Current Events

Parking Lots and Wineskins

/ Dennis A. Gray / Leave a comment

For those expecting Canada to make concessions so we get a deal with the current U.S. administration; where have you been living for the past 18 months?

It’s become increasingly obvious that Agent Orange doesn’t really want a deal. He has frequently said so, and in just so many words. If there is a deal, that means there’s rules that need to be followed, and rules are the one thing he considers to be most beneath him. Iron-clad contracts are a thing that exist only in the minds of other people. Recent history has made it clear that for him a deal is only something he can take credit for, until it gets in his way, then it becomes an atrocity someone else created, which he had nothing to do with it, even if it has his signature on it.

Too many people have forgotten that there is only one goal in The Autocrat’s agenda – annexing Canada and making it the 51st state. That hasn’t gone anywhere, he just stopped talking about it in the hope we’d forget and act as if it’s not there. Far too many of us have; people who should know better.

All the tariffs, all the threats, everything this Epstein-denier does is designed to fulfill the objective of owning Canada. He said it at the very beginning. How will he get Canada to become the 51st state? By “economic force”; plain and simple, that’s been the plan all along. Add tariffs, remove tariffs, change the rules, ignore the rules, it’s all “weaponized uncertainty” designed to bring us to our knees and have us begrudgingly agree to become part of the U.S. He really doesn’t care if we like it, just so long as it happens.

So what do you do when you need to make a deal with someone who doesn’t want a deal and you have no apparent leverage? You make deals with people who do want a deal, and in so doing build leverage. It doesn’t take a degree in economics to figure that one out. If the Pedophile-in-chief figures we need them more than they need us, then you restructure so we don’t need them as much. You endure the hate, the taunts, the injustice, the tactics while you restructure your economy so that it’s far less reliant on the single relationship.

While that’s going on more and more of the sycophants currently occupying Washington D.C. come to realize they actually do need us, far more than any of them want to admit. It hurts to wait things out for sure; and for smaller businesses and the more disadvantaged among us, it hurts a lot. I’m on a fixed income so I feel the pain, I assure you. However, there’s some truth in the idea of “no pain, no gain”, but that too is leverage. You let the pressure build on the inside until eventually something’s got to give.

Which is why I like what the Prime Minister is doing. Frankly, it reminds me of Jesus’ comments about wineskins.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, there’s a point in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus is asked why his disciples don’t fast (avoid eating for a time, often for religious reasons) the way the Pharisees do. Jesus responds by saying the time is not yet right for his followers to start fasting and gives this analogy …

“No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are ruined, but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.” (Matthew 9:16-17)

What’s he trying to say here? Well, new wineskins (leather bottles commonly used for carrying wine around in the 1st century) are fresh, elastic, and pliable, allowing them to expand under the pressure created when unfermented grape juice ferments and releases gases in the process of becoming wine.  Now in contrast, old wineskins have already been stretched to their limit; they’re dried out, becoming stiff and brittle. They are fine for storing wine, but they can’t take the pressure of the fermentation process. If you try, the old wineskins will burst, resulting in the loss of both the wine and the wineskins. 

Picture of the excavator tearing up my parking spot

As I write this; a large John Deere excavator is out in the parking lot of my condo tearing up the asphalt and loading it into dump trucks so that a new parking lot can be laid. It would be a lot faster, and cheaper, with less inconvenience to just lay down a new layer of asphalt on top of the old one; that’s what they did the last time just before we moved in here more than 25 years ago.

And that is the point; they used that option a quarter of a century ago. If we do it again now, cosmetically it will look great, but underneath it’s just a pretty layer on top of an old crappy layer, which is on top of an even older, crappier layer and chances are it won’t last very long. It will crack and buckle as the layers underneath it shift with time and temperature. The time has come to start over.

Like I said, it seems to me, in a way, that is what Prime Minister Carney is doing, making new wineskins. In this case, new economic infrastructure that will hold up better when we finally do reach some kind of agreement with the unpredictable “genius” south of us. Yes, there is risk, there’s inherent risk in anything new. The new parking lot may well crack anyway, I mean, shift happens. And like the crap my neighbors and I are going through right now, restructuring is going to be a royal pain until everything plays out.

Unfortunately, only time will tell whether my new parking lot and our new economy can handle the traffic.

