Holy Week 2017

I attended Palm Sunday Service at Cariboo Community Church with Laura, Kevin, Anna and the God Kids.  They were a thorough entertainment. They walk on chairs and crawl on the floors just like Gilbert does.  And the aisles of the church, wide open freeways for fast running children’s feet.  Anna took them out during the sermon.  A serious affair about Passover,  Jews being saved from judgement because of their personal relationship with God and their obedience to God. Sabbath and the Last Supper.  Purification with Hyssop.  Hyssop figures in the psalm of recovery 51.  Hyssop is on the vinegar given to Jesus as he dies on the cross.

Now this is Holy Week.  Palm Sunday was the celebration of Jesus entering triumphant into Jerusalem riding a donkey. I’ve forever loved the donkey.  Perhaps because it figured in the first childhood Sunday School stories.  

We’d go to church with my parents and go downstairs during the service to have a class room of Christian teaching with colouring books of Christian stories.  Later we’d rejoin the parents after the sermon.  Not long away with strangers. I remember well the Sunday School at Trinity Baptist, Fort Rouge, Winnipeg. Later I’d teach Sunday School for a couple of years at Fort Garry United.  Looking back I realize I’ve been of service. I’ve participated.  There’s still too much time watching tv.  Not enough of it watching the Ben Hur’s of today.  Uplifting inspiring tales of Biblical proportion but spins off instead like Star Wars and Star Trek.  I loved studying Joseph Campbell and the role of myth in society.

As a psychiatrist we say if you don’t agree to a collective insanity then you’re doomed to having a personal one.  My favourite collective insanity is the legal agreements we all sign ‘in faith’ with computer companies where on the next to final page we have agreed to give our soul and our kidneys to Microsoft or Apple.

WWIII is heating up.  A competing channel.  I don’t think anything will come of it.  Russia, Syria, Jordan, Iran, Israel and the US all raising the stakes on this Easter week.  Meanwhile the American navy is steaming towards North Korea when the kid, another one, like our own Pretty Boy Prime Minister Trudeau, has blasted off midrange missiles. Sarin in the Middle East and Tomohawk Missiles and the threat of nuclear missiles in the east.  

Jesus, we say was son of God. In the Hindu tradition a man evolves from slug to God. But in this Christian twist on an old story, God descends into Man then resurrects.  The Sufis, despite their Muslim warlord masters believe in the revolutions of the spiritual.  The Christian Jacobs Ladder mysticism is the rising and falling.  The descent and resurrection.  It’s a feeling thing to a mystic.  Meanwhile the Kundalini is another bi-directional thing.  Our minister today at Cariboo Community Church talked of the blood.  

Blood is the circular pumping flow.  The greath is in and out but the blood goes round and round.  It’s all movement. Our minds are the only part that’s stuck.

And Jesus was ever obedient to the prophecy and to the call.

He didn’t have to return to Jerusalem. It’s like New York and the girl from Kentucky.  She didn’t have to go to New York or LA even. If you stay at home you’re safe.  Avoid the big city.  Jesus was from Galilee. He could have stayed safe there but the real egos of the world are always in the government towns.  For us in Canada it’s Ottawa. Her in BC it’s Victoria. For Americans its Washington. For Russians Moscow.  If Jesus was in France today he’d have to go to Paris to be crucified. In China he’d be crucified in Bei Jing.  The Ego of the dictators, republicans, kings and queens and committee leaders and czars and prime ministers demand that Jesus be upstage.

Every day in my moment to moment life there’s God’s will and my will. I say ‘Thy Will Be Done’.  I want to do the right thing but mostly I avoid pain.  Jesus could have avoided pain. He asked that this cup be taken from him.  But he was betrayed and the Government of the day Crucified him.  

To the Christian this world isn’t the big deal it is to the Herod’s of the day and the beheaders of today and yesterday.  Herod wanted to sleep with his daughter so beheaded John the Baptist on a whim.  Beheading wasn’t just an ISIS or French thing. It’s biblical.  So much is. But the education today doesn’t teach history and kids are easily impressed by the plagiarism of television.  All the old myths and stories of Biblical proportion made into cartoons for wealth and profit.

Not that wealth and profit aren’t a concern. The disciples of Jesus carried Swords. Swords don’t come cheap. I was looking at Glocks and a good one puts you back a thousand.  All the men and women around the presidents and prime ministers and Kings of Saudi and Syria are carrying a thousand dollars of hard ware on their hips or under their arm pits.

Jesus said “My Kingdom is not of this world”.  

Way before physicists rediscovered alternative worlds Jesus was speaking of heaven.  Position is important. Heaven is in here not out there.  The Yogi sings “I am the bubble make me the sea”.  My perception to the psychologist today is like the tip of an iceberg. So much more goes on within.  All the linear journeys of the Bible , from Egypt to the promised land, from Eden to outside Eden, from Bethlehem to Jerusalem are metaphorical.  They’re true just was the Temple of the Jews in Jerusulam is historic and true.  

Alpha is a series of dinners and discussions which goes on in church for anyone who wishes to become a Christian or learn what Christians believe.  There’s the various Creeds and Third Day sings the Creed best of them all but practically it’s just an old fashioned Community Hall.  The Cariboo Community Church had that pentecostal feel. The Hillsong movie catches that Spirit filled grace of the pentecostals. Lots of song and celebration with education in sermons.  Everyone is welcome.

