has gravity which we can measure. They call it dark matter, amongst other names. It co-exists with us, but it is older and more knowledgeable than us. It has the power to mark us as a failed experiment.

We possibly took the wrong road soon after 1967 and the force is watching what we will do. Science is great, but shouldn’t replace God.

If I were that force, which I am not, I would set up to be ready for the human experiment failing but ready to assist if they change. The planet can slowly become more hostile yet able to recover from the right action from humans.

Most people never read the Book of Jonah in the Old Testament. He reluctantly warned the city of Nineveh that God would destroy them, but they repented and were saved. Could the story of Jonah in the Old Testament have a message for our generation if we are willing to learn?

If you think it is, develop your capacity for love, compassion, empathy, and higher consciousness. Give up the chase for money, power, fame, and self-importance. Take care of our world.

The art of leadership.

 

The art of leadership.

A long time ago, I applied for a promotion and received my first supervisory appointment. I was in charge of a group of people and had a mission to accomplish. The people all had their own ideas and were concerned about how to achieve their personal goals ahead of those of the employer. Mothers needed to raise their kids, students had to pass exams and so it went. I was representing the employer while the workers all needed the pay, but considered their personal needs ahead of the employer’s goals. I did not even have the most minimal training in supervising people. All I had was the example of my supervisors, who mostly failed. Supervisors in those days existed by threatening to fire people and often abuse workers if they could. My boss told me that supervisors were not in to win popularity contests. I assumed that success would mean workers achieving their needs by making the employer achieve the company’s goals.

I and other young supervisors were the first generations born after the war. Our elders were educated with army discipline while we learned new ideas about psychology, self-improvement, motivation, team building, and more. The employer sent us for a week of training in the Japanese methods of leadership. At the time, Japan was devastated by the war they lost, but came out of the ashes with glorious results. They built a new system based on loyalty. They built up industry, mostly car manufacturing, that successfully competed with the pride of the US automotive industry.

There was no conflict between labor and investors. The supervisor’s job was to provide the workers with what they needed and aim them toward the company being number one. The workers worked hard, were proud of their achievements, and involved their families in the company's future. American companies stumbled over each other to adopt the Japanese business model and workers enjoyed a good middle-class life. Employers also didn’t need to waste effort on micromanaging. The products gained a reputation for being reliable and cheap.

As often happens, the unions quit just trying to keep up with inflation, demanding to get ahead with less effort. Employers found ways around them and hired temporary part-time people who had no benefits and often not even a regular schedule of work. The consumers paid the price. Soon employers started searching for ways to get the work done with less or even no front-line staff. That is why we have automated cashiers, automated banking machines and so much more.

The attitude of prioritizing personal gain over loyalty to employers replaced the old way of thinking. This came with additional costs, resulting in reduced quality of products and services. Countries with loyalty won while industrial nations used intimidation as a business tool. The world changed.

If we aim at producing the most for the lowest cost, forced labor will be our choice. Slaves or machines can do that. The old colonial system worked well and made some people very rich. However, over time, it failed. The same is true for using natural resources irresponsibly. The natural disasters of 2023 are proof of it.

We've been producing too much for too long to benefit a few of us, but at the cost of workers and the environment, mainly the energy.

Another worthy goal could be to use what we have wisely and supply what we need, aiming at durable products while paying fairly for them. This could provide a good living for all and the workers can be our best consumers if they are paid well. It is a win-win situation, with long-lasting benefits for the world and the people. It can only work if the political will supports it.

We love games and admire winning. Unfortunately, we forget that for every winner, there must be a loser. For me to be recognized or rich, some others will have to be ignored and poor. Their resentment will grow, the world will suffer, and peace will not be possible. Our society may end up being another great civilization that disappeared from the pages of history if it has not already done so.

In my youth, I looked at life as a great possibility, with hope being the primary motivator. Now I look back and think, how can we salvage the most out of the mess we made? The red sun reminds me that life on Earth is a journey with a beginning and an end. My experience dictates that the only way is going together, covering each other’s backs.