Melting Pots, Mosaics, and the Body Politic

/ Dennis A. Gray / Leave a comment

When I first watched this video and listened to our Prime Minister discuss the difference between the ‘melting pot’ in the U.S. and the ‘mosaic’ here in Canada my thoughts immediately went to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians…

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. [1 Cor. 12:12-14]

Politicians spend a lot of time trying to express society and the nation with various metaphors that speak to the unity or solidarity of its citizens. Family is a common one, so is team, which I always thought had a real us vs them vibe. But there is one metaphor that they seem to avoid these days, the human body. As Paul points out when referring to the body of believers, each part of the body serves a different purpose but they are all part of the same body, working toward the same goal, the healthy survival of a whole being.

Now, I need to point out that this idea did not begin with Paul of Tarsus. The idea of society functioning as a healthy human body, as far as we know, is first found in the Hindu Rigveda, explaining the caste system by comparing societal roles to different parts of the human body (e.g., mouth, arms, thighs, feet) about 1500 BCE. Plato refined the concept in Republic and Laws in the 4th century BCE, emphasizing that a state’s well-being relies on all its parts functioning properly, while illness represents societal dysfunction. We call this concept the body politic.

Why would Paul draw on a political metaphor to expound on Christian unity? Simply because using common cultural imagery is a habit of his writing. For example in Titus he quotes the Cretan poet Epimenides: “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” Again, in 1 Corinthians 15 he quotes Greek playwright Menander: “Evil company corrupts good habits. So it is no surprise that he uses what, for an educated Roman citizen, would have been a common image of the structure of a society.

So why then, do we so seldom hear politicians today use the body politic as a metaphor in their appeals for unity? I think it’s to avoid the obvious question, “If you think the nation is a body, then why don’t you take better care of it?“

Indeed, regarding the body of citizens as functioning like an actual human body would, quite naturally, imply that one has a responsibility to maintain that body. If your ankle hurts, you try to ease the pain. You might start with a salve or ointment. You might wear a brace of some kind. If the pain persists then you would seek medical attention, but regardless of the strategy, the goal is the same, ease the pain, deal with the issue, restore the body to a healthy condition.

If you’re a politician, using a metaphor that highlights your responsibility to listen to the pain of the parts of the body and actually do something about it, is something you might understandably want to avoid.

That was the point of a publication called The Body Politic published in Toronto from 1971 to 1987. It was a monthly newspaper and magazine that became the anchor for Canada’s gay liberation and lesbian feminist movements, playing a foundational role in queer journalism, activism, and community building. The various columnists and writers that created and maintained the publication were quick to point out that a large part of Canada’s body politic was in pain and needed serious attention for the nation to be whole.

Of course the LGBTQIA2+ part of Canada’s body are not the only ones suffering. The various members of the aboriginal community, immigrants, women, teenagers, we could go on. Governments of all levels in Canada struggle to adequately listen to and address the pain that each of these groups feels, so again, it no surprise that they avoid using imagery that highlights their lack of action, or even acceptance of the responsibility to the nation’s well-being.

But let’s get back to Paul because the church has missed the larger point of the metaphor as well. While an argument can be made that the church, in all it’s various incarnations, has a somewhat better track record than many levels of government, there are still members of the body of believers who are in pain, who are feeling ignored, even criticized and attacked, and are in desperate need of medical attention.

We talk a good game, but have a long track record of finding more reasons to exclude people from the body of Christ than for including them. We shut people out for not living in the manner we think they should, or for being born just a bit different from us. We amputate parts of the body of Christ over points of theology and dogma that, from my point of view, amount to gnat straining and camel swallowing. (I’ll let you look that one up, but a lot of you get my meaning.)

I think we need to revive the body politic as a common metaphor for the society we live in, not just in Canada, but everywhere, because we need to be reminded that we have a responsibility to do better, as a church, as a society, as a nation, and even, as a species.

Some thoughts on AI in Canada

/ Dennis A. Gray / Leave a comment

I’ve been thinking about AI, like a lot of you, and I’ve come to a few conclusions.

1: It’s not going anywhere. It’s too powerful, too easy to use, and no amount of legislation is going to put this genie back in the bottle. So what does this mean?

2: If we don’t develop a plan, as a society, as a nation, and as a government, to develop and control how and by whom AI is used some other country will do it for us. Likely either the US or China. We’ve made that mistake before, we can’t afford to make it where AI is concerned.

3: Fear of AI is counter productive. The reason Canadians, including our policy makers, are so afraid of AI is because most of the tech bros that control or are trying to control AI are horrendous caricatures of Bond villains. Musk, for example. The ones who aren’t, aren’t in the public eye. We need to focus on them.

