The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry is the English translation of Scottish poet Robbie Burns oft-quoted poem. It also gave John Steinbeck the title for his book “Of Mice and Men” published in 1937
I remembered the quotation when I realised that despite the best intentions, 6 weeks have gone by since my previous post here about the cycle of life. Reading that post today, I notice that not much has changed.
One good thing is that on May 19th, I finished my year of daily walks without missing a day. I went on for 369 consecutive days. I achieved the goal of walking every day for a year. Now, I can enjoy taking a break and having an extra hour of sleep on Sunday mornings.
What’s next on the walking calendar? With the travel restrictions still in place, it’s unlikely that I will be able to get to France to walk another Camino de Santiago this year so I am starting to think about one in 2022. I plan to explore some local Ontario trails in the next couple of months. Until then, my 6 mornings-a-week walks will keep me fit both physically and spiritually.
Best-Laid Plans for The Yakking Show
One area of my life where the best laid plans have not gone awry is the Yakking Show podcast.
My co-host, Kathleen Beauvais and I recorded our 124th episode yesterday. For those of you who are not familiar with the show, here’s the background. We started the show in March 2020 right at the start of the hysteria about the coronavirus. It was a way to bring a little light into the gloom and despondency that the media, politicians, and medical publicity seekers were spreading. We also wanted to give small businesses and creative people some publicity to promote their work. The show has exceeded our wildest expectations.
We have met some amazing and interesting people, learned about ideas, businesses, concepts, and strategies that we did not know anything about, and had a lot of fun. We are always looking for guests with interesting stories, new ideas or exciting projects. Visit our website to apply to be on the show.
But, and there’s always a but, the show takes a huge amount of time. We estimate a minimum of 5 hours per episode. That includes finding and vetting guests, preparing a plan for each episode, the interview, editing and creating graphics for the video, uploading and sharing on social media.
The Continuing Cycle of Life
It seems that the media and politicians with vested interests find even more opportunities to divide society and cause conflict between groups. Many US states and other countries are rapidly returning to normal. “Cases” in Canada are diminishing (on 21 June 2021, 535 seriously ill people in all of Canada is not a pandemic.) It’s becoming increasingly difficult for all levels of government to justify the ridiculous restrictions that have been in place.
Now it’s all about ramping up the propaganda to focus on variants, vaccines, and vaccinations. To find novel ways to discriminate against those who exercise their constitutional rights not to participate in human trials of an unapproved, inadequately tested drugs. Drugs that are causing deaths and other adverse reactions.
As mentioned in my previous post the attempts to portray all white people as racists, all Christians as homophobic and all Conservatives as White Supremacists continue with renewed vigor.
Hypocrisy
For the Ontario government to amend regulations so that huge crowds could attend a funeral for a Moslem family killed in tragic circumstances while arresting Christian pastors and locking churches is rank hypocrisy and further evidence if any was needed that the whole coronavirus scare is all about control and not health.
It’s common knowledge that the abuses of the residential school system were a dark stain on Canada’s history. The dismay over the finding of 200 children’s bodies at a school is understandable, but to use it as a reason to cancel Canada Day celebrations smacks of appeasement.
For government officials and others to make political capital out of both of these tragic events is disgraceful.
I also mentioned the Pendulum Theory in that post. Every day that goes by reinforces my feeling that we are reaching the bottom of the slippery slope towards the end of democracy with representative and accountable governments. Either the pendulum theory is correct and we will start swinging back to normality in 2023 as the book predicts or we fall over the edge into an abyss of anarchy, revolution and civil war.
The Surprising Role Of The Church
Surprisingly, mainstream churches have not stood up to government oppression and persecution around the world during this period. Surprising because historically, churches have always opposed the governments of the day whenever church leaders believed (rightly or wrongly) that governments were acting inhumanely. Churches have been outspoken about prison reform, care of the poor, treatment of illegal immigrants. The World Council of Churches and its members individually opposed the governments of Rhodesia and South Africa. They supported terrorists materially and financially – including the group that murdered my father.
Dietrich Bonhoffer, a German priest was executed by the Nazis in 1945 for speaking out during Hitler’s campaign to silence all opposition.
But now in 2020 and 2021, the traditional churches quickly submitted to the decrees of authoritarian governments, complied with inhumane demands, and largely abandoned the very people they professed to care for. Sure, churches soon organized online “virtual” church services. But churches closed. Unprecedented. Churches remained open during the London Blitz, terrorist incursions, and civil unrest in Africa and South America, even in Syria with bombs falling.
Missed Opportunities
Churches have been complaining about falling attendance and a lack of interest. They have missed the biggest opportunity since WWII to give people strength, comfort, and support. Instead of providing a beacon of hope and keeping the doors open to do what they are supposed to, they meekly rolled over and complied with unconstitutional demands to abandon their flocks.
It’s been left to the committed leaders and members of the independent churches to continue to provide that support and behave as Christians should.
Many of these brave pastors have been arrested, fined, harassed, churches have been locked and vandalized. But their organizations have made it possible for Christians to gather on Sundays. In alternate buildings, outside on lawns, in sports complexes, and on farms. Many of these “pop-up” church services are attracting hundreds of worshippers – often far more than at their regular services in normal times.
Light At The End Of The Tunnel
Despite the gloom, I believe we will soon see the turnaround, the pendulum will start to swing back.
Why? Humanity has been on the edge of this abyss many times before. Authoritarian leaders eventually become victims of their own excesses, Hitler, Mussolini, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Nero, and many more. They will be joined by the likes of Ford, Trudeau, Biden, and their partners in crime responsible for blatantly false models, oppressive and unjustified restrictions, and manipulation.
Oppression triggers revolution. The results are never pretty, often violent. Revolutions can replace relatively benign systems with better ones. Often they achieve the opposite effect replacing bad systems with even worse ones. However, revolutions, whether violent or peaceful bring about change.
The tide is turning. People are waking up, protest marches are attracting greater numbers. More people are throwing away useless and unhealthy masks. More businesses are pushing the envelope and opening to survive.
In Conclusion
It’s clear to me that things may get worse before they improve. There will be adversity. The best-laid plans for many individuals and organizations will go awry. But life will go on, we may have to change our plans and adapt. Our perseverance and resilience will be tested. We must not give up hope.
Those are my thoughts as we remain in a state of uncertainty. Our politicians and medical puppet masters seem intent on prolonging the suffering instead of following the example of those leaders in Texas, Florida and other regions which have allowed their societies to return to normal with no adverse effects.
You might disagree, feel free to comment.
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