Post 52--Pentecost

In post 50 I reproduced a meditation written by my hero Abraham Kuyper on the Ascension of Christ. I complained that this event has slipped into oblivion in the Church as well as in the life of believers. 

Ten days after the Ascension another momentous event took place that we refer to as Pentecost.  Another older name for the same celebration is “Whitsunday.”  “Pentecost” itself is from the Latin meaning “50^th day,” that is, the 50^th day after Christ’s resurrection. The term “pentecostal” refers to a family of churches that place the work of the Holy Spirit central in their Christian life. It is the fastest growing family of churches in the world at the moment. It is so dominant today that in some countries it has become the major tradition, dwarfing such giants as the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.

Let me give you an example from a country in which I have lived 30 years,  Nigeria. It has a population of some 170 million, half of whom are Christian, representing all the Christian traditions you read about in North America, but the biggest of them all is the Pentecostal family—and still growing. It is a political tradition in the country—and, no, I am not changing the subject!—that a Christian president will always choose a Muslim vice president and vice versa. Recently, new elections were held and a Muslim president was elected. His vice is a Pentecostal pastor, a natural political choice in the context of a majority of Pentecostal Christians. Thus the event celebrated on Pentecost has boiled over into the world of politics; it is that real and that significant.

In the second paragraph I mentioned the Holy Spirit. That is what Pentecost is all about. Christmas is about the coming of Christ into the world, but that was a temporary place for him. 40 days after His resurrection, He ascended back into Heaven. On Penteost we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit into the world, His was to be a permanent presence in the world.  He is with us even today. 

I invited you to celebrate Ascension with the words of Kuyper. Today I invite you to celebrate Pentecost also with Kuyper, though this time in shorter compass. He wrote:

Among all the Christian celebrations there is none of which the average Christian understands so little, feels so little emotion and enjoys so little as Pentecost, the high feast of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  It is all so spiritual and offers so little to the imagination.

In contrast, at Christmas there is so much movement and so many things to talk about with your children: the manger, that Child, the shepherds and their lambs, the angel choir, the murder of the children by King Herod’s men, the temple visit, the flight to Egypt and so much more.

Similarly, on Easter you can imagine the weeping women on their way to the tomb, the lonely wandering Mary Magdalene, the descent of the angels, the rolling stone from the grave, the two men walking the road of Emmaus, that evening meeting and then Thomas with his finger in Jesus’ wounds.

All of the above is concrete and subject to everyone’s imagination. There’s stuff for conversation. These stories can be sketched or painted. There is movement and variety; there’s a wealth of human actors.  Because everything is concrete to the eye, it all lives in the congregation’s consciousness.

But how different it all is with Pentecost. There’s little more there than an upper room with people in and outside. Then there are miraculous sounds and mysterious bright lights. What is said confuses people outside and sounds foreign to those inside. It all ends up with a sermon to God’s glory.

Naturally, such a dull scene cannot possibly inflame your imagination. It does not conjure up any surprising images in your imagination; your children cannot enter this kind of world; it does not offer any stuff for a brilliant sermon.  Every picture, every drawing, every painting of Pentecost ever produced falls flat.

I must quickly add that they had to fall flat, not because Pentecost has less value than do Christmas or Easter, but because it appeals to a level of imagination and conception too high for the average person and is too spiritual. Pentecost is the noblest of the three feasts, but only for those who have tasted the noblest.  Only those who themselves have received the “first fruits of the Spirit” can truly celebrate this Feast of the Spirit!

End of Kuyper

============

I end today with two items, the first one a question; the second, a correction of Kuyper. 

The question for you is whether you can or do celebrate "this Feast of the Spirit" in Kuyper's terms. In other words, whether you have "tasted  the noblest."

The correction:

I cannot restrain myself; I must correct one assertion in the above that is simply not true.  I refer to the allegation that every visual representation of Pentecost falls “flat.” I am a distributor of the Mafa series of African Gospel Art that includes a very lively and colourful reproduction of the Pentecost scene that cannot by any stretch of the imagination be interpreted as “flat.”  Go either to my website  < SocialTheology.com > the “African Gospel Art” page or  to <  www.jesusmafa.com  >, the publisher’s  website based in Versailles, France.  There you will find info about a very exciting artful series depicting all the Gospel stories, over 60 of them. Go there. You will thank me for it. You will enjoy, admire and celebrate them for their beauty and liveliness as I do every day, surrounded by them as I am in my house.