We all says ‘Come to the Table.   Father Matthew at my church helps the homeless old men and then goes to the opera with his lovely wife.  He’s in the guts and gore of creation uplifted by the word of God and music of the ages.  He says, “just think of it as your mothers dinner.”  Mom was always glad to have her kids come for dinner.  

The Prodigal Son, one of my all time favourite Biblical stories, and the masterpiece of painting in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg is about a father inviting his son home after his son has been eating with pigs.  They killed the fatted calf in celebration.

The Last Supper of the Holy Week is Jesus’s gathering with his closest.  It’s the basis of communion.  We celebrate the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine.  The bread is the body and the wine is the blood. It’s a sacrificial symbolic cannibalistic rite. Robert Graves in Golden Bough followed the myth of the sacrifice of the king for the tribe throughout history.

Jesus, the pure, is the sacrifice of man.  

It makes the world go round.

The sun comes up.

We get to live on.

The Pharisees,cynical and arrogant get to judge. The Sanhedrin pompous and vacuous with fear as Sanhedrins always are releases the real rebel because the rebels of the world are nothing compared to the saints.  The saints had a bad lot, killed off by Nero and finally that entertainment stopped only by Constantine because Christians were the only ones truthful in the days of pagans.  

We are slouching towards Bethlehem.

We are nearer Jerusalem. 

There’s death and laughter.  This is just a dream like every day and every night and we awake and it’s all been a play.  We may go again or that may be it.  And for some who want nothing of immortality they might well get the peace of eternity.  But I’m in for the journey.

I’m following Jesus.  A follower of Jesus believes in God and heaven and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.  These were once Canadian values.  Kellie Leitch is trying to get agreement on what is Canadian because Justin Trudeau hating Christians and Catholics and English and most things Canadians has started another Muslim jihad with his encouragement of Bill M-103.  Islamaphobia is to be outlawed by the Christophobe Justin Trudeau.

What will President Trump do.  I don’t think WWIII but maybe it’s about ratings.  As we’re gathering for the ascension of Jesus we may be all taken back to the passover.  I expect buying Hyssop would be in order.  I will trust in the blood of the lamb rather than going around to butcher shops looking for lamb.  Hyssop will have to do.  

Jesus Christ means literally “God within, god will come again.”  So all my life I’ve played hide and seek with God.  They dark times have only been when I was hiding and forgot I was hiding and thought the game was over and no one had come to find me.  All I had to do then was come out and play.  Just like I come when Mamma calls for supper.  Turning and twisting and circling and rising on eagles wings.  

Saturday Morning, Rainfall on the Roof.

Lovely morning so far.  No early morning wakening.  Woke up beside Laura. Lovely lady.  Gilbert immediately got into between us when I rolled over to kiss the wonderfulness lying next to me.

“”I’m the only wonderful of wonderful” said the squirming dog. “As he planted dog kisses all over our faces.’   So much for kissing Laura. 

I got out of bed. When next I looked in on the beauty and the beast he was ‘helping’ her make the bed. The bed had not had this treatment since last she was here and frowned reprovingly at me.  “this is how a bed should be treated” said the bed. “Whatever, “ I replied.

I’d got the stove top expresso machine working with the Fair Trade ground roast ready to do it’s magic.  Meanwhile I opened the back bacon from Choices and laid it out on the new grey and white dishes.  “I like these, “ she said when I served up  Me and Ed’s pizza on them last night .

" $69 4 piece place setting from Canadian Tire.” I said.  They replaced the chipped and stained white set I’d got from there nearly a decade back. 

We’d watched a combination of Start Trek with Captain Picard and NCIS Los Angeles with Heddy., one on regular tv alternating with Apple TV. The night ended on the Pinkertons with those great Canadian actors Martha MacIsaac and  Jacob Blair.

“I’ve been working so hard with all these clinics and everyone so demanding and not enough time and commuting on the bus, I just get home and collapse at night, eat, sleep work, “ she said. “I’m not young anymore, all I want to do is this on Friday day.”  

“I’m the same I said. I can’t think by Friday.  It’s like my brains exhausted . I’ve been working evenings and weekends for months with closing the office and moving to other clinics.  And the winter has gone on too long. Oh And by the way, I don’t think you look old. I think you look young and beautiful.  Gilbert and I just love your company.  You really make our Friday evening hundreds of times better.  Gilbert loves you. "

“Ah thanks” she said, pretty in pink

It was raining cats and dogs but the neighbour had come by to tell me there were 90 mile an hour winds forecast for the night. I took in my awning. I’d been running my Harley Electrogilide which revved right up after having the battery tender on it over night.  

I called Thaun Vo at Rand and Fowler. He’s this incredibly responsible helpful insurance fellow whose taken care of keeping track of my vehicle insurance.  When Laura gets out of the bath we’re off to Trev Deely. Thon texted me this morning he’s going to be there around noon doing insurance for another motorcyclist. Laura and I figured it was a good excuse for an outing and a chance to look at the new bikes.

