Category: World Affairs

Mitigating Chaos

It’s easy enough to do. It is easy enough to fault powers-that-be for not being powers- that-do when it comes to being prepared for foreseeable trouble and acting on it. Not to excuse anything, but it is also true that the powers-that-be exhibit human geared-for-failure traits that we share. Or I know that I share.

There is the present. In the present there is this reality, global pandemic, that for decades, decades, has been predicted clearly, plainly, and loudly by highly competent and credible people. Will we humans learn from this? There will, after all, be another one. 

There are other threats, so it is said. They can all be prepared for, or at least mitigated in their impact. The chance of an inadvertent nuclear exchange can be lessened if the people who can do so would pull back even a bit from their readiness for intentional insanity. Or so I hear (via Economist podcast). Some put at 50/50 in this decade the chance of solar activity that would down satellites, and fry world-wide communications and power, maybe for years. Maybe forever. Even with that, it is said, there are things that can be done to lessen the impact (though it will still be horrible).

There is, however, little will to do anything about “low probability, high impact” events, even when the probability isn’t really low, and even when the cost of doing something now is relatively cheap.

There is this human thing, isn’t there. We will ignore or deny facts until the last possible instant, and maybe not then. Instead, deny, blame, make excuses. And everyone around the denial goes down with the denier.

That podcast I referenced made mention of three simple steps we can encourage (which really might mean instilling some courage) our leaders to do to help be prepared for disaster. First scan for present and potential danger. Second, develop a plan. Third (it has to be said), have the will to enact the plan.

Those, it seems to me, are good steps for all of us when it comes to work, the organizations we are part of, family and personal matters. Scan and plan. I say this as one who knows too well the impact of my own failures in such things.

We can lift one another in such realities as, or before, they arise, with a “You can do this” kind of genuine en-couragement.

Confound the Puny-Minded

So no classroom learning in Ontario until at least September. I have to preface whatever I say here with the acknowledgment that I am long past the stage of being part of any homeschooling situation. But I hope something. Even with having the vivid memory of how exasperating, heel of the hand to one’s (own) forehead the experience could be just to ‘encourage’ one’s children through regular homework assignments, I can only try to imagine the ups and downs and more downs of what’s going on in homes these days.

But, like I said already, I can hope something–that there is actually fun happening. And part of that fun would be to experience learning, together, that isn’t just part of the curriculum, as necessary and important as that is. The something I hope has to do with what I’ve heard any good teacher say, that teaching/learning is about learning to learn, loving to learn, everything, insatiably. 

Strangely enough, this hope arose for me in hearing about what is shaping up to be a distinctly unhealthy sort of global competition over the race for, and subsequent distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine. I wonder about the scientists involved in this, more than the people pulling the power strings, whose interest is, well, power. Control. Ownership. The world of nature teaches that collaboration benefits all who collaborate. Competition may make for better figure skaters and iPads, but it’s a lousy approach to genuinely helping one another in a global crisis. 

My guess, since I don’t personally know any scientific geniuses, is that the people that really matter, at the heart of the race for a vaccine (1) have stunningly impressive minds that can focus on one specific task, and (2) have amazingly curious minds with an Olympic-level curiosity about all things, out of which their specialization has emerged. 

But when your interest is power and control, we have seen over and over in the world’s autocrats, you not only do not want to know about some things, you don’t want to know about anything except what helps with your power and control and ownership, and you actively and ruthlessly suppress anyone who dares to ask bigger questions, or offer wider and important knowledge. Scientific facts seem especially to be scorned. 

I very much doubt that anyone who grows up with a wonder-filled curiosity about all things ever gets to that sorry state. 

So, once more, I hope something; that we would trust in the wisdom of the young, and reinforce their curiosity. Just watch. Without losing any of the wonder about all things, they will latch on also to specific paths leading to great discoveries to come. This will emerge in a generation that is unleashed, we would pray, from the control of those who are both powerful and puny-minded.

In Honour of One

There are staggering numbers in circulation these days. They all represent very human COVID-19 realities: At the time of posting this, just under 3.5 million cases worldwide, and almost ¼ million deaths.