Post 51--Ascension: Celebration of Christ Returning to Heaven

 La

This past week, the Christian Church celebrated the event we know as “Ascension.”  Well, celebrated? Traditionally it did, but in modern times it has slowly faded into a kind of oblivion so that the Church no longer makes a big deal of it. In many churches there are no special services for it anymore. They used to be held traditionally on Thursdays.  Now, if it is mentioned at all, it has been reduced to a special Bible reading on a Sunday morning and then the service goes on to other concerns.

What happened on the original Ascension Day? Jesus, the Risen Lord, went back to Heaven, back to His Father.  From almost any modern perspective, this event seems to exotic, that, probably out of embarrassment, the Church has slowly pushed it into the shadows. And if it was not for embarrassment, it may have been for lack of real faith in the event. It just does not seem to fit into our modern perspective.

Today’s post celebrates this Ascension boldly and, I hope, somewhat clearly--clearly at least to those who are somewhat familiar with the Bible. To those who are not so familiar with the Bible, this post may be a bit obscure.  Please allow me to help brothers and sisters celebrate the event. If you don’t understand, please do listen in. This meditation deals with its meaning, its significance, more than the way it actually happened. For that you need to go to Acts 1 in the New Testament, but even there it is told in a very sketchy manner.

I am not the author of the material below. It was written by a hero of mine, Abraham Kuyper, whom you will meet time and again in these posts. Today’s material is the first chapter or meditation of a book in the Dutch language written by Kuyper that I translated.

Meditation 1 

Lift Them Up, You Ancient Doors!

Lift up your heads, you gates;
    lift them up, you ancient doors,
    that the King of glory may come in.
Who is He, this King of glory?
    The Lord Almighty—
    He is the King of glory.

(Psalm 24:9-10)

In the depth of his soul, King David had a hankering that he himself be allowed to build the temple for the Ark of God. But a prophet came with message from God that it was not he but “one of your own sons…he is the one who will build a house for Me,” the son referring to David’s successor King Solomon (I Chronicles 17:11-12; II Samuel 7:12-13).  Once David was convinced, he did not complain or try to force the issue but surrendered his heart’s deepest desire and comforted his spirit in what his son was to fulfill instead of he himself.

Ah, what a blessed, glorious day it would be when the Ark of God would be ushered into the completed Temple!  In Psalm 24, David was so taken up by that vision as if that day had already arrived for him!  He envisioned it all as if it were really happening right in front of his eyes.  Those magnificent pinnacles, those stately and dignified walls. And then the ascent of the Ark of God as it signified His majestic presence in the Holy of Holies. It was as if David looked beyond the Ark and the Temple, right into the heart of that other David, for whom his ancestors had prayed so fervently and of whom both Ark and Temple were nothing but a shadow and symbol.

David envisions the Ark of God ascending the slope of holy Mount Zion till the delegation runs dead into its fortress wall. That wall is punctuated by gateways, each of which has doors. For the ark to gain entry, it has to go through one of these doors, but they are too low, too diminutive, too stifling for Him, for whom the ascent of the Ark is a mere symbol of His real ascent into glory. But listen! Now in the Spirit, David sings a psalm summoning the gateway to arise, to open up, to raise its doorposts and broaden its entryway!  Oh, ancient doors, expand, befit yourself for royalty, unlock yourself! For look, the King of Glory is about to enter, the Lord of the heavenly hosts, He who revives and delights my soul.

Psalm 24 does thus certainly point directly to the narrow gateway in Zion’s wall. Imagine the scene: Here’s Jerusalem  with the Temple high above it and between these two that

fortress wall with its formidable gateway and its ancient doors.  That’s why, with the Ark as carrier of God’s majesty approaching, David sings this psalm in holy ecstasy:

Be lifted up, you ancient doors,
    Lift up your heads, you gates;
       that the King of glory may come in.
    Who is this King of glory?
    The Lord strong and mighty,
       the Lord mighty in battle.

And then once more:

Lift up your heads, you gates;
    lift them up, you ancient doors,
    that the King of glory may come in.
 Who is He, this King of glory?
The Lord Almighty—
    He is the King of glory.

