Happy Earth Day 🦋

 

Behave.

Let the mystery be

We have the same conversation every year this time of year. A good, annually evolving conversation about life, the universe, and everything, and it always starts with the same question: Why is the most important feast in Christianity centered around sorrow and suffering; death. Betrayal leads to execution. What is there to celebrate? With all that is going on and has been going on in the world, how are we supposed to feel? All the fear, cowardice, shame and loss, all the drama and violence of what is known as Holy Week… how are we supposed to respond?

Some in this world can't help but lash out, some try to help out. Some clam up and some gobble up whatever lie makes them feel less anxious and insecure. Just like the twelve Apostles, we are only human, doomed to doze or wander off when we should be paying attention, doomed to tire, anger, fear, be wrong and do wrong, doomed to fail every now and then. But even then, Jesus would not judge. Even on Good Friday, the day of his public humiliation and execution, his thoughts were with his mother, and the man crucified next to him.

It seems to me that judge not lest you be judged is not an all-encompassing reproof but a gentle reminder. We will get it wrong, do wrong, say the wrong thing no matter how hard we try. And that’s okay, that’s human. Just keep trying to do better, be better. Face your fallible nature. And face the evil in ourselves and all around us. A fourth man dies in our story, a man who forces us to confront our capacity for avarice, betrayal and cruelty. How is his life or his death any less important? Judas ends up making a choice he quickly regrets and can't atone for or reconcile. He ends up taking his own life. Is he the villain? Is he beyond salvation? Is he Satan? Or is he just one of us?

And what went through Mary’s mind as she watched her son die? Did she see a way forward, a future? There was nothing the women huddled under that cross could do but support and carry one another. How dark and desolate Holy Saturday must have been for those who knew and loved Jesus. He died a violent, agonizing death, and they could not change that, only grieve. Holy Sunday morning was no brighter, Mary Magdalene crying by his now empty tomb. “Why are you crying?” Jesus asks as he appears. He did not start preaching or teaching, he did not tell her to stop. He did not rebuke her or turn away, he simply asked a question, and he listened. Do we have the strength to do the same? To face and listen to those who are lost or who have suffered a loss? To just be there for someone in their hour of need?

And why did Jesus have to suffer like that? And his resurrection, that’s where the story gets tricky and the details fuzzy. How did that happen? You’re not asking me, are you, because the only thing I’m sure of is that I don’t know. It’s where the here and now and the hereafter meet? Theology can’t prove it, other sciences disprove it, so it’s simply a matter of faith? What if you don’t understand? What if there is no explanation? Must there always be a plan, or a prize? What if the Easter story is the parable? We can all see ourselves and others, every human emotion in that story of light and dark and benevolence and evil and hope and senseless suffering. Despite everything, life goes on. In the here and now, maybe even in the hereafter. Is that the underlying message, the moral of the story?

My family tree is a gnarled old thing with roots spanning across Europe, so when it comes to religion, I don’t know what to believe. I mean that quite literally. It’s a Take Your Pick Buffet of denominations. I’ve had to navigate my way, consolidate it all, come to my own conclusions. But you don’t have to subscribe to any religion to find the message meaningful or traditions beautiful, or to appreciate the comfort and community church and faith provide. And you don’t have to believe in a deity or any type of afterlife to want to do the right thing, feel charitable, be empathetic and compassionate, to love and love unconditionally. My maternal grandmother taught me that. The Bay of All Saints taught me that. And life keeps teaching me that.

Happy Easter, chag Pesach samech, or just your basic, average, everyday, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, ho-hum weekend, dearest denizens, whatever you believe, wherever you are.

Para bellum

Temperature: 0/32 degrees. And. It’s. Snowing.

Eating: nuts and raisins.

Drinking: Do you know what is almost as good as Guaraná? Pepsi Max Mango. I need to add those to the emergency supply list. (See below. Yes, I’ll need those in an emergency. It’s either those two or bourbon and cachaça, and how well do you think you’d function all boozed up, hmm? If emergency turns to catastrophe, that’s when you’ll need the booze. I’m not going down without a fight or a breath I can use a flamethrower. Just kidding. Not really, no. You’ll be oh so sorry you even tried. Oh, honey, that is not a threat, that is a promise. What? No! I do still love everyone. Until you give me a reason not to.)

Listening: to Russian officials swiftly deny, deflect, defuse and all-around summarily dismiss any involvement in the Bucha massacre or any other war crimes for that matter. As if they had a script at hand, which they of course always have, with a dozen different explanations and substitute scenarios excluding the truth and their guilt. Obfuscation is the operative word.

Watching: Russian television is like watching a telecast in Bizarro World; up is down and square is round. Sitting down to watch Russian state media re: Ukraine is like stepping into a brainwashing machine where you will be subjected to a steady stream of carefully curated programming and be convinced that the west is evil, degenerate, and plotting Russian demise, shown Russian soldiers helping the downtrodden people of Donbas, presented with proof of Ukraine’s evil schemes, and reminded of why you need Putin. What you won’t be shown is the decimation of Mariupol, the bombing and shooting of Ukrainian civilians, Russian soldiers looting homes and hospitals, or how united and fierce the Ukrainians are in their fight against the invader. No use switching channels; the studio and talking head may change but the story, the soundtrack, the imagery stays the same, day in, year out. It’s a very powerful tool of mind control and manipulation. And it works.

Reading: The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig and The Languages of Scandinavia: Seven Sisters of the North by Ruth H. Sanders. You don’t have to be a glossophile to enjoy these books, you can just nibble here and there.

Writing: a list of what might be missing from our emergency supply kit. Both the government and emergency services have kindly reminded everyone of the importance of preparedness. This is a sensible nation of sensible people who trust the government and one another, so everyone agrees and acts accordingly.

Thinking: Hate is a verb, a wrongdoing word. Indifference is a verb, the undoing word.

Feeling: lucky we live in a sensible nation of sensible people.

A million dreams 🕊️

Temperature: will depend on the Föhn winds on their way from Norway. Winter, you had your shot. Spring, take the reins.

Drinking: Would that help matters, what do think? A stiff drink to calm that brain on fire? Should we look for more healthy outlets? Oh, after we have that drink, okay. Desperate times, desperate jigger measurements.

Eating: What would go well with Friday? And don’t say frozen pizza.

Watching: I have Encanto waiting for a weekend viewing. Couldn’t catch it on the big screen, but I hope it loses none of its magic on a smaller one.

Listening: to the downpipes trying to deal with all that melting snow.

Reading: Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa.

