Random equations. Dawn M. Nevills

 Surely, think I, this insidious, creeping malady cannot make us turn on ourselves, reawaken old hatreds, ignite old fears, stoke mistrusts, feed blind greed....salve nothing but disregard in moments still so possible with potential.

Surely, think I, this being called Man, this shell, this thing that is me, too - with all of these tools - cannot forget the Breath on Clay that made him Whirlwind, realized: miraculous Accident of the Ages, exploded and knit together, over millenia, like molded rocks, shocked back to life, and fulcrum wiser.  

Surety: the thing of children, comforted. The Mirror of the Ages, held. Time, still, for Patience, achieved.

Agony, that it has taken so many patients. The Lesson learned, again.

Times, they are a changin'.

 Much has been made lately about a little congregation - quite a good, wonderful sized one, actually - and its leadership, of late, in the midst of pandemic, frustration, loneliness, anxiousness, and a desire for the Comforter and comaraderie of believers which the Church of God says it is, understands, and with whom it wants to communicate. 

Being "in this world, but not of it", the community of believers within the larger community has sought, and still seeks, with earnestness and intent, to remind the greater world of the strength, mission, and purpose of the Christian mind. But, as Wordsworth reminds us, though we listen to the "still small voice" that many believe is the holiness of existence, which is of God, and therefore runs through all living things, it is important not to lose sight of the struggle for survival in which we are - like it or not - thrown together. This is not a war anyone chose, or wants to be involved in ending....and yet, we are in the midst of it. The combatants are human beings, and a virus. The virus, whether consciously recognizing that it wants to win or not, is seeking ways in which it will triumph, and survive, in a very real, physical sense, based on methodical circumvention of all protections - including misinterpreted spiritual assurance. With that victory, will come our demise. We do not, at this point, fully understand either its source, nor its capability. With this doubt, I invite the conjecture that if it only operates within the guise of the physical world, then its existence is simply realized appetite and a search for dominance and survival in order to achieve just that. The Christian mind will immediately realize the innate imbalance in this type of will, and its impetus. Others, perhaps, will not. The virus will actually use us, to a certain extent, as host, to achieve this end. We cannot invite it in, to do so. We must remember our lives have value beyond the surface; that our concern and care, beyond the moment, beyond politics, beyond our own understanding and perception, even, touches and connects with other human beings in the most chaotic of moments, and in the darkest times, and reminds them that despite all manner of failure, misperception, frustration and cruelty, a stayed hand, and a moment of fierce and perhaps unexpected, kindness, still changes the World. Compassion is a ripple that moves the composition and Desire of Human Beings, however errant, both Water and Carbon. One need not even acknowledge that this small housing can contain an undanted Spirit that bolsters men and comforts the lost, unapologetically, and that quietly teases us back to our best selves, when needed.    

We must not be friendly, however, to this virus, nor underestimate its innate lack of respect for ALL things in an evolved existence.... including other beings. It is hoping we follow its example, rather than our normal impulses towards proximity, trust, and blindly ignoring the physical world housing our spirits: our bodies, because its premise and r'aison d'etre is unmitigated and unrestrained APPETITE. It view Death as Delectable. Currently, that is exactly what the parishioners and its leader are doing, too, sadly: forgetting that they do not live within a nucleus which does not affect, nor is affected by, anything or anyone else. Anger has replaced clarity. Outrage has replaced a sense of Clear and Present Danger. 

I am of the mind that this will change, in an instant, with the enlightenment and the quieted mind that comes from a simple piece of cloth: like Moses, it can change the world - or spread smallpox and kill a nation. Breath, protected.

We must exhibit the learning that is not of ego, but is shrewd to its ways. And that all of us - even, and perhaps ESPECIALLY - an 85-year old woman with all of her faculties, quite capable of making both her own financial decisions, and the way in which she will honour God by saving her own life, suddenly, and with a slight jolt, shows others that theirs are still of value, too. The exasperated police officer, boxed in and fuming, thought so, too, and honoured her independence with a ticket. It should have been to a concert. Alas, it was not one he wanted to punch, either.

Let us hope this one does not lead, inexorably and gradually, as does all desensitization, to a gas chamber of insensitivity, and oblivion.  

 

   

A mole moment - by Dawn M. Nevills

 "The remake of Mole People Moments", she announced, dramatically to no one in particular. 