Below follows at typical consumer age mind loop. In this case it applies to motorcycles but it can apply to anything, towels, wallets, bed spreads, homes ….I believe others do this, an attempt to get just the right thing for a particular time and by the time you get it paid off life has moved on and what was perfect is not not just quite right so in the ‘change’ generation we trade in or throw away and everything is in flux with behaviour coupled to consumer reports and internet news and manufacturer goals.  It’s burdensome and I think at times of returning to the bicycle days but my colleague’s bicycle is $20,000 and mine is a few hundred dollars. I fear if I tried to ‘size down’ rather than ‘super size’ I’d still be dissatisfied so ‘acceptance’ and ‘appreciating what one has’ is the answer.   Today’s consumerism leads to ‘disposable people’ and ‘disposable relationships’ which are the norm in this culture.  

(I’ve got this idea that I’d like to trade down my big Harley Davidson Electroglyde for the new Touring 1200 in the sportier class. I love my 1600 Electroglide on the highway. It really is the bike for the American Freeway. The  40 thousand mile ride to Sturges on the Electroglide was incredible.  Laura is not as keen on riding passenger on a motorcycle. She really does prefer the new Ford F350 lariat edition truck as does Gilbert.  I don’t think I’ll be riding to Sturges again.  Indeed it i go again and I’d love to I’ld like to bring the bike in the back of my Energy Toyhauler pulled by the truck. When I was at my brother’s at Haybay in Nappanee I really enjoyed the Yamaha 250 simply for lightness and maneuverability. I loved my Honda CRF 250’s in the day too because they’re just so maneuverable.  Great for the city but also weekends. My 600 cc Buell Blast was another fantastic bike for city and good for country roads on the weekend. The Harley Davidson 1200 cc Roadster was my favourite bike till the Electroglide. I really got the Electroglide for Laura and Gilbert and I.  Either Laura and I or Gilbert and I had enjoyed the 1200 cc Roadster.  It really was a great country and city bike and half the weight of my Electroglide which I really do love.  It took me a year  or two before I traded in my  last truck this truck because of all these kinds of considerations and discussions .  Dave suggested I really could lighten up the Electroglyde by stripping off some of the cruising extras.  So that’s an idea. That’s what ‘chopper’s are and I really love the 1600 cc engine.  My right shoulder isn’t strong like it was with the neck issue. Richard Cho my motorcycling chiropractor friend solves the weakness in the arm and shoulder every time I see him but I just don’t get in enough to deal with it.  Meanwhile Derek Baker who was my personal trainer gave me exercises which would strengthen me but instead I think of getting a lighter bike. I could just swim more and be satisfied with what I’ve got. ) 

“Don’t you love the towel hanger”  I called out to Laura when she was went into the bathroom. Gilbert had followed her in like a personal body guard checking it out for invading weiner dogs or aliens.  Now he was lying in front of the door guarding it for her.

“Yes, it’s lovely”.  For a couple of  years I’d had this towel rack  I’d installed that periodically came lose and fell down. It really was a nuisance. I’d found an old fashioned one with simple screws and wood and now was sure it wouldn’t come loose.  No more towel hanger crashes when you were naked getting in or out of the shower.  

Syria has had another chemical gas attack.

Vimy Ridge, in the time of chemical warfare, was having it’s 100 year celebration of the Canadians turning the tide for the British Empire.  War.

President Trump just sent 59 Tomohawk Cruise Missiles into Syria to destroy Assad’s MIGS and the warehouses where apparently chemical gas was stored. It’s possible the Rebels staged the gas attack or that the CIA and former KGB did it. It’s even possible that CNN noting decreased ratings blew up a chemical bomb in Syria to get more television watchers.  For all we know Mila Cyress and the Kardashians blew up the gas as a test for a new reality tv show.  No one knows anything except George Carlin and Leonard Cohen and they’re dead.

It’s all above my pay grade.  

I’m amused at the certainty people have and how hard they cling to illusions like Climate Change and the new comfort words like ‘diversity’ and ‘multicultural’.  Meanwhile everyone who counts knows multicultural means ‘uncultured’.  But it’s all just intellectualism and Justin Trudeau sounds silly in both French and English.  His jargon filled babble makes one think of the days when the Catholic Church ruled and everyone who mattered talked in Latin. Now  hypocrisy is all we get with the increased transparency is lies and psychobabble weaponized words like Islamaphobia..  Feminists fight for Sharia Law in Canada as Freedom of Speech is destroyed by the M 103 motion of Islamaphobia.  Now Canadians  who say Allah is a fiction can be castigated and eventually imprisoned or beheaded.  Ironic that a once secular nation now under Justin Trudeau fights to allow Muslims to pray in the school whereas his father Pierre Trudeau celebrated the abortion of Christians and Catholics with that greatest Canadian “Mad Man Murferer Mortgentaller.  Because he as a jew killed off all the Christian children now Canada adopts Muslims who want to kill all the Jews.   It’s a weird world.  Putin just acknowledged Jerusalem as the capital of Israel while the UN said that Jews were not in Israel before the 1940. The UN noted for its lies about Climate Change also considers the Bible to be a lie.  It’s hard to believe such nutbars or science or history given the UN”s records to date.  

I understand old people who watch the news eventually wanting to die.  My father said as did his war buddies, “If we’d known this is what Canada was to become, none of us would have fought in the war.”  The old are sad. Everyone I know who is not wealthy and privileged uber upper class like the Trudeau’s worry about growing old with decreasing health care and no housing except barracks for the old. .