However, all this, glorious as it is, is not the really essential thing, because the earthly Zion was not the essence of it.  The earthly Jerusalem was only a shadow, as were the Temple and the Ark itself. Similarly, Zion’s fortress wall that separated Jerusalem from the Temple was also a shadow. All of that was nothing but graphic teaching, a symbolic representation of the real, pointing and alluding to the future permanent, the real, the eternal.

The “wise” do not understand all of this, but the Church of God and the beloved ones He has chosen do understand it. And that is the reason that throughout the ages the Church of God consciously, aggressively, and with determination declared loud and clear that David, while singing about the Ark in symbolic language, was actually referring to the actual Ascension of Jesus!

In the earthly Jerusalem people thirst after the living God, but He lives on Mount Zion. There are that impenetrable wall and those ancient unforgiving doors. Always that separation!  To see the Temple; to know the Ark is there; to know there, there is the presence of the Lord and then those impenetrable walls, those narrow gateways and those ancient doors!  Ach!

But, arise, oh, arise my soul; arise, oh, languishing Jerusalem!  At the real ascension, those barriers burst open. There flows forth salvation. There comes the King of glory!  Now those impossible walls yield; those narrow gateways lift themselves up.  Now, rise, rise you ancient doors for Him to enter, He the Lord of the heavenly powers and hosts, while you, who were thirsting after your God, sing and jubilate in victory!

================

What then are those “ancient doors?”  They represent everything that separates Jerusalem from the Ark. They are symbolic of everything that constitutes a wall between the languishing heart of the wretched and the holy glory of their God.

A door invites you to enter, but it is bolted and prevents you from entering. It is an ancient door that prevents you from entering.  No matter how hard you knock and kick, it remains impenetrable, so that you conclude that it will never open. They seem like eternal doors that will keep you outside for ever!

But now comes the Messiah. God has compassion for the wretched and sends you a Saviour. But what will happen?  Will those doors, those ancient doors, also resist Him?

It is precisely to this question that David prophecies in the Spirit. For Him, that Messiah, those ancient doors will fly open, will open up wide and rise on high to allow Him, the King of Glory, to enter His Kingdom.  

Note well: time and again it is a door, a barrier.  First, there is that ancient door of the flesh that holds you in bondage and won’t allow you to enter, that flesh that suffocates you.  But Christ bursts through all of this and comes to you in that flesh Himself through that ancient door of the flesh.  And so He is near you already, one with you, become like your brother.

But you have still not arrived. The Word, another name in the Bible for the Messiah, becomes flesh with you, but in such a way that the Messiah and you are both in a position of wretchedness, locked out of Zion, banned from the desired glory with that wall and its ancient door still preventing you.

Therefore, it is imperative that out of and with that flesh further steps need to be taken. Ascend that mountain, from the level earth to heaven on high. That’s where the glory is, not here on earth. He is here in weakness, but once He has reached that place He will become mighty, great in majesty and empowered to rescue you and bring you salvation.  

That is the why of the Ascension.

To Heaven! That is, to the place where weakness is glorified, where there is strength and power.  That is where your flesh goes, your Messiah in your flesh, in the same flesh and blood that hung on the cross of disgrace on Golgotha.

It is now finally that those ancient doors widen themselves and rise high. Now the King of glory enters in. Your King, oh Church of God, who alone has the wherewithal to bring you

salvation, to justify and sanctify you for full salvation. Now, finally, by having entered those ancient doors into the better Tabernacle not made with hands, your King dispenses salvation and blessing. His power exudes from Him and satan slinks away, because the godless are being justified.

=============

But even now we have not yet reached the end of the road. There still is one more ancient door, that is, the door to your own heart, the door to your soul that satan bolted shut and sealed.  Oh, how many thousands of times have you banged your head against that ancient door to your heart. It was too stuffy; in your anxious heart you could no longer stand it. You had to get out and you banged against that door and shouted, “Open up! Open up! Have mercy and don’t let me suffocate in this stuffy place.”  It didn’t help; No one heard you. That door to your heart turned out to be permanent as well.

Until…. Until He came, He the King of glory! When He sent His Word from His majestic throne and hammered His envoys with it, it became clear to you that where the Word of the King is present, there is power. For at that moment the locks snapped and the bolts cracked; the doors opened, rose up and He entered, the Lord strong and mighty.  Halleluiah!

