.jpg)
DESPITE MY CATHOLIC UPBRINGING, I THINK I HAVE EVOLVED INTO BELIEVING IN ONLY A PASSIVE, OBSERVING GOD.
A GOD THAT IS NOT THE DRIVER, NOT THE NAVIGATOR, NOT EVEN THE MECHANIC, BUT ONLY A PASSENGER IN DISGUISE.
I do not believe in the Bible or anything that it says, especially the absurd interpretations of it by the Religious Right in recent years which have served to make it more of a comic book than a guide for life.
I do not believe in the church, because it's a frail, human concept that fills us with guilt, promises us salvation but only in return for believing in the unbelievable, and it has more charlatans than any other group.
But I DO believe in some sort of sentient being that created all of this or at least that is watching over it all and at times laughing at our idiocy or frowning upon it.
And I'm offering up the theory that this being is frowning upon us now and that it is demonstrating that through the only means it can, this entity it controls which we call Mother Nature.
A GOD THAT IS NOT THE DRIVER, NOT THE NAVIGATOR, NOT EVEN THE MECHANIC, BUT ONLY A PASSENGER IN DISGUISE.
I do not believe in the Bible or anything that it says, especially the absurd interpretations of it by the Religious Right in recent years which have served to make it more of a comic book than a guide for life.
I do not believe in the church, because it's a frail, human concept that fills us with guilt, promises us salvation but only in return for believing in the unbelievable, and it has more charlatans than any other group.
But I DO believe in some sort of sentient being that created all of this or at least that is watching over it all and at times laughing at our idiocy or frowning upon it.
And I'm offering up the theory that this being is frowning upon us now and that it is demonstrating that through the only means it can, this entity it controls which we call Mother Nature.
As of this writing, more than 160 people have died as a result of wildfires in Australia. Now this is not a new phenomenon in the least, but its ferocity and the toll it has taken certainly aren't the norm.
Now you combine that with last week's freak snowfall in the UK, one which we in Canada might have been snickering at to some degree (aww, that's NUTHIN'!) but which shut down schools and paralysed the people.
(Well, some had fun with it)
Now, add one more freaky occurrence to the list (and I haven't even talked about hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, tsunamis or any of that sort of thing over the past year or two or three).
Overnight and today, in Winnipeg and other areas of southwestern Canada and the northern U.S., in what should be our coldest time of the year with average temps of -20C or whatever, it rained.
IT RAINED.
This isn't the UK or Vancouver or Victoria. It's the frickin' Prairies.
The forecast high for today was plus-3C. And it caused havoc all day. I could barely walk to my car today with slipping and sliding all over on my wonky knee.
The rain coated our streets with a layer of ice that shut down highways, schools, forced people to stay home from work -- basically similar to what last week's snowfall did in the UK.
To see a really cool (short) video done by my newspaper, go to http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid10497358001/bctid10520348001
Here are a few pix of people and vehicles slip-sliding all over the place, including into ditches.
IT RAINED.
This isn't the UK or Vancouver or Victoria. It's the frickin' Prairies.
The forecast high for today was plus-3C. And it caused havoc all day. I could barely walk to my car today with slipping and sliding all over on my wonky knee.
The rain coated our streets with a layer of ice that shut down highways, schools, forced people to stay home from work -- basically similar to what last week's snowfall did in the UK.
To see a really cool (short) video done by my newspaper, go to http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid10497358001/bctid10520348001
Here are a few pix of people and vehicles slip-sliding all over the place, including into ditches.
So the world's in an economic crisis, the Middle East is a mess, Barack Obama's being shit on for everything he hasn't been able to do yet to fix George W. Bush's disaster and the planet, generally, is in a surly mood.Do you think that maybe, just maybe, this thing people like to call God isn't exactly overjoyed with the situation either and maybe is showing us that by making it rain where it should be snowing and snowing where it should be raining?
