Thoughts and Prayers

Thoughts and Prayers:A Derringer Versus a Rocket Launcher

When I was a very young boy I prayed for many things including puppies and bicycles. Usually my prayers were self serving and maybe that’s why they were never answered.  I got my puppy and the bike I wanted when I was an adult and could buy those things for myself.  It was not an answer to prayer.  

When it comes to some natural or man made disaster in which many people are injured or killed people are quick to send their “Thoughts and Prayers.”  Others send money and supplies necessary to aid the victims, or to help the situation, maybe those who act in such a way are the answer to prayer, or not. One’s position in this scenario will depend on personal belief in prayer.  It is extremely difficult to argue this position on prayer as it all comes down to faith, so I won’t even try.

I do know for many who really do not truly care, do not want to get involved, or do not wish to donate money, will instead of any form of real action, send their thoughts and prayers.  “Thoughts and Prayers” are a rallying call to inaction.  One social media posting mocked these people and this idea with a picture of an empty transport trailer with the caption: “The first truck load of thoughts and prayers arrive to alleviate the suffering of hurricane victims in Florida.”  

When in comes to mass murders in the United States thoughts and prayers are sent out on a weekly or daily basis as demand for this service is extremely high.  There is no apparent way to stop multiple murderers who use automatic rifles in high density venues as according to experts like President Trump this is not a gun issue, it is a mental health issue.  However, there is an apparent abundance of crazy people with easy access to all manner of weaponry.

In relative terms, of the thousands of people who die from guns in the United States every year only a small percentage fall under the mass murder category, so probably, other than for the victims themselves, their friends and families, not really a pressing national concern. These horrible events happen in churches, movie theatres, schools, open air concerts, road side, or just at random public locations. At this point in time, I for one, and likely along with the vast majority of people have become somewhat desensitized by the scope and scale of these murders.

Back in the Al Capone days  when the St Valentine’s Day massacre occured seven gangsters were machined gunned to death.  It was a billed a “massacre” and these were gansters not even innocents.  Now if seven innocents from the general public are shot down in a school it hardly makes the news cycle because the day before some other killer took the record with 54 killings. In fact killings of this scale and frequency are now part of the American fabric. 

Attachment, no let’s say addiction to the second amendment renders frequent multiple deaths the necessary collateral damage for freedom, for gun freedom that is, which is a little different from safety on the streets, although sometimes the concepts are confused and often merged as one.

I know at one time through the sixties and every decade to the present I have followed the  progression of mass shootings, the public angst, the call for gun reform, then the calm between storms.  The calms are shorter in duration and the storms far more violent and not much has changed.  Partialy do to short term memory, the power of the NRA and other lobby groups, self serving corrupt politicians, and those people who simple love guns more then people.

Now when the next killings happen and that will be in a few days I will send no thoughts or prayers.  This is no longer a tragedy as that suggests some momentous catoustrophic event that can not be stopped.  This violence can be stopped.  Americans choose not to stop it.  I regret so many have died and so many more will die, but until people believe life is more important than the right to bare arms there will be no substantial change, only minor token gestures.

Democracy is no longer a democracy when controlled by lobby groups.  America is the most highly armed civilian population in the world.  In those states where there is slightly more stringent gun control the stats on death are not so grim.  Sadly, this is not an argument about logic.  It has to do with faith.  Americans have faith in guns for their security and as with religion one can not argue faith.

Thoughts and prayers won’t change anything, the vote someday might, but that takes political will, common sense, good judgement and different priorities and that is like a derringer facing a rocket launcher.

A Spiral Dance of Squirrels: A Modest Bestiary

Spiral Dance of Squirrels:  Inspired by "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk" A Modest Bestiary, by David Sedaris with illustrations by Ian Falconer Published by Little Brown and Company 2010

Spiral Dance of the Squirrels

There was once a family of black squirrels who lived happily in a large Maple tree on a secluded quiet street in a small suburban neighbourhood.  Father squirrel thought he did everything right, or at least very well within exceptable squirrel parameters.  He worked hard at gathering nuts, and taking care of their young brood of babies making sure they were well groomed and taken care of both in an emotional and physical sense.  He played games with them and kept them entertained with stories he made up about the other animals in the nearby forest.

He soon discovered that mother squirrel was not as content as she once was when they first did their mating rituals when he had to chase her to dizzying heights up and down trees to get her attention. It started with little things like the nest was never big enough or nice enough.  She always made conversations about herself even when the kids came home from nut gathering or even just play with exuberant stories of their adventures. She had a powerful way of making their stories small and by extension making them feel small.  Maybe this made her feel big.

She played her own games of praising one of the babies for some small accomplishment while ignoring the others.  This seemed to make the others compete for mom’s attention and make the favoured one angry with her sibs for doing so. The baby squirrels would brings extra twigs at nest building time or find an extra chestnut all to gain mother’s favour and be the chosen one, only to find that this status was rewarded on a rotating basis and when one fell from grace it was a humiliating and painful experience.  

Despite the perpetual pain the baby squirrels always tried to please their mom even when she gossiped about them to others, even outside the nest, or when she listened in on their private conversations.  Mother was good at using the information for her own purpose constantly causing disharmony and chaos in the family while all the time saying how much she loved them all equally.

Eventually, Daddy squirrel grew to the outside of the family because he had a sense of how wrong things were and he and mother would fight over many little things like the conditions in the nest, how the young were treated, any little thing became an issue until one day Daddy saw Mother squirrel running spirals up another Maple tree with a grey squirrel from another territory.  

When Father asked about mother’s bizarre behaviour he was told that he was allowed to stay in the nest to help take care of their young but she would continue to do the mating spiral rituals with other squirrels as she now found this more to her liking.  Meanwhile, the young oblivious to daddy’s plight just kept on competing for her attention as their mom introduced them to many of her new male friends, even taking them on trips together.

Eventually Dad felt he had no choice and after a big argument with his wife, for which she later convinced all their friends was his fault, he left the nest to another forest, first one near by and then one more distant.  Too late he realized that if he had lied, gossiped, cheated, used the children as pawns and done the mating spiral with many other squirrels, as his wife had done, his children would probably still see him, but as it was his wife had pretty well convinced all in the forest of his evil ways and bad intentions.  Much to late he realized that playing by the rules of the forest does not work.

Mother squirrel got all the nuts and the nest too. 

Unmasked by the Sun (poem)

Unmasked

Slowly towards the pier

Moving sure and silent

Barefoot in dew wet grass.

The day had expired,

the night approached

Tentatively,

Grey at first, finally

Black and ebony,

The total night.

It was as cool and fresh

As the day had been 

Hot and oppressive.

Relief was welcomed and savoured

As he sat on the old wooded pier.

Tired yet he could not sleep

He sought relief with the eternal

Lapping of the small waves.

On his back he could smell the musty

Boards of the old structure

and hear its weary creaks

Staring up at the perfect sky.

His senses alive.

The stars much brighter than

Thoses visible in the city.

The water almost calm,

The reflection of the shore

Only slightly distorted.

In the night the Earth became near

Perfect.

Imperfection hidden,

Reality unmasked by the sun.