Post 50--One Building--Two Social Classes

A new high rise residential building is being planned for 1171 Jervis Street in Vancouver’s West End, the neighbourhood where I live. That address is two blocks from mine.  It will have an unusual feature—unusual, not unique—namely that the one side of the building will be reserved for social housing, that is, for subsidized housing for the poor, while the other side will consist of condos at market prices.  The two classes will be separated by having different doors, with the one for social housing facing the busy Davie street, while the condo side will have its main door on the more quiet Jervis Street. The two sides will be further hermetically sealed from each other. The subsidized side is owned “by the city or its designate;” the other, by a condo strata council.  “The two are completely separate legal entities,” explained Brian Jackson, Vancouver’s Director of Planning.

The physical segregation goes even farther. According to an article in the Vancouver Sun by Jeff Lee, there will also be “separate elevators, mechanical systems and amenities” (May 6, 2015).

Why such arrangements? The city is desperate for social housing; it has far too many residents who cannot afford market rentals, many of whom end up on the street, often finding a bed provided by various charities. The city cannot afford to build enough social housing to keep up with that growing population segment and thus is providing private developers with incentives to include a social segment in what would otherwise be exclusively market housing. What’s wrong with that? 

Randy Helton of City Hall Watch, a West End activist, objects to separate entrances based on “economic capacity.”  The one side will be regarded as the poor cousin of the other, a notion that appears unacceptable to Helton  and others. My guess is that the arrangement is too blatant a display of social disparity for them.

If I were in the market for a private condo, would I buy one that is mixed with social housing? Social housing, it should be understood, often includes a high percentage of folk involved in the drug addiction culture, the extreme version of which is represented by Vancouver’s East Side Down Town (ESDT), the poorest postal code area in the entire country. Would I pay a million or more bucks for such a condo to live among such neighbours?  Absolutely not! Having lived for years in Africa, my tolerance for “lower” conditions is much greater than that of most Canadians, but even I would draw the line here. 

I might experiment with renting in such an environment, for I have observed that the down-and-outers tend to be much more friendly and sociable. I have patronized coffee shops and restaurants in ESDT and generally find my fellow consumers very pleasant and easy to approach for conversation, something that I enjoy tremendously. But, assuming I have it,  I would definitely not invest a million bucks in such an environment.

There is need for realism, says Michael Geller, a Vancouver builder. The city cannot afford to build enough and the private sector needs incentive to get involved in such projects.  This arrangement is one that is working in other cities and is already operative in Vancouver’s famed Woodward Building in the ESDT. If you support the notion of social housing, then you have to accept that social disparity openly, like it or not. Helten and his ilk may sound supportive, but in reality they retard the needed supply.

It was only yesterday I spoke to an elderly lady living in BC-owned subsidized housing, who complains about the high proportion of addicted neighbours. She would like to move out, but cannot afford any other place.  Like it or not, that’s what happens in subsidized housing, more than in other configurations, something that has to be acknowledged and dealt with realistically if you want more subsidized housing. 

Actually, assuming I had the money, I’m quite sure I would never buy in such a complex, for can even the best builder prevent the migration of cockroaches and bedbugs from the one side to the other? Or are they so distant from each other that this movement would amount to an immigration? These creatures are not known to respect walls, doors or any other obstacles. To them these entities are about as porous as the Canada border services or the Vancouver port.

I am a writer of the Gospel of Christ. It is difficult to pursue that mission in a drug and bug infested chaos, if not impossible, another reason I would not buy into such a complex. I don’t need to live in luxury and, in fact, don’t.  However, I do need some level of order to be productive. Drugs, bugs and addicted neighbours would divert my attention too much.  The Heltens of this world need to get real, support these kinds of structures and move over from obstruction to encouragement to achieve their own goals—more subsidized housing.

Post 49 - Nigerian Politicians Fleece Their Constituency

 

I don't often publish posts in such quick succession; too busy with other things. But today my heart is bleeding at the way the Nigerian populace is being fleeced, not this time by western governments, banks or corporations, but by their own politicians. The main part of this post is an article in the Nigerian daily Premium Times.