I’ve just had to pay for hearing aids.  A life time of paying taxes for Medical Care and Health Care and when it comes to my falling asleep at work and being diagnosed with Sleep Apnea I had to pay thousands out of pocket or die young of stroke and heart disease for my CPAP machine. . Now unable to hear my patients at work  I find out I have to pay thousands  again for hearing aids. I just got back from the dentist where thousands of dollars pays for my dental care and the pain is relieved but if I’d wanted I could have skipped the dentist and got Inside heroin treatment.  There are diseases of privilege and I don’t have those ones.  Yet to hear Justin Trudeau who gives billions to beurocrats and terrorist organizations we’re supposed to be always thankful. The taxpayers are probably paying for his Rogaine and implants.  

 

And yes, spiritually I’m struggling because I truly believe that God is good. This world is God’s world.  The Lord is in charge. Jesus died and the Cosmic Christ changed the world to one in which we as Christians know heaven. I can know heaven on earth if I simply accept Jesus.  Accepting Jesus means that I forgive Justin Trudeau. I also consider that Justin Trudeau’s stupidity is what makes me turn more to the Lord. There is no peace on earth with Justin Trudeau as ruler. He’s inciting war and marxist class struggle and all of that. But this is Gods’ world and I have to trust in God. God made Justin Trudeau.  Just the same way God made the snake in the Garden of Eden. There is no duality.  All comes from God and I have to love all as God loves all.

So my very spiritual development depends on my loving Justin Trudeau.  This concerns me.  it’s where the rubber hits the road.  Thank you God for Justin Trudeau.  Thank you God for CBC news. The lies and disinformation of CBC news makes the demonic look saintly.  But thank you Lord because the problem as I know is within, it’s in my thinking and focus so help me Lord see as you see with love and forgivements. Help me focus on the good .  

St. Francis Grant me Serentity!

 

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St. James Anglican Church , Hearing Aids, and Cactus Club Lunch with the God Kids.

Sunday morning is always made better by church attendance. It’s uplifting. It’s a time to get together and see people in a very special community way. I like that we’re there after week a week of work.  I’ve made the best of friends over time. I miss Alice. She was a wonder.  But I’d not have known her grace and presence were I not to have attended the church for years.

I like that we’re moving through Lent. I like Christmas and the Holy Week.  I especially liked Father Kevin’s sermon today.  He talked of Lazarus and the resurrection. It was enlightening in terms of his insights into the biblical passages but more importantly it’s placement before Jesus Easter resurrection will forever remind me that despite Jesus showing his disciples and us over and over again the miracle of life we still fear death.

Also the truth is,  I had my hearing aids on. I saw George the GP who sent me to Diamond the ENT who recommended Nexgen the hearing aid folk. And suddenly despite my vanity I was wearing hearing aids.  Laura said if I keep my hair long no one will know.  

For the last year or so I was becoming irritated with the acoustics and the mumblers in church.  I really hadn’t heard a complete sermons for months.  This time I heard Father Kevin’s and it was very good.  I  loved it.  I feel badly because my friend Kevin thought Father Kevin very learned.  Because I couldn’t hear his sermons I didn’t share his opinion. He seemed like a nice man but other than than I didn’t realize until today how much more I appreciated him when I could actually hear him.  He’s quite brilliant. 

There were three places I noticed that others had problem with hearing. When I watched tv last year with my brother and sister in law and nephews I thought they were weird because they kept the tv so low. I remember my father not wanting to waste and wondered if my brother had some twisted notion about saving money by keeping the volume low.  I actually went out and bought them an amplifier and insisted on having the television louder. I thought them ‘eastern’ and “soft”  and not exposed to ‘western’  and “tought’ like I was listening to hard rockl and riding motorcycles.  I considered their very liking the television low as somehow an Eastern characterological flaw..  

When I first wore the hearing aids and watched tv with Laura at her place I turned the volume right down and enjoyed it just fine.  The neighbours had been complaining about the blaring tv  to Laura when I was over. I’d got her an amplifier too.  I was that old guy. I was rather pissed when the lady next door banged on the wall and I had to  turn down a war movie which hadn’t been loud at all.  

I see that the dial which had been at 90 is now at 10.   I’m happy with that. Laura was very understanding.  I see that now. 

The same was  on the car and truck radio. Obviously there was a conspiracy and the volume meter on these had been switched after I got my hearing aids.  I’ve noticed people are actually shouting in the downtown eastside again. Laura, smiling with relief, says I’m talking quieter now. 

I was also having trouble with ’soft talking’ ladies in my office and ’shy people’ in the office. I was having to ask them to repeat themselves.  I was doing the same out a lot too and complaining to Laura that no one teaches the younger generation elocution and they don’t look at you when they talk. According to the hearing aid specialist I’d become quite adept  lip reader which explained my  frustration. when I couldn’t see the face.  Perhaps another reason I’m incensed by people wearing burgas.  I might be less offended now.

Finally, church. I really did think that the sound system in the church was going. I thought they should put money into it and actually thought of getting some rock band audio friend  to come to church with me and listen to the speakers which sounded increasingly muffled and  tinny.

They don’t sound that way any more.  Father Kevin’s sermon was great and I’m really looking forward to hearing more.  It resonated with spring renewal and the blooming cherry trees .

Gilbert loves St. James where he has a lot of friends, little and big. He was blessed by the Bishop one time.   It’s a great social outing for him.  He loves  the Peace best.  After his great church experience ,  he doesn’t mind being dropped off at Laura’s so we can go out for lunch. Laura always brings him back tid bits. 