4: The thing is those same Bond villains will solve AI’s problems for the same reason they want to own AI to begin with – to make money. Cooling AI is expensive, figuring out how cool data centers efficiently, with as little water as possible, will cost less and thus improve profits. The same with energy usage, size of buildings, everything. Solving these issues will increase profits so they will solve them – eventually.

5: Therefore, the way to control AI is NOT to make it illegal. It’s to speed up that process by making it even more expensive. Make using water to cool data centers expensive enough to encourage R&D into using less but not enough to drive them out of the country. Same with energy, land, and everything else. Just banning it will not stop it. We’ve tried that before too.

Conclusion: As I said before, if we don’t have a plan for AI use and development one will be imposed upon us because trying to make it illegal simply won’t work. We need to make Canada a profitable place to invest in AI that makes doing in a responsible way the most profitable of all.

Beware the Ides of March

/ Dennis A. Gray / Leave a comment

“Beware the Ides of March”

This past Sunday was the 15th of March. As expected, my various social media feeds were inundated with Ides of March memes, some good, some not so good, some downright vicious. But they all got me thinking about betrayal, and not surprisingly I wound up going down a bit of an Ides of March rabbit hole. It’s now Thursday, and in an attempt to bring some closer to this exercise I’d like to share a few thoughts with you.

For the three of you out there who aren’t familiar in the phrase, if you were a citizen of Rome in the heyday of the Roman empire, the ‘ides’ was a fairly important day for you. The Romans didn’t number the days like we do; they relied on the various phases of the moon and counted forward or back from there. The ides marked the appearance of the full moon, regarded as the middle of the month, falling on the 15th in March, May, July, and October, and on the 13th the rest of the year. These days were dedicated to the worship of Jupiter, and the Ides of March, being the first full moon of the new year, held a great deal of spiritual, social, and even economic importance, not only being a sacred day for the worship of Jupiter, but also the annual feast of the goddess of the year – Anna Peranna, and the day on which rents were paid and debts were traditionally settled.

For us March 15th has become synonymous with misfortune and betrayal due to events which culminated in the assassination of Julius Ceasar by numerous members of the Roman Senate on that date in 44 B.C. It’s an event which would likely only be a footnote in history if it weren’t for William Shakespear, whose play “Julius Ceasar” was first performed 1,642 years later in 1599.

In that play the phrase “Beware the Ides of March” entered into popular culture along with “Et tu, Brute!” (You too, Brutus?) as Ceasar’s best friend joined the others in stabbing him twenty-three times. Historians aren’t sure these were actually Julius Ceasar’s last words, or if he said something else entirely, or even anything at all. Never-the-less it has become what is likely the second most famous act of betrayal in history.

Why did they kill him? Well for a number of reasons, but mostly they were fed up with the crazy things he kept doing, many of which seemed completely out to lunch, but listing them here would be a rabbit hole I’m going to avoid. However, one of their complaints has ramifications even today.

Julius Caesar’s support for the Jewish people is well-documented, primarily through the writings of the 1st-century historian Flavius Josephus, who recorded numerous decrees and letters issued by Caesar and the Roman Senate in 47–44 B.C. Among other things they were allowed to worship their own god, and had their own king, even if he was mostly a Roman puppet. These measures were largely a reward for the crucial military aid provided by Jewish forces, led by Antipater and supported by High Priest Hyrcanus II, during Caesar’s siege in Alexandria. 

Many grew to resent the Jews because of their special status and the fact that they refused to assimilate into Roman culture; not eating pork, not celebrating Roman holidays (such as the feast of Anna Peranna), and refusing to worship the emperor along with their own god. Some even suggest that this might be where the global Jewish conspiracy theories had their start, since they had it so good, they must have paid Ceasar for these privileges, etc. etc. etc.

Which brings me to Lent (really, stay with me a moment).

It has always been of some note to me that the Ides of March usually falls within Lent, the 40-day period leading up to Easter, during which much of the world remembers and contemplates the most famous act of betrayal in history, that of Jesus of Nazareth by one Judas Iscariot. I know, the purpose of Lent is to contemplate Jesus’ death and resurrection and what this means spiritually for all mankind, but can you really do that without at least considering Judas’ role in those events? I think not.

And so, I found myself looking once again into the various speculations about why exactly it was that Judas betrayed Jesus. Was it just for the money, for 30 pieces of silver? We aren’t sure exactly which silver coins it was but assuming they were shekels then this was likely about 4 months wages for the average labourer, or the average price of a slave at that time. Not a small amount of money, and John’s gospels tells us that Judas had a habit of dipping into the till (John 12:4-6) so it seems plausible.