You may be wondering why I publish a post about Nigeria. Well, in case you don't know, I spent most of 30 years in Nigeria and consider it one of my homelands, whose people I love and among whom I still have many friends. I knew how much they were taken for a ride by their politicians then and sought to equip the people within my large orbit to resist it. Alas, it is still going on full force. My heart bleeds for them.  By thus sharing this sad information with my readers, I bring darkness into the light, one of the recognized means of opposing and overcoming it--at least to some degree. 

It is possible that I have some enlightened readers who object to this disclosure, arguing that similar corruption and fleecing occurs in our own Canada or USA. Yes and no. It is there, as the current Duffy scandal is making all too clear. Indeed, but nothing to the degree it is happening in Nigeria. It does considerable damage in our western countries, but it brings Nigeria to near collapse.

Here, then, the article. To understand it you need to know that $1 (US) is worth N220, the "N" standing for "Naira," the Nigerian currency.Thus, if you want the dollar equivalent to the Naira amounts in the article below, divide them by 220.

                              ==============

         Nigerian Senators, Reps cornered N600bn in 4 years

                             but passed only 106 bills

                       (May 12, 2015Chinenye Ugonna, Richard Akinwumi and Joshua Olufemi)

Nigerian lawmakers managed to approve only 106 new laws out of 1,063 brought before them in the last four years, despite spending more than half a trillion naira within the period, earning the notorious title as the world’s highest paid legislators.

The figures mean for the National Assembly, with a combined annual budget of N150 billion since 2011, returned 10 per cent in efficiency and averaged about two bills each month.

Each year, the Senate, House of Representatives and allied institutions, compete for government funding with projects designed to provide jobs, healthcare, education and roads to the citizens.

While the Goodluck Jonathan administration has shown its preparedness to cut financing to those vital services to Nigerians in the face of dwindling revenues, the government has helped the lawmakers retain their super N150 billion budget per year in the last four years.

Not even the present oil crisis has been enough to force the government to minimize the lawmakers’ comfort, by redirecting funds to critical areas badly starved of resources.

A typical example is the 2015 budget, affected massively by sliding oil price. The dwindling revenue forced the government to slash spending for roads – Ministry of Works – from about N160 billion to N11 billion for the entire nation. But the federal lawmakers refused to allow even a dime to be sliced off their N150 billion annual budget.

While the National Assembly budget also covers legislative aides, the National Assembly Commission and the Legislative Institute in Abuja, the biggest chunk of the appropriation goes to the 109 Senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives, each year.

But while the lawmakers take so much, their work rate has been dismally poor, PREMIUM TIMES analysis shows. The miserable worth of Nigerian legislators’ output is amplified when compared with their American counterparts, for instance.  While the legislature, under the leadership of David Mark and Aminu Tambuwal at the Senate and House of Representatives respectively managed to clear 106 bills in four years, the U.S. Congress passed 29​7​ just between 2013 and 2014. That figure was indeed one of the lowest for any U.S. Congress session as the two chambers passed 604 in just 1999, and 460 between 2007 and 2008.

Yet, the Nigerian lawmakers are the highest paid, according to a 2012 analysis by the UK-based Economist.The report compared lawmakers’ earnings with their countries’ GDP – what each citizen is worth if their nation’s total wealth was shared by the population. The analysis found Nigeria ahead of all other countries of the world, with its lawmakers taking 116 times what an average citizen takes of the GDP. Kenya and Ghana followed with ratios of 75 and 29.8 respectively. Norway’s ratio was 1.8, while U.S. lawmakers took 3.8 of what their citizens received. The United States pays its lawmakers an average annual salary of $174,000 while Britain pays parliamentarians $105,000.

Nigerian lawmakers officially receive a modest pay of about $50,000(about N12m) yearly.
But they also pocket several illegal allowances, including the huge quarterly allowance which is nearly a $1m (N220m) a year.

                                                     =================

My youngest son, a Yale Ph. D,  works for a powerful Nigerian foundation in Lagos that is seeking to improve the business climate in Africa. He is rightfully annoyed with the attention paid to corruption in Nigeria. There is a more important story developing in the country, he argues, namely the boom in the Lagos economy with its spin off in the rest of the nation. I am grateful for that story and pray that it will soon outshine the negative story of national fleecing.