Kevin and Anna and the god kids, Kendra, Alex and Izek joined us at the Cactus Club.

I love the Peppercorn Steak.  It’s great talking to Anna and Kevin.  Also the kids are a going concern. It’s really wonderful to see how loved and cared for they are. I’m not around kids so it’s a real treat for me that Anna and Kevin share theirs with us.  I admit I’m glad it’s a limited dose. They’re a 24/7 going concern and we are exhausted after a few hours.  Much more intense than Gilbert. In fact they’re like Gilbert with a ball fixation but they’re not just fixated on a ball, they’re fixated on everything.  Amazing to watch Wondermother Anna juggling the competing communications.  Kevin is a great dad too but I like to talk vehicles and travel with him distracting him from his parenting. This gets him in trouble with Anna.  We’re all getting together for a camping weekend so I might have to leave the hearing aids at home. 

Church and after church hanging out is just the Christian thing to do.  Christian friends.  Love of Jesus.  Sharing and caring.  We all hold hands before the meal and Kevin says grace. He’s the dad.  I’m the old guy so I’m just glad to pick up the cheque. Anna and Laura were talking crafts.  Later Laura told me that Izek said her nails were really pretty.  “Isn’t that the sweetest thing.”said Laura. She has a young admirer.

 

Valley Song at Pacific Theatre

 Magnolia and Cherry Blossoms were in bloom today  After many weeks of rain the sun was shining again in Vancouver.  I’d been driving with the top down on my Miata.   Ladies on the street,   lighter without umbrellas and overcoats. sported jackets of spring fashion.  

Laura and I had heard from friends how much they’d enjoyed Valley Song by Athol Fugard. Tonight was our theatre night.  We have season tickets at Pacific Theatre.  

Set in the year following South Africa’s first free election 1994,  the play focused on the relationship of Abraam “Buks” Jonkers and his granddaughter Veronica Jonkers.  Buks is 76 and in love with the land, his valley, the village and the crops.  Veronica loves her grandfather, singing and is drawn to the city.  The story includes her dead mother, Caroline and the dead grandmother Betty. Buks spoke to the ghosts them when he was alone. Change was coming to the valley.  Buks was for the old.  Veronnica’s dreams and Johannasberg were the change.

David Adams played Buks passionately. Sereana Malani played Veronica touchingly.  David Adams also played the author, the white man who had come to the valley to escape the city.  Veronica broke into her own songs, remarkable feeling pieces of home, her life  and the valley, original music by Cathy Nosaty.

I cried. I laughed.  The acting and song couldn’t be better. Even the set by Drew Facey couldn’t be improved on. Director Jovanni Sy is incredible.  I was drawn right into the story with the fingers of the writing getting a hold on my heart, tight, the acting stirring my soul.  

I liked the talk of land,  planting pumpkin seeds and prayers for rain.  The play was full of metaphor. As spring was coming here to Vancouver  the play of change and renewal in another land and time..  A play of immense depth. It reminded me of the old plays that first fired my love for theatre, Death of a Salesman,  I Remember Mother.  Yes, I loved Shakespeare but it was the Chekov and Noel Coward that really captured my imagination.  I wanted to be a play wright when I was younger but settled for a love of theatre.  This play, these actors, this theatre, the director, the whole creative team made me thankful tonight again for live theatre.

The applause went on for a long time.  Laura loved the play as much as I did.  She'd been crying and laughing too. The last theatre we’d been to had been a few months back on Broadway in  New York.   In it’s own way this little theatre production was just as good.  We are truly blessed to have Pacific Theatre for it’s character and excellence.  

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prayer

I believe.  It is good to pray.  Prayer connects me somehow with the depth. “I am the bubble make the me sea.” is a Sanskrit chant taught by Yoganda.  Dr. Carl Jung described the ‘collective unconscious’.  I’m remembering St. Theresa’s Inner Castle.  This is life is the “Dark Night of the Soul’.  As Dr. Scott Peck said, “I am in God’s kindergarten’.  Now older I realize I’m more and more in the waiting room of heaven.

“I believe in an afterlife, “ she said. “I’m just concerned about heaven and hell”.  We were talking about of loved parents who had gone before us.  I told her about “Proof of Heaven” by the Neurosurgeon, Dr. Eben Alexander. Later I described the work of Dr. Moody with people who had had Near Death Experiences.  So many people saw a light or a being of light and met with people who were family or friends who had gone before them.  I like Rainbow Bridge myself. That’s the field where our pets are waiting for us to cross over with us into the real promised land.  

I am travelling from Old Jerusalem to New Jerusalem.

There can be no death as I know only life and rebirth.  If one day the world changed and I did not wake from sleep how much wiser would I be.  The moment of death is just another passing.  I know no true permanence except in consciousness.

In prayer i ask that God be forever with me. I am impermanent but God is permanent. I am changing but God is both changing and unchanging. There are the centre of the centre of the centre is this.  I love the psalm “Be still and know that I am God”.  It’s every word and phrase has the deepest meaning. 

Be still and know that I am God

Be still and know that I am

Be still and know that I

Be still and know that

Be still and know 

Be still and 

Be still

Be

Be still

Be still and

Be still and know

Be still and know that

Be still and know that I 

Be still and know that I am

Be still and know that I am God.

Jesus taught “Do not be afraid.”  My friend, Willi says, “That wasn’t a suggestion, that was a command."

