Worry less, hope more

I have yet to see Damien, the man I wrote about a few weeks ago after I learned he had lost all his fingers and one thumb to frostbite. Pastor Quinn and I went looking for him at his favourite haunt, the library, the next day, without luck. So Quinn sent him an email offering care and support, unsure if Damien would be able to reply. 

That same afternoon, Quinn received Damien's brief reply and forwarded it to me. It told us that Damien was doing well thanks to many prayers, the professionalism of nurses, and his own efforts to come through and be well. His optimism and gentle nature shone through his two sentence email.

The final line of it has become my mantra of late. It seems unrealistic and yet absolutely essential by turns as we see so much chaos, unnecessary suffering, and division in our world right now.

But if Damien, a gentle homeless man who has suffered a serious setback, can make this his motto, I can too:

"Worry less, hope more." 

My January garden

It's been tough lately. Lots of grey skies, and if the wind isn't so cold and blustery that Shadow and I don't feel like walking, it's sunny and icy. I've been leaving him behind a lot just to get my exercise. He turns 9 next week, and is less and less interested in walks and more and more interested in cozy naps. Some days, I feel the same.

What makes everything even tougher is this darn constant low-grade covid depression, all the folks I know who are down with the virus, and the incessant news about how it's messing up everybody's lives. We know, media, we know! Plus, my dear L'Arche friend, Debbie, a sweet, sometimes stubborn, and "empowered woman," as another friend put it, died too soon last week and broke my heart in places I didn't expect. It's been two years now since I saw her, and covid means attending a funeral is impossible...

So when the Vesey's spring bulb catalog arrived last week, you'd think it would make me happy, but it only added to my depression. Most of what's in it only grows in Zones 4-8, and Edmonton is barely a Zone 3, so all those bright flowers won't make it in my perennial beds, which, to be fair, are pretty full already anyway. So the catalog went straight into our recycling bag... until I decided this morning that I need a January garden.

Nope, not this one.

This one!

I got to work with my scissors and tape, and it took me about a half hour to make a long ribbon of flowers cut straight out of Vesey's. These flowers won't grow in my yard very well, but they have definitely brightened my office. And if you don't look too closely, the woman standing in the heather with the wineglass could be me! 

My January garden is something of a reminder that these grey days, covid, and all my other sorrows will ease into something better, I hope.

We'll be fine

Call me an optimist. I won't argue. It's much better than all the doom and gloom I'm finding on the internet today. Sure, things didn't turn out the way a lot of people (including me) expected or hoped. So now it seems there's a lot of depression, fear or anger taking the wheel because it's too easy to imagine worst case scenarios. The building of walls. The decimation of our climate. The proliferation of nuclear arms. In other words, the end of our world as we know it.

But who is really in charge? The spirit of the world's people. And no matter how decisive an election victory, it's the will of the people that leaders must obey, or they find themselves thrown over in a hurry. The non-violent power of the people is incredibly strong. Remember...

- the suffragettes who got women the vote?
- The Resistance in World War II?
- Ghandi's work for the independence of India?
- Rosa Parks and the March on Washington?
- The nuclear disarmament movements of the 80s?
- "People Power" in the Philippines taking down Ferdinand Marcos' dictatorship?
- The Polish Solidarity movement?
- Nelson Mandela and the end of Apartheid?
- The dismantling of the Berlin Wall?
- The Occupy Movement?
- Idle no more?
- The Paris Climate agreements?
- Click here to see where I found most of these great events and even more.

We human beings are a work in progress, we are more than our elected leaders, and we are the ones who call them to be better than they even know they can be. And, bottom line, every single one of us, leaders included, are brothers and sisters, beloved children of God, so dissing one another is never helpful. Instead, we need to love one another, to stand up for each other, and to remember that it's not "us against them."

It's only ever us.