Others point primarily to Luke 22:1-6, which some consider proof that possession by Satan was an overwhelming influence on him. John makes mention of this as well (John 13:27). Could Judas be held fully accountable if his actions were the result of demon possession, or is the phrase simply a reflection of what was in Judas’ heart from the very beginning given the testimony of his embezzlement?

However, there’s a third reason often cited for which there is no direct reference in the New Testament but seems to be the most popular in some circles. It is well known that the Jews at the time looked to the promised Messiah as their deliverer from the oppressive heal of the Romans. After Julius Caesar’s death the special status of the Jews was never fully withdrawn, but Roman pressure on them to conform increased substantially.

It has been suggested that when Jesus started making it clear that he wasn’t there to set up an earthly kingdom, but had more ethereal goals in mind, Judas, like many others, was deeply disappointed. Looking for a way to force Jesus’ hand he accepted the priests offer in the hope, that when Jesus was confronted with the soldiers of the High Priest and brought before the authorities, he would ditch the ‘meek and mild’ persona, call down the armies of heaven, and kick the Romans out of Palestine once and for all.

Of course, that didn’t happen. Rather than rally the heavenly troops, Jesus was fully submitted to his fate, and in that sense Judas’ betrayal was revealed, in a way, to be part of the plan. Eventually, remorse kicks in hard for Judas, he throws the money back in the priest’s faces, then goes out and hangs himself. His name is now forever a label for traitors of all stripes. That’s why you don’t see a lot of baby Judases out there any more.

And now the rabbit hole continues, because the story doesn’t end there, unfortunately.

All throughout the church’s history there have been those, like Judas, who have tried to force God to do things their way. Or at the very least tried to make it look like their way was God’s way and to oppose them was to oppose God himself. The Crusades of the 11th through 13th centuries are a prime example.

Motivated by a combination of religious fervor, a desire to aid the Byzantine Empire, and (surprise, surprise) economic pressures, Pope Urban II launched a series of military campaigns designed to recapture the Holy Land from the heathen hordes and fulfill the “will of God” for Jerusalem and the church. It was not an easy win, if a win at all, and the fight would last for centuries. In fact, it would be fair to say it continues still.

Which brings me to the events that started me down this betrayal rabbit hole and prompted this post.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has reported receiving over 200 complaints from members of the American military that their Christian Nationalist commanders are telling them “the Iran war is “part of God’s divine plan” to usher in the return of Jesus Christ.”

MRFF Founder and president Mikey Weinstein was quoted on CNN as saying,

“We look exactly like a ninth version of the eight prior crusades, from the 11th through the 13th century. To Boko Haram, ISIS, the Taliban, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, whether they are Shia or Sunni, we’re just attacking a huge Muslim nation, and all this does is serve as an immeasurable propaganda bonanza for those that we are fighting.”

He makes a pretty good point.

History is replete with Christians who, tired of waiting for General Jesus and the glorious armies of heaven to arrive and drive out everyone they disagree with (which is pretty much everybody) and establish the “new heaven and new earth”, decide to try to force God’s hand and “hasten the day of his return.”

Now, I’m not saying that this is the primary, or even secondary, motivation of the current U.S. administration, frankly I doubt it. But the idea that some commanders in the armed forces with strong ties to certain sects of the Evangelical church are pushing this particular button is completely unacceptable to me, and borders on heresy.

Jesus himself makes it clear that manipulating God’s hand in this, or even predicting the time of Jesus’ return just isn’t an option (Matt. 24:36). And if Jesus can’t foretell the day, then it’s for certain that Pete Hegseth and his capitulating commanders can’t either. As with a whole string of Popes before them, it’s just a nice Biblical smoke screen for greed and power.

It’s hard to watch, because it is in itself a betrayal of what Christians should be about.

Jesus said, “They will know you are my disciples by your love” (John 13:35) not by your military might or your ability to rain righteous fervour down upon your enemies.

He also said, “go and learn what this means, I desire mercy not a sacrifice.” (Matt. 9:13) Far too many Christians spend their time sacrificing relationships, reputations, family members, and neighbours with very few displays of mercy.

If we wish to bring about the manifestation of the kingdom of heaven here on earth these two verses are, for me personally anyway, where we should begin. Feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, healing the sick, and visiting the prisoner; these are the things Jesus says will make the difference in this world that matters into the next. (Matt:41-45)

But then, history usually isn’t written by the merciful, is it?