Late night in a meeting of doctors who had learned spirituality the hard way, going to hell and coming back, an old internist in his 80’s who’d started out to be a priest but loved women too much, sat with his daughter, a young woman and mother herself, and shared, “Anxiety is a measure of your distance from God and equally a measure of your humanity”.

 

I’ve dabbled in politics of late.  There’s so much squabble and struggle.  As the Buffalo Springfield of old said, “People carrying signs, mostly say Hoorah for Our Side!”  Of course it’s all rigged and George Carlin is right to be negative.  Even Leonard Cohen wrote, "Everyone knows that the dice are loaded”.

Yet we do the next right thing. Hitchhiking in the 60’s we said to each other, silly thinking of hikers and free loaders saying this but we did, “Keep on Trucking”.  

Life is a journey is a metaphor.  I must learn to love the walking and the process rather than be addicted to destination.  

God is in the now.  As a wonderful grand military man with shoulders the size of two men and arms like thighs said to me so often when he heard me talking, “Bill, you’ve got one foot in the future and one foot in the past, you’re pissing and shitting on your day. Get your head in the same room as your ass is!"

Be here now, the Babba Ram Dass book.

Be still.

Pray.  Dr. James Houston’s book on Prayer is so helpful.

Jesus was the servant God.  He was God incarnate.  The baby God. The inside God.  Not the top down God of Neitze’s Superman.  Not the great Zeus or the Egyptian God’s or Today’s Gaia and all those glorious grand others of greatness and power but rather this meek man who said,  the Kingdom of God is other.  

In prayer I seek the Kingdom of God as Jesus taught.  He said don’t be loud and proud but rather be humble.  Even he went away from his disciples to pray.  Alone. But not alone.

In prayer Jesus Christ taught, pray like this,

“Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done , on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen”.

I pray when I wake in the morning and before I go to sleep at night. I pray many times a day , some days more.  Martin Luther King would say, It’s going to be a hard day so I must spend more time on my knees. St. Paul taught us to pray unceasingly.  

Prayer is comforting.  It’s like a warm blanket in a storm. It’s like a cool drink in a desert.  We are not alone.  Martin Buber said there is I and Thou, that the sense is of I and it but the greatest journey is from I and it to I and Thou. Somewhere we leave off I and I to make the leap of faith to I and Thou.  

I am that is who I am was God’s response to the question of who he was at the burning bush.  YHVH.  Jehovah.  Adonai.  Elohim. All names of God.  The many facetted jewel.  

In the east they tell the story of the blind folded wise men introduced to an object and each of them touching this creature from different positions.  They argue later , some saying it was a wall, others a pillar, others still a snake and then the blindfolds are removed and they see the elephant as it is.

St. Paul said, “Now we see through a glass darkly.”  I am aware of Plato’s story of the cave and the shadows and the neoplatonism that runs through religion. There’s this idea of perfection and imperction.  There is this sense of substance and depth.  Einstein’s formula E=MC2 really ties energy and mass together, saying mass is but slow energy. There was once the Atomic theory. I liked that the At-OM was such a word and chanted “OM’ liking that this ‘AMEN” sound reminded me of comfort words like “MOM” and “HOME”.  Then the physicists dug deeper and deeper into more and more parts like the day I first looked at pond water in my microscope, the gift of my parents because they saw my fascination with things tiny.  Like God as the Baby Jesus. I later lay with my brother and my father and looked at the stars with my father high powered binoculars.  That divided the pins of light to multiply the already vast galaxy.  Now there is every more outward and inward.

I like my dreams often. The nightmares are less frequent these days.  Instead I dream of family and friends and this strange house and peninsula and water and boats and sometimes a tea party and old ladies and gatherings and dogs and cats.  It’s a Sunday picnic in the afterlife.  I wake feeling better as if I’ve had a visitation in my sleep. 

It’s all explainable in the language of arrogance but I like the sacred. I feel comforted in the arms of my creator. I feel in prayer I am talking to my mother and father and now my brother.  They’re dead but not forever.  I will go to meet them again one day. And that first friend of mine who died and I cried at his funeral aware of the loss. Today I will learn of more who have died. I’ve worked in the Valley of the Shadow of Death all my adult life.  

Always I have tried to comfort. I have to the best of my ability helped people in this world.  Like Victor Frankl I’ve tried to help them find meaning. I’ve found them wandering in disease and poverty and turned them around from the direction of death to life for a while longer, like the babies I helped turn in the womb so they’d find it easier to make their way out.

Now I’m just another on the journey.  I ask Jesus to be my Lord and leader. I am a follower of the child king, the servant king, the man who washed the feet of his students.  I am a lover of a man who died on the cross crucified by mistake or intent, betrayed, a God who came to earth and was killed because we can’t tolerate love. I am a killer of Jesus. I was there when they crucified my Lord. I am forever a part of that epic scene. I can be the potted plant on the stage. I can be any of the characters but when it comes to myth or theatre or story there is no greater story than this Good News. It says that Christ was born, Christ died and Christ will come again.  This is life, awakening, dying and awakening. No permanence except in God.  

And in prayer I seek the One.  

Be still and know that I am God.  

Be still

Be

Thank you Lord Jesus Christ for your love and life.  Thank you for your sacrifice.  Help me ever to remember and be with you.

Christ before me. Christ beside me. Christ above me, Christ in front of me. Christ behind me. Protect me and heal me and love me as I love thee.  