How about this. A second generation of locusts is consuming east Africa. A first generation struck a few months ago. A third is expected in June. Each generation produces 20 times the previous one. Efforts to deal with this are stifled by restrictions on activity and travel. It is said the swarms could spread to west Africa and even south Asia. In east Africa alone, 30 million people could face starvation. People. Not just numbers. 

Yes, the numbers are staggering. But, in the face of all these numbers, there is one number we need to be honoured for caring about: one. We are being as Christ when we are moved by the needs of one among many. It is not just natural to be worried for your loved one in long term care, it is honourable. And we each honour ourselves, and others, with our self-care in this time, and always. 

Not as the World Gives

The thing we are most afraid of is always what is within us.

Unsettling feelings about immoral and unethical conduct in a crisis (e.g. scammers, opportunistic leaders) may be addressed by resolving to do the caring thing. This can work its way into the soul (see previous post) to assure and encourage us about what is true and enduring.  Similarly, finding something of peace to focus on, beyond our self-preoccupations, might just quiet our deepest fear, that is, of what lies within us. It is what we suspect lies within us that we fear even more than exterior threats.

Jesus, in pledging his peace, said, “I do not give to you as the world gives” (John 14:27). Neither virus nor inner primordial fear will get the better of the person you are made to be and to be part of what God eternally has in mind for you.

Civic Holiday

This first Monday in August is a holiday across Canada. It has different names in different provinces and territories, reflecting something of that region’s history and character, but it tends to be known, generically, as Civic Holiday, at least here in Ontario.
This time also marks the 100th anniversary of the First World War. Before there was another world war it was known simply as The Great War, and also “the war to end all wars.”

It didn’t end all wars, but instead of “great” or “world” war (although any war is “great” in its magnitude for those affected) there seem to be multiple conflicts that are sectarian in nature. Meanwhile, here in my area, there are multiple cultures representing those regions of the world where such strife and its accompanying devastation is going on, and on, and on.

A regional holiday, therefore, takes on international significance, coming as it does marking the start of “The Great War,” and drawing together people of different backgrounds for concerts and street festivals. May we show the way to something better.

Bread with a Purpose

The United Nations has just released the second part of a study  on the effects of climate change. It seems, no surprise, it will mean our over-consuming lifestyle is ever more certain to contribute to displacement, hardship and hunger, especially for those least able to deal with such developments. Meanwhile, there has also just been a warning that for some of us our breakfast is going to get more expensive–something a lot of us, if we’re honest–will be more directly concerned about.

This may be impetus for some of us to pray more frequently and fervently for the Lord to give us “our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). But there is a more complete way to draw on this part of the model prayer Jesus gave, in connection with what comes before that particular part. Before the petition about what we need for each day, there is the invitation to hallow the Lord’s name, welcome the realization of his kingdom, and to look for his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Perhaps then, the “daily bread” part that then follows has to do with being nourished and strengthened to have our part in the fulfilling of the previous good things. In so doing, perhaps we will conduct our lives in a more responsible way, one that will help to alleviate, maybe even start to correct, some of the problems of supply in our earthly life that might have led us (back) to prayer in the first place.

The Dangerous Mind

The co-editors of the book The Syria Dilemma have written in a New York Times opinion piece that there is an abundance of food just a few miles away from the blockaded areas where thousands upon thousands of Syrians are starving. Danny Postel and Nader Hashemi note that, according to the United Nations, about 800,000 Syrians are currently under siege. This sad state of affairs bears out the truth of a pattern of human behaviour described symbolically in the Book of Revelation, chapter 6. Conquest (white horse) brings conflict (red horse), leading to scarcity (black horse) and death (pale green horse).

We will all decry this situation as cruel and tragic, but we need to recognize that, on a personal level, our own mindset can also be cruel and tragic, when our mindset is controlling and manipulative. Let’s be honest; there’s some control freak in all of us. But some people actually know this about themselves and think it is well and good because, just like some leaders on the world stage, they have convinced themselves that their contolling behaviour is for the greater good, without realizing or caring what kind of damage they do, inevitably in the process. The controlling mind is a dangerous mind.