This paragraph is being written several weeks later--on July 11, 2015. The news yesterday was that both the new President of Nigeria, General Buhari, a pious Muslim, and his Vice President, a Pentecostal pastor, have offered to reduce their salaries by 50%. 

Post 48—Hail to Our Mothers

             

This is another remembrance post. Both are about giving life. While the previous one is about soldiers who have given their lives as their ultimate sacrifice for another (my) people, this one is about the life mothers give to their children. Both deserve our deepest respect and our most profound memories. 

Yesterday was Mother’s Day 2015.  The following poem by Amy Young was included in the worship package at our church. I thought it appropriate to share it with you without further words:

The Wide Spectrum of Mothering

To those who gave birth this year to their first child,

We celebrate with you

To those who lost a child this year,

We mourn with you

To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains,

We appreciate you

To those who experienced loss through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or running away,

We mourn with you

To those who walk the hard path of infertility, fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and disappointment,

We walk with you.

Forgive us when we say foolish things. We don’t mean to make

this harder than it is

To those who are foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms,

We need you

To those who have warm and close relationships with your children,

We celebrate with you

To those who have disappointment, heart ache, and distance with your children,

We sit with you

To those who lost their mothers this year,

We grieve with you

To those who experienced abuse at the hands of your own mother,

We acknowledge your experience

To those who lived through driving tests, medical tests, and the overall testing of motherhood,

We are better for having you in our midst

To those who have aborted children

We remember them and you on this day

To those who are single and long to be married and mothering your own children,

We mourn that life has not turned out the way you longed for it to be

To those who are step parent,

We walk with you on these complex paths

To those who envisioned lavishing love on grandchildren, yet that dream is not to be,

We grieve with you

To those who will have emptier nests in the upcoming year,

We grieve and rejoice with you

To those who placed children up for adoption,

We commend you for your selflessness and remember how you hold that child in your heart

And to those who are pregnant with new life, both expected and surprising,

We anticipate with you

This Mother’s Day, we walk with you.

Mothering is not for the faint of heart and we have real warriors in our midst.

We remember you.

By Amy Young (http://messymiddle.com)

Post 47--Remembering Our Fallen Heroes

Post

Post

I am a Dutch-Canadian and holder of both countries’ passports. This early May a lot of attention was paid in both Canada and the Netherlands to the 70^th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands from the German Nazi regime. I remember the war and, especially, the liberation as they played out in my northern Dutch village of Lutjegast, but my memory is that of a child born in 1938.  Thus, these are not adult memories, but they are nevertheless valid and vivid. Those vivid memories are the reason for my interest in this anniversary as a Dutchman. 

For details I refer you to our—my wife’s and mine—memoirs titled Every Square Inch—A Missionary Memoir, volume 1, pp. 47-49. They can be accessed free of charge on <  www.SocialTheology.com  > on the Boeriana page.

But I am also strongly interested in this anniversary as a Canadian, for Canadian forces are credited for their dominant role in defeating the Nazis in the Netherlands and chasing them away. I remember the Canadian forces coming through and the joyful elation they brought to my village. It was dancing two weeks straight. Canada as a whole has always been remembered by the Dutch as their main liberator. But not all participants in the drama danced, for many thousands of Canadian soldiers paid the ultimate price and never made it home. Every year the Dutch send something like 50,000 tulip bulbs for a memorial garden in Ottawa as a token of gratitude. The Dutch continue to have a special regard for Canada till today. This year, Prime Minister Steven Harper himself participated in the festivities in the Netherlands.

It is for this reason that I pass on to you a statement on the subject from the Prime Minister:

Statement by the Prime Minister of Canada on the anniversary of the Red Friday Campaign launch in Canada

May 6, 2015
Ottawa, Ontario

Prime Minister Stephen Harper today issued the following statement marking the ninth anniversary of the Red Friday Campaign launch in Canada:

“Nine years ago, two patriots, Lisa Miller and Karen Boire, launched the Red Friday Campaign in Canada with a rally on Parliament Hill.

“They did so to encourage all Canadians to wear red on Fridays to show support for all members of the Canadian Armed Forces, who put their lives on the line every day to ensure the freedom, peace and security of our country. 