I would know your Grace because I know my love for such a limited selfish sense. I would love you as my dog loves me.  I would learn to love with faith and courage and strength.  I would be nearer to thee. I would be with you always.

Thank you Jesus.  In prayer and thanksgiving I come to you.  Thou anointed my head with oil. Thou prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies. My cup overflowest.

Thank you.

 

Islamaphobia, Naziphobia, Yahweh and Jesus

There is only one true God and that God is Yahweh.  Yahweh means “I am that is who I am”.  I do not know what Allah means and do not believe Hitler was God.  I know that Yahweh, the God of the Jews was written as YHVH because his name could not be pronounced.  He was described in John of the New Testament as the Word, but really that Word was Jesus.  Jesus was the son of God.  We are created in the Image of God, that’s the imagination. Yahweh means ‘imagination’.  God is the create or. God is imagination.  God is Energy.  Matter is slow Energy.  We are in the omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotentialiation of God.  God is the cloud of unknwing. I do not know who Allah is.

Jesus is the manifestation of God incarnate.  We are all children of God and Jesus is the first born. The Cosmic Christ is to Christianity what the enlightened one is to Hinduism and Buddhism.  Except where in their lexicon Man becomes God in Christianity God becomes man becomes God again.  Jesus was crucified and arose to sit on the right hand side of God in three days. Nothing like ‘day’ is literal since these words are godly words in the Bible.  Time is a human construct.

Jesus is Love.

I don’t know what Islam is.

I don’t know what Nazis are.

I know Christianity is the religion of my parents and grandparents and I know that Judaism and Christianity are the basis of Western Enlightenment, Secularism even, and all the basic values and ideas that I hold true today derived mostly from the Bible, like the 10 commandments and the message to Love God and Love your Neighbour as Yourself. I love the parables like the Prodigal sun. I love Grace and Redemption. I love Jesus. 

Jesus was a historical man born as Messiah, prophesied and died on the cross in the time of Rome when Herod was the violent barbaric leader of Israel.  Jesus was a jewish man, a carpenter.  There are all manner of marvellous allegory and myth associated with his life.  His life is the greatest story in the Galaxy, definitely the Greatest Story in the World.  His story is everything I like about Christianity and everything I find lacking in cold fish like Sarte. He is everything that atheists like Marx envied and rejected.  He is a man for all seasons.  He was the greatest lover of history.

I am a Christian because I have had the experience of Christ. I know God is present in all religions. I know that political leadership have used religion as a means to strengthen their political positions.  I like that Jesus was a rebel but that he said his Kingdom was in heaven, within, not without.  He speaks within to me now.  I can hear the wee small voice of God within on a good day. There are times when the monkey voice of myself is too loud to hear the music of God’s calm and peace. It is only in the quiet that I know God most truly.  

I have studied all religions. I know Jesus.  I know Christ. I know Yahweh. I know God.  I have met them in the heart of hearts in the inner sanctums of myself and I have had the joy of seeing their fingerprints on my life and in the world around.  

Everywhere I travelled in the middle east I saw that Islam had destroyed the temples and teachings of Christians.  Every Radiacl Muslim I have met wants to destroy all jews.  Islam has taught the eradication of Jews and all around the world the followers of Islam are persecuting Christians.  

I would be more afraid but I know that God loves me and Jesus loves me.  I know that my fear is of this world.  Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.  God is alive and well in Canada if only now hiding.  Our parliament is smoking dope.  Our leader is a dope head.  It’s apparent to me. Hitler was a drug addict too.  I am afraid around people on drugs because they are in a trance and don’t know they are psychotic.  It’s subtle. I once did drugs and when I did I stopped hearing the wee small voice of God and could only hear the cacophony of voices within my own head.  I became loud like Ottawa.  I am quiet today and I long to know God more.  

Jesus Christ means literally “God within, god will come again”.  I’m always playing hide and seek with God.  God is always playing hide and seek with me.   God is using Trudeau to wake Canada up to the terrors of totalitarianism.  All the Communists after the Socialism of Marx and Engels and Stalin eventually turned back to God as the Orthodox Church has risen again in Russia.  Muslims flee Muslim countries and convert on mass to the Christianity and Secularism of the west. They are naturally afraid of the radical muslims they escaped.  Just as communists escape the Iron Wall for Canadas as do the Chinese who leave Communist China and the Muslims who escape the countries of political Islam, Canada is a haven created by Christians of the European enlightenment. This is a product of the ideology of Christianity and enlightenment.  

The light will shine again in Canada.

God will come again. Yahweh. Jesus Christ.  Thank you Lord.  May I ever know you and trust in you.  All shall be well because God is good.  

Gratitude Wednesday

Thank you Lord for bringing me thus far in this week. Hump Wednesday.  It’s the last hurdle before the downhill stretch to the glorious weekend. I’ve worked on weekends and evenings for months cleaning up mess and chaos and finding so much damage I didn’t know had been done. But then I was distracted.  It’s always thus. I’m distracted by life and death and the details get lost. But you Lord are ever there redeeming. Thank you for your comfort and the little things, the treasure. What more could I be grateful than the smiles of little friends the joy of friends , the coming of spring. Thank you for the light this morning Lord. Thank you for my sleepy dog. Thank you for this routine. Thank you for the song of birds. Thank you for the river and the trees. Thank you that it’s not raining. Thank you that it’s not snowing. Thank you that it’s warming up.  