My management textbooks aside, I focus on one line, not from a manager’s course or book. “Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil.” Another line pops up in my biological computer I call the brain. Forgive us as we forgive others. I think I have what we need to save ourselves if we choose to do so. I will let this be the ending of the article about human leadership.

Two weeks’ holidays.

 

Two weeks’ holidays.

Two weeks in human life is not long, but not insignificant either. We are designed to live about sixty to eighty years, but many live longer or shorter. There are accidents, sickness, wars, acts of nature, malnutrition, and much more. Just listing the causes of death can easily fill a page. There are also people with a genetic disposition to live longer than most. There are people who can afford to live lives of leisure protected from most dangers.

Insurance companies are excellent at using statistics to predict how long people will live in a geographical area. I am not sure about the accuracy of this, but I heard that life expectancy is declining and infant mortality is increasing in the United States. It’s not what I would expect.

When I started my work life as a teenager, two weeks was the normal holiday. We worked eleven and a half months a year and holidayed for two weeks. Few people in those days had the means to go somewhere on vacation, but family visits were a common pass time. I remember the excitement of waiting for the holidays. Often I had projects lined up to be done when I was off work. Even though we didn't always have summer holidays, we enjoyed our time off. No one in my circles traveled by plane to other places because the only way to finance such was by giving up on other important things in life. I didn’t know any folks that were born into money. If I met them, they looked down with curled lips, often saying that they hate immigrants.

Later came a new period of holidays. We started camping. Holiday trailers and boats showed up on the highways and an industry developed around catering to vacationers. Now a holiday is longer for many folks. When I retired, I had seven weeks of vacation a year plus accumulated time from working extra. I chose to spend as much time as I could in the Crowsnest Pass, but my children prefer to endure the airports and the rush. They still mostly do a two-week vacation and the rest “as needed.” It is a prestige show item and people spend a lot of time talking about the exotic places they visited.

Now I am old, fighting cancer, and no longer care about holidays. My whole life is a holiday, spent in my choice of place, but I am not who I used to be when holidays meant so much to me. As a child, I lived in a tourist destination but didn’t know it. Holidays were a time away from school when I was alone on the farm. Later in life, when everyone was traveling, I was happy to be in a place that satisfied all my needs, stayed there, and thanked the Lord.

My work now is writing a column in the local paper. I receive positive comments which motivate me to write more. When I get two weeks of holidays I don’t rejoice, nor feel neglected. The world moves on. However, this year I wish it didn’t move as fast. First, there was a strike in Hollywood, the center of world entertainment, consequently well publicized. Shortly after a costly strike by the shoreman paralyzed sections of the economy. We found out that the Hollywood people were not being paid living wages. Both striking groups had a new demand. They want guarantees not to be replaced by Artificial intelligence. Another disaster showed its ugly face.

The economy went into inflation. We discovered Canada is suffering from a severe shortage of housing, while we are short workers. Money was set aside for housing but may have enriched people who do not provide the type of housing that is needed most. Many seniors and people on fixed incomes are using food banks.

As if that is not enough, global warming is here ahead of predictions. Canada is on fire. Droughts are threatening the food supply and there is no money to pay for the extensive fire and flood damage. Now even the tropical island of Hawaii is burning. I am trying to get away from all the bad news, but there is no break.

Every day there are reports of people trying desperately to migrate to better places and perishing in the attempts.

In desperation, I close my eyes and pray. God, please help us. We lost our way. In my mind, a voice says, you humans abandoned faith in me. Even those who say they believe in me honestly don’t. They either believe that their science will save them or argue about the stories I used for teaching what humans must do to save themselves.

I go back in my mind to what I know about holy books or scriptures. Eastern religions talk about reincarnation and eventually uniting with the Universal Mind. Judaism is built upon being the chosen people. Islam doesn’t shy away from using force to convert. Christianity appeals to me the most, but we divided it into over a thousand philosophies. Somewhere in all those volumes full of words, there is a truth hiding that all the believers claim to know.