“That valour and dedication are still very much in evidence today. The Canadian Armed Forces continue to play a vital role in defending Canada and in championing justice, freedom and security around the world. In the past year this has included participation in the coalition against the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, helping to fight Ebola in West Africa, training Ukrainian forces to cope with the military aggression of the Putin regime, and deploying elements of the Disaster Assistance Response Team in the aftermath of the recent earthquake in Nepal.  

“As we count down towards the 150^th anniversary of Canadian Confederation in 2017, let us remember the many chapters that the proud members of our military have written in blood, sweat and tears in defence of our great country and our values. As we do so, let us never forget the enormous sacrifices of their families.

“I would like to thank all citizens across our great country who continue to wear red at schools and in their workplaces to show their support for those who serve.  

“I encourage all Canadians to continue this proud tradition as a gesture of respect to honour those who defend our freedoms and liberties with their lives.”

(From the Prime Minister's Web Site (http://www.pm.gc.ca/)

And from me personally: Thank you, Canada.

Post 46--To Bee or not to Bee—That Is the Challenge

You may have noticed that issues like secularism vs religion, science and religion, human rights, etc. are major concerns of mine.  However, I am also concerned with all kinds of more tangible and less theoretical things and happenings. The environment is a big concern of mine, even though so far I have not written much about it. You can expect more on such issues in future posts.

I may have given the impression in the above paragraph that the issues I list as major concerns of mine are less tangible and more theoretical. In the minds of some of you my readers that could mean less useful and less practical. That is by no means the impression I would want to leave. Those issues are among the most practical and tangible and, certainly, most important for the future of our society. 

Today I draw your attention to the bee issue. Actually, I had intended to do a post on water issues, but then this email about bees appeared on my screen this morning and I decided to switch to that subject as more in need of immediate attention. Both water and bees are very concrete and practical issues right now that do and will increasingly affect the entire world—which means all of my neighbours!

You may be aware that bees are dying off in droves, some due to “natural” causes indirectly the result of human intervention, including climate change. They are also being attacked by pesticides that we spray to preserve our crops. Lowe, a giant home and garden retailer, has been selling such pesticides. They have been “attacked” by an organization “SumOfUs” with great success. I am herewith passing on to you a report from SumOfUs. I am not a member and do not know enough about them to recommend them to you. However, I judge that the report you are about to read is valuable information and a good example of how ordinary people, when they band together, can overcome the mighty giants of our day. 

==========

We’re buzzing: Lowe’s, one of the world’s biggest home and garden retailers, just announced it’s no longer going to sell bee-killing "neonic" pesticides.

There’s no way Lowe’s would have done this without you and almost a million other SumOfUs members. Together with Friends of the Earth, SumOfUs members have been pushing Lowe’s to save the bees for almost two years -- and it worked!

We’re at a critical moment in the fight to stop the mass bee die-off -- with this move, we can push other big retailers and governments to save the bees as well.
Donations and actions from SumOfUs members made this all possible. Here’s what you did to make Lowe’s save the bees:

• Almost 1 million of us signed a petition to get Lowe’s to stop selling bee killing pesticides;
• Tens of thousands of us took to social media to let Lowe’s know that we wanted them to save the bees;
• SumOfUs members called Lowe’s stores, and visited individual locations to speak to managers about their concerns about selling neonics (the bee killing pesticides);
• So many of you turned up in person for the US and Canada day of action from cities from New York to Vancouver;
• SumOfUs members chipped in so beekeepers could attend Lowe’s annual shareholder meeting to speak directly with the CEO and Head of Sustainability during and after the meeting about their concerns;
• And so many more phone calls, letters, meetings, and protests.

We love it! This shows just how strong people power is when it comes to creating real change.

Lowe's commitment is the real deal: in the next 4 years, it will phase out all bee-killing pesticides in shelf products and plants that it sells. We’re not going to stop here -- not with your help. Please, if you’ve got just a minute, could you do one of these three easy actions to keep the momentum up? Or bee (get it?!) a superstar, and do all three!

1. Make a donation to keep the momentum up -- your gift will supercharge the Save the Bees campaign!

2. Share the news on your Facebook wall celebrating this huge victory for the bees!

3. Forward this email to five of your friends and show them that people power works.

Thanks for all that you do,
Taren, Jon and the rest of the team at SumOfUs

Congratulations to you guys and all your supporters from myself and my readers.