..."or; what happens when someone is threatened with never seeing the sun again." She smiled to herself. 

"Hello", she said, dryly. "You don't have to sneak in you know; if you were nicer to me I'd even make you a cup of tea. "

He looked a little sheepish, and rubbed his nose. Darn it. She heard him, every time. 

"So; sad again, huh?"she said, to the page, not turning around. "Why are you trying to get my attention again? Last time you told someone you wished I was dead. That was not very nice, especially considering I prayed for you the last time you got accused of "willfully assisting a relative to engage in a travel plan not of their own making". Very awkward......and no, I'm not dead."

"Sorry;", he said, simply. 

"So; if only you could be happy a little, then you wouldn't have to be such a control freak, right?" she leaned her head to one side, swivelling to look him full in the face. 

"You're really such a good guy, Mo. I wish you had more friends. It's hard, though. You didn't really mean it when you said you wished I was dead, did you? " She narrowed her eyes. "No fibbing."

He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "I was mad." 

"Okay, so......you know if those you cared about were less spirited, you would regard them with far less affection....more like a pet, really.  And yet.....we can't seem to get past this." 

She patted him on the arm. 

"It's very difficult to stay brave enough to tell you the truth. But I still am." She smile. He smiled, too.

"Perhaps, for just a moment, we will just be gentle, less sad, and .....at ease." He sighed. 

   

 

Moving into 2021 - Renewal and Regrowth...or Regression: CHOOSE

      In the midst of what can only be described as what Dickens imagined as "the worst of times" - at least for the masses - and with a curt nod to all the chaos that COVID has wrought, it is with a cautious, but not diminished, sense of the possible in 2021, that I explore the following: 

Are Friends Electric? 

In what can only be described as the palpable and clear embrace of sustainable auto technology in action, and after long and excruciating efforts by the Tesla team to become what is a modern day "possible" story - and a very real "industry kick" to other automakers whose sluggish response repeatedly dragged in response to repeated and ardent calls for the evolution of the industry - the tradition of both Henry Ford, and Lee Iacocca's Chrysler, along with many other current hybrid and all-electric pioneers, have blossomed, with Tesla's fierce determination to wean the world off of fossil fuels.  

     HOWEVER...this need not mean the end of the COMBUSTION ENGINE in everyday vehicles, as we know them. They could, in fact, EVOLVE within the greater confines, and on a surprisingly economical basis, of a nation whose fulcrum and sustaining force has been - you guessed it - AGRICULTURE. So, for those who have worried that combustion technology is dying, I posit the idea that it has simply required the embrace of a green approach. 

Frankly, it irks me that I had this discussion, while teaching as an Associate Professor in the local community college in the early 90's. At the time, I discussed clear and simple developments which were, at that time, neither attractive nor fashionable beyond the greed of the day, and despite my personal encouragement, investment in, and involvement in, both recycling and renewing efforts at that time, many of the hopefilled and hopeful funds directed towards recycling programs and green energy considerations were abandoned after only two or three years, at best - both across the border, and in Canada - within an industry that refused to understand that cyclical industry requires all manner of inception and demise considerations. Thus, programs which were begun to recycle plastics, and who benefited from the direction of funds towards these efforts, were both poorly directed, and abandoned, after what appeared to be a facile response to a deep and worrisome issue of desecration and the need for a selfsustaining industry which met with marketing, instead of moratorium and research. Articles by the Sierra Club will attest to the fact that plastics that were supposed to be recycled and part of efforts to conduct both research and palpable technologies in support of this - and despite the feel good and earnest efforts of the man and woman on the street to truly adopt the idea of blue box life, and the separation of recyclables - were in actuality dumped and buried in landfill sites, both clandestinely and in direct opposition to the supposed marketing efforts that were, simply, all ad and no grad. It was, as we are wont to hear, a TOKEN effort at seeming development by an industry that had both the opportunity, and the funds, to truly get into and research alternate fuels, recyclable plastics, and a serious approach to both. I will give you several simple, reasonable, and politically concerning examples:

1. Someone needs to explain to me how a man with a fish and chips truck could convert his vehicle into one that ran on REUSED vegetable oil - without any major change in either engine components, or output filters - beyond the very basics. Sure, it smelled like fries wherever he went....but who does not like McDonalds fries....and what is wrong with a smell of appetite and reward, instead of death and pollution.   In response to an Alberta whining and worried, about the shutdown of pipeline, I say this to you: the Wide open Western prairies await you, with clean, sustainable oil that can run in existing combustion engines, and sustain both the technology itself - with little change beyond the finite, and necessary, workings - made from corn, vegetables, and other natural sources, which neither disturb the Continental Shelf, destroy the Canadian Shield, or wreak destruction by means of continued oil drilling and an insistence upon the devastation caused by fossil fuels, along with the destruction of the human species, as we poison our water supply with every oil drilling accident, across the gulfs, in the Arctic, and in every ocean bed which has suffered the undeveloped drilling technology which still cannot adequately cap the unleashed fury of a fossil fuel bed, released. YOU COULD BE THE CATALYST FOR THE GREENING OF A NATION BY ABANDONING THE BURIED, AND, instead,  GROWING THE FUTURE: all this with minor changes in the combustion engine, as it exists. This is unconscionable, and after the US bailout of the BIG 3.....absolutely unacceptable. THE ANSWER IS CLEAN UP, NOW. IMMEDIATELY. TRANSITION IS POSSIBLE, INDUSTRY IS SAVABLE, AND SO IS THE ROAR OF A GLINT-FILLED SET OF EYES, AND THE PURR OF AN ENGINE, THAT RUNS ON THE SPARK AND GUTS OF THEIR CREATORS:HUMAN BEINGS.  All without destroying the very possibility of sustainable life, as water disappears, along with natural habitats and species - including us.  

2.WHILE you are developing this CLEAN OIL from GREEN GROWTH, in order to run the engines that you have already developed, (having failed on many occasions to move beyond it, and consider hybrid, until the fossil resources either ran out, or you were FORCED to do so, by a changing world), you can start digging up some of the plastic which you have buried - instead of recycling - in landfills which now must be CLEANED, and sifted free of plastics, in order to allow for biodegradable processes which will NEVER  break down the plastics which are a very real danger to the water table resources which sustain us all. And we must do this TOGETHER, WITHOUT BLAME. In a regressive mentality which has seen the degradation of nations and the repression of man by man, in the fight for oil, we must transition, and transition now. Entire deserts await greening by ocean-fed saline plants which will sustain people, create jobs, and offer renewal and sustaining industry which embraces life - not death - as its guiding light. There is no more excuse. Even the tanks which now hold fossil fuels can hold the green oil which they will replace, with existing infrasture that becomes, not polluting, but sustaining, as an industry.  

3. Plastic production, as an industry, must immediately examine, and implement, a cyclical approach to its own output - along with the computer industry, and other industries that need to understand that product-to-demise, self sustaining approaches to their own industries ensure their longevity, not their demise, for job opportunities for future generations. Thus, cycles of industrial production must begin to earnestly embrace recycling, revamping, refurbishing, and reintegrating materials used in production from both obsolete products, and product lines, and technological efforts which must also include hefty investments in sustainable hydro development that does not displace peoples with hydro dam construction, put increasing strain on existing grid structures designed to serve the population of a 1947 grid capacity, and, as offshoots, create more jobs in hydro-producing areas like wind techology, solar technology, and POTATO BATTERY mentality which recognizes that the truly great industry is the one with total control over its output, its waste, its outdated materials, and the use of old models to build new ones. Indeed, in sharing of technology with bereft nations, a very real beginning to its use and part of everyday life will make better lives for ALL, even with the very basics at their fingertips: kind of like giving your baby clothes to your sister, your cousins, your neighbours.....and when they become unwearable, MAKING OTHER THINGS OUT OF THEM: beautiful, woven rugs (which will also renew and restore a tradition of handicrafts worldwide abandoned to the detriment of a generation that has no clue what a rag rug, or a corking implement with which to make them out of strips of old shirts and carefully cut lines of recycled cloth which morph into unimaginable beauty, in concept, design, and implementation, is - much like the pert little green oil dune buggy of tomorrow, the snowmobile powered by solar powered greenhouse production in the Arctic made from plastic bricks, and able to withstand and support the rigours of an icy North, and the breathable, healthy clothes which do not create skin conditions, are not made from plastic, and which should be insulating us for space, not a night on the town. Ask any dermatologist. Many of the allergies now experienced by human beings are the direct result of exposure to, proximity to, or consumption of, biproducts of the plastics offshoot industry of the energy sector. We need to use these helpful, unique things PROPERLY. We need to make skis that run on sunpower for the disabled and the elderly!