What we need, now more than ever, is to change a few things.

Co-operation instead of predatory competition.

Less effort to please our desires and more to be moral creatures.

Understand each other as before the tower of Babel.

Listen to the collective unconsciousness more than to the private consciousness.

I will leave you with that and face the coming two weeks. May God watch over us all.

Sick world, or not?

 

 Sick world, or not?

The Alberta sun is blood red and going down. Here in the Crowsnest Pass, we happen to live where there are no wildfires this year, but most of our people are not that lucky. The map on the weather network shows around a hundred fires and a helicopter pilot just got killed around Peace River. Reports from all over the world say that this is the hottest year since we have been recording. It’s the worst in BC.

In 1975, I learned at university that fires, floods, and changing climate, will happen. We believed it would not happen in our lifetime and ignored the predictions. We like to hear only good news. Many still do, even as they drown in floods or lose everything to fires. In my opinion, humble as it is, those who profit from carbon released into the air should pay for the damages. Why should we pay with taxes for damage caused by private enterprise? Their own scientists warned them.

My wife and I were driving back home from Pincher Creek and highway paving forced us to wait for hours. Locals like us took side roads through the towns and came back to the highway ahead of the traffic, causing us to wait in the heat much longer. Soon some motorcycles passed the line on the right and inserted themselves into the waiting line ahead of us. A friend told me the next day how he was smart and made it to an appointment on time, while another, a mother coming back from work was late to pick up her kids. Someone is ahead since others are set back.

A politician rose to fame by criticizing another politician much like himself. They both had only one thing in mind: to be powerful and force poor workers to work harder for less. I attended a meeting in which the politician plainly said that the workers were stupid and didn’t deserve more. The politician made millions, but the workers couldn't afford rent and good food for their children. I wanted to shout. It’s not fair, but we all know.

Those are examples of what happens to a society that lost its morals. On the world stage, it translates to wars and other disasters causing horrible suffering and uncountable loss of lives. There will be a price to pay for Russia destroying Ukrainian grain, for example. There is only one human world and all humans are a part of it.

I figured out years ago that humans like me appear as individual entities but are all parts of the same body. Even the old bible says so. We gain an advantage by taking from other people. If we could regulate ourselves and not overdo it, the world would be a different place, but we don’t. That is why the Lord’s prayer mentions, “Lead us not into temptation.”

We all know the feeling. I can buy something shiny new or do a good deed with the money. Just like a raven, I grab the shiny and fly away, letting others worry about the needs of those who are not as well-off, saying that I worked for what I have and that they can do the same. A few can, but there are always many who can’t.

The planet we inhabit was designed to sustain all of us if we do the following. We must use the wisdom of the planet that we used for millions of years before developing into what we are now. It is called “Mother Earth” by primitive people for a reason. It gives us life and takes care of us to maturity. We are made from it and exist on its gifts. It demands however something in return. We must accept with our free will to share the bounty with others who are not superior humans, as we are, in our opinion. The Mother demands that we will love our brothers and sisters or perish by our own hands and go back to nothing. Complete nothing, no created things.

It’s a hot day and I am sitting by a keyboard living up to my commitment. My readers get a new article every week. Many thank me for it. My body is sick but I keep a mask on. We all do if we admit it or not. The world from where I am looks great. Is it just a mask? I ask, or is it me thinking that it’s a sick world?

If it is sick, then we have a way to show that it can be cured. We have a spot that is blessed by God, or the universal mind. Not so cold in the winters, or hot in the summers. The people help each other and feel safe. There are people here representing all the major religions, nationalities, and age groups. People with disabilities are safe here and outsiders are competing for the privilege of living here.

I see many faces of visitors around and I think we are exporting the goodness we are blessed with. I look at the setting sun and it’s not red today. I hear kids’ voices from a holiday home. The church was full of visitors this morning. Thank you, Lord, I whisper and I feel an answer. Keep it up, good people, and I will be here with you.