The Face in the Mirror

/ Dennis A. Gray / Leave a comment

Back when Donald Trump first emerged on the campaign trail I, like many others, couldn’t imagine him getting the nomination let alone being elected. Then, when I heard so many Christians trying to tell me that this lying, cheating, womanizing, self-obsessed misogynist was God’s choice for President of the United States and therefore the de facto “Leader of the Free World” I shuddered at the very thought of it.

There was no part of me that could accept the idea that when God looked out over the landscape seeking a suitable occupant for the White House he saw Donald J. Trump, paper billionaire and paper human being, and said, “There’s my man!”

But now, six years later, on the eve of Joe Biden’s inauguration, I’m not so sure.

One phrase that we’ve heard more than any other the last few weeks, especially since the attack on the Capital in Washington is, “That’s not who we are.”  However, the fact remains that this would not be happening if that statement were true.

The occupant of the White House, whoever they are, is very much a reflection of who America is as a people, as a society, as a nation; and for the last four years we have been forced to take a good long look in the mirror and the face staring back at us has been Donald Trump.

“For now we see in a glass darkly, but then we shall see face to face.”

For some time now the heat of political correctness has been steaming up that mirror preventing us from seeing all the imperfections. Donald Trump’s presidency wiped away the fog and forced us, and the world at large, to take a hard look at who we really are. The real us, with no make-up, no fashionable outfit, no perfectly coifed hairpiece; just the unadorned true face of North America.

It happened because Trump gave Hilary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” free reign to prove just how deplorable they could be. People who had formerly concealed their hate behind a mask of political correctness were empowered to voice their hatred in the name of patriotism. We also learned that the basket was much bigger than we thought it was.

And the white, evangelical Christian church, desperate for a Martin Luther King Jr. of it’s own, had finally found him. We took down the cross from our sanctuaries and raised the Confederate battle flag in its place along with the Stars and Stripes. We worshipped a westernized version of Jesus that put the modern church in the role of God’s chosen people and convinced ourselves that we could do no wrong.

But we were wrong. We just couldn’t see it, mostly because we didn’t look, or didn’t want to admit what was there. Oh, we heard the cry of the disadvantaged, the poor, the black, the Asian, the native Nations, the LBGTQ, just to name a few; but how many of us went out of our way to lift them up out of their disadvantage? How many of us, while genuinely sympathizing with their plight, continued living a guilt free life secure in the bosom of our white privilege?

“There is no one righteous, not even one.”

The more astute (or the more defensive) of you will notice my use the the collective pronoun “we”. You are likely wondering why a Canadian would lump himself in with the deplorables to the south, or you are defensively protesting that “we aren’t like that, that is not us.” But is there as much difference as we think? The church in Canada cannot rest on it’s laurels any more than can the church in the U.S., or the church in Europe, or in Africa, or anywhere else for that matter. The church everywhere has much to answer for.

Because Donald Trump didn’t make things the way they are anymore than my bathroom mirror is responsible for the face looking back at me. I’m not sure where it started, but it didn’t start with him; he just gave the ugly truth a higher profile. It didn’t even start with the Republican Party, or the American church. It started long before that as the church in all it’s various incarnations has sought to influence politics and dictate the way in which all people should live whether they believe or not. It might even have started with Constantine making Christianity the state religion of Rome for reasons that some consider likely more political than religious.

But wherever or whenever it started it continues as long as we ignore the one who said “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s“

So yeah, maybe Donald Trump was indeed God’s choice for president. Maybe God looked at America, and the church in particular, and decided we needed a wake up call. Does that mean I owe the 45th president a vote of thanks? Hardly; no more than I should give Judas a pat on the back for his betrayal of Jesus, even though it ultimately led to the the hope of salvation.

But I do owe God my gratitude for the lesson I think I’ve learned. I thank God that issues of racism and privilege are getting attention more in keeping with what they deserve rather than just lip-service from “woke” policy-makers. I thank God that though I never desired to own another human being myself, I now better understand how my life in the 1% is founded on the actions of those who did. I thank God that I am reminded that I need to examine my own beliefs and how I follow the teachings of Jesus in my day to day walk and hold myself accountable to His words. I thank God that the church can no longer take its privilege for granted and must also examine itself to see where it went astray. And I thank God that the instrument of His instruction didn’t get a second term.

One question remains: Now that we have seen the face in the mirror, what are we going to do about it?