Forgive me Lord for all the nasty things I’ve said to those idiots who believe in more taxation for themselves and us and want the government to get bigger and bigger and control more and more and take away our freedoms what little we have and thank you Lord for curbing my speech. Forgive me Lord for my talk about our prime minister who I regretful think is a traitor to this country and is bringing deep ruination to this country with the corruption I left the liberal party over years ago and now it’s worse, so much Quebec serving and eastern serving to the detriment of Canada as a whole and westerners especially. Forgive me for the anger I feel to the divisiveness of this government playing racial and religious favourites then calling us victims offensive for objective to there favouritism and vote buying corruption.  Forgive me Lord for this distraction.

I know that you would have me focusing on healing. I know that you would have me caring for my patients but sociologically all these selfish political decisions are hurting my patients and increasing the disease.  All the fear mongering of Climate Change and all the violent speech and rallies of the undemocratic are persisting in creating an atmosphere of war and encouraging drug abuse and escapism.  Displaced people without jobs are prospects of homes are increasingly turning away from the world to their fantasy life.  The aetheism and narcissism offer no insight or altruism or enlightenment. At least Lord it may bring us closer to you. Thank you for being all healing, all loving, all present. Help me to know you more. Increasing the mediation and healing of my own intellect and emotions.  

You know Lord anxiety is a measure of my distance from you so help me to have more courage.  I know Jesus commanded  Do Not Be Afraid.  Help me to be strong in you Lord. Help me to be ever with you.

Thank you for my dog. Help his eye to heal. Thank you for my nephews and sister in law. Help them achieve in their studies work and relationships. Help me be able to give them more as my brother would want Lord. Help me ever remember my brother as the great and kind and loving man he was.  I miss his wisdom Lord.  Thank you for my Mom and Dad and their love and kindness and thoughtfulness and you know I miss them dearly.  Thank you for the loves in my life. Thank you for the wonderful memories of love making and conversation and holding on to each other through storms and in quiet times. 

Life has been such a chronic struggle against beurocrats using all their resources and their laws and their infinite time to stop me advocating for my patients and fighting every day to help them.  They would interfere with every action and have repeatedly insisted with their hypocrisy how they want people to act on the frontlines from the ignorant and arrogance of their safe distant inexperience stupidity.  Forgive me Father for focusing on the negatives and help me be thankful for thise glorious beaurocrats who daily help me to help others.  

Lord help me change my attitude. Help me focus on the positives and see the successes and see that we are all working together and that the horrendous waste of resources with the infinite appalling committee meetings in the downtown eastside and all the old ideas proved poopy and now just repackaged are again being used to promote a few individuals to the cost of all. Oh Lord help me see the positive if only to recognize that these people are going to make great fertilizer one day.  Stop me from feeling superior but help me to maintain an open mindedness and maybe they are going to redeem themselves because you are in charge. Stop me from focussing on the negatives and the little pictures.  Help me see the positives and be more loving and more understanding.

You have taught me to view these people as ‘sick’.  They hold power and authority and are terrified themselves for their cushy fat cat jobs far more than they deserve with their limitted education and low IQ and lack of anything but loyalty to kissing the ass of the person above them…..see Lord this is not helpful…this is the monkey mind…help me to quiet this thing of fear and attitude and instead see the positive and look for the goodness in these sewer rats.  Again Lord stop me from going there. Protect me from my own fears and guide me forward. Help me to focus on the positive. Help me to see your love and your hand in all that is happening.  

I have a judgemental mind at times and you know I am afraid as I grow older and realize that the end is near. Help me not project my own demise on the world and become and embarrassing thieving fool running about demanding billions and saying the world is going to end because of ludicrous climate change ideas of crazy baby boomers who are so grandiose narcissistic and pampered they can’t believe they are going to die individually so have this megalomaniac dream of world dominion and how they’re going to save the planet. God get this kids away from their fucking hollywood superhero movies. It’s more tortoise than rabbit. We’re plodding forward.  It’s the little things that matter.

Thank you for the fact that I have learned routines and daily shower and feed my body and please Lord help me exercise more and eat less and yet eat more wholesomely. Help me get the work done that has piled up because of the betrayals and negligence and lies.  Help me to get through this storm and let me know fair winds following seas and sunshine .

thank you Lord for my friends in program and in church and in this community. Thank you for the god kids and their parents. Thank you for Laura and the joy she brings Gilbert and I with his presence and care. Thank you for her humour. Thank you for the friends like George and Arch and Willi and Phillip and Sam and Tom and John and Phillip and Mac and Dave and Wes and Carolynn and Jackie and Vivian and Allison and Aim and Hannah and Mida and Dick and Peter and and Bill and Bill and Allan and Victor and Bill and Garry and Kirk and Jon and Nick and Vivian and Karen and David and more as I think of all these people that I know personally and have always enjoyed and they’ve always been there for me and for them. My social life is rich and I’m blessed to know these incredibly fine human beings who are doing so much good. Help me to spend more time with them and to avoid isolation and stop me from my tendency to self pity and focus on the loss rather than all the blessings.

Thank you Lord for this day. May I do thy will. May I serve you.  Thank you for the teaching of the Bible and the Big Book. Thank you for the wisdom of the men and women who have gone before me and have guided my path.