A few observations about the near end of the world, yesterday

Posted on May 22, 2011 by doradueck

1. It was an effective campaign. People everywhere noticed the billboards, the ads, and seemed to be talking about the rapture/end of the world happening at 6 p.m. yesterday. And I don’t mean just the talkers on Facebook and Twitter, the ordinaries on the street, like you and me. This got itself an article on the editorial page of our city newspaper, for example, and a news report in… well, last time I checked, there were more than 4800 articles that appeared in various media. I wonder why this grabbed so much attention?

2. I have no sense of humor. Of course it was bizarre. Of course I knew it wouldn’t happen. (Didn’t we all, except those poor deluded people who did?) But I just couldn’t get into a ha-ha or mockery mode over this. I wasn’t surprised by the jokes from the secular folks, but I was surprised, I have to say, by all the jokes from Christians. I don’t know why I’m feeling just a little cranky about that, but I am. Maybe I just wish we’d laugh as hard over the false prophets behind the ads for cereal, cars, Tim Hortons, you name it, that promise transcendence, the good life, justice through consumption.

3. On May 22, the end is still near. At least for me. Memento mori. (Remember that you must die. Remember your mortality.) Lord, have mercy.

4. A poem by Czeslaw Milosz posted by Debra Dean Murphy at her Facebook page touched me the most in the days leading up to May 21. I don’t pretend to understand what the poet intends here — I find it provocative, really — but it has me reflecting on everything so new and green this Sunday after two days of rain, and the meaning of “End,” and how we might expect yet still overlook it. With thanks to DDM for the link, here’s “A Song on the End of the World” by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Anthony Milosz. It was written in 1944, that is, in the context of the Second World War.

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world will there be,
No other end of the world will there be.

Links to wisdom

Posted on May 2, 2011 by doradueck

As news of the death of Osama Bin Laden broke last evening, with that peculiar voyeuristic excitement such events take on as we sit nearly mesmerized in front of the television and listen to commentators say the same thing over and over again — Osama Bin Laden is dead, Osama Bin Laden is dead, Osama Bin Laden is dead — the reaction seemed all jubilation. I felt uneasy, I confess, but wasn’t sure if I should. I’m Canadian, after all, not a New Yorker, not an American. But this morning I began to hear others expressing similar dis-ease, in comments on Facebook, in blog posts, places like that. Here’s one piece of wisdom (“Vengeance does not equal peace”) that touched me especially, from Heather Plett, because she spoke to this situation from a place of deep learning of her own.

And then I was running some errands and caught Jian Ghomeshi’s interview with Maya Angelou on Q at CBC. And that was another gift of wisdom on this Monday, nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden, but one sentence after the other in that thoughtful, melodious voice of hers, about being human, getting the job she wanted when no one would give her the time of day because she was “Negro,” saying sorry, how we carry home with us, being a role model, and more. If you have 23 minutes or so, why not have a listen, here. Hers is such a beautiful spirit.

Tipping towards the bigger and the whole

Posted on February 22, 2011 by doradueck

How happy I was Saturday morning to wake to the headline of the Winnipeg Free Press, “Justice for Candace,” and to read that the jury, late the previous evening had returned a verdict of guilty. I’ve mentioned the trial here, and I won’t say more, as all the details are in the news and the rest belongs to the family and closest friends, our part now to share in their gladness of arrival and to honor their pledge “to love, to forgive, and to live”…

But I want to say that I was quite taken with the trial’s final day — yes, with the drama of it, and the contrasting styles of the two lawyers, for the defense and for the prosecution, but most particularly with the judge’s instructions to the jury. Newly appointed Manitoba chief justice Glenn Joyal’s reading of his charge took about three hours. I had no idea what such instructions might entail, but it was a thorough review of how the jurors should proceed to reach a (unanimous) decision, the relevant law for this case, and the evidence they had heard from the opposing sides. He talked, for example, about the meaning of “beyond a reasonable doubt”; how they might go about assessing witnesses and their testimony, their honesty, etc.; how they must make their decision based only on the evidence, which included the submitted exhibits and the things witnesses had said; how they must not speculate but could infer. (He explained the difference between speculation and inference.) He reminded that the accused’s silence could not be used against him and told them that how much they relied on “expert opinion” was entirely up to them. It was the “cumulative effect of all the evidence” that was important, not any individual item. Continue reading →