consider, if you will, just a few:

- BRICKS made from recycled plastic containers, which either interlock (read LEGO) with adhesives made from the SAME RECYCLED MATERIALS, and laid down with adhesive by the same skilled artisanship with which brick masons of old built much less sustainable structures, which have lasted for many years, but which have much less potential to maintain a clean exterior, a very real insulation capability, and a strength tailor made for hydroponics, animal shelter, safe grain and produce storage, backyard sheds, garages, and outbuildings for farm operations, and other efforts - including portable or simple housing which is cleanly, brightly painted (with PAINT MADE FROM RECYCLED PLASTIC) which could provide public housing for the poor, and an end to squalid barrios. All this, by cleaning up a shitload of plastic currently polluting our ecosystem. 

- PAINT (acrylic, providing both a protective and sturdy shield of its own) which could brighten BOTH electric and green oil vehicles.....made from recycled plastic, and providing a tough, resilient, finish that is both practical, and attractive. We will LITERALLY have a morphing vehicle, made beautiful by what we screwed up on:our misapplication and ridiculous lack of foresight in disposing of, plastics. 

-INSULATION MADE FROM, AND IN COMBINATON WITH, EXISTING FIBREGLASS. Not only does it provide for better properties for existing insulation, by providing....you guessed it....a TIGHT SEAL for insulation, instead of a sopping mess of spun glass with the first crack in what should be, but isnèt yet, a solar roof, but we can actually CREATE ANOTHER INDUSTRY TO BOLSTER THE FAILING AND SHORTSIGHTED OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY BY CLEANING UP ITS FLUNG PLASTIC, providing it with NEEDED INCOME WITH WHICH TO CONTINUE efforts to make the plastics production process totally sustainable, and less dependent upon dangerous chemicals and caustic breakdown solutions, in order to recreate using reclaimed materials from abandoned products.  Although these are both helpful and a good start, the pellets and shard breaking down of existing polymers which still require chemical addition and caustic blending in order to morph recycled products into reused plastics.....simply need to be made into other things, to begin with, in order for us to clean up this terrible mess: lamps, windmill leaves constructed by recycled plastic squares and pieced together by strong bond adhesives made from the same, recycled things to create and be a part of alternative energy sources......all while the actual production of plastics is rethought, reworked.....and made less damaging. From start to finish, we must be able to make use of these products by a TRUE recycling mentality which BEGINS with the industry itself. Need a windmill....build it from recycled plastic. Build a garden shed out of it. Those helpful hampers which hold our clothes can become packing pellets - reused themselves, and made into patio stones with the addition of adhesives that can be hosed off and made into placeable paths which show our skill and creativity - not our stupidity - through the gardens of tomorrow, as we forge pathways ahead for the next generation. THESE are the kinds of efforts this money should embrace......it is time the INDUSTRY itself, took seriously its POTENTIAL FOR RECOVERY, by CLEANING UP ITS MESS. Create some useful things, and put the money into the research needed for evolved production which does NOT POLLUTE. NO MORE EXCUSES.....ONLY OPPORTUNITY AND HOPE FOR THE GENERATIONS OF TOMORROW. 

I have many thoughts, including the idea that we can actually begin this NOW, with both existing vehicles produced, and the current production lines working on combustion engine vehicles, because it is still a viable technology - we have just been looking in the wrong place for its fuel. We need to consider life - not death - when we look to tomorrow. 

And although these developments and a renewed mentality may well take us to the stars, with the required humility to move into the universe, chastened, at the tipping point of chaos and end with which we have ALL been more respectful of each other, our lives, and our need to love one another with a renewed sense of Gods gift of humanity in His own image, COVID has forced us to consider our death with the gravity it deserves, and the ideal of a purposeful, loving life which is the essence of the Spirit, the force, and the sensibility of good and potential which is of the Almighty, and runs, unchecked and hopeful, through a mighty and beautifully crafted universe.  

May I have the courage to continue to share my hopes and thoughts and ideas; may we all not succumb to failure - but to perhaps tenuous and ensuing steps towards its opposite, and victory, which are necessary for progress, and may be encouraged by the examples we have in this life, and in this generation, of both, in human beings who have lost faith in neither potential, nor the bravery to love, as we have been instructed: fiercely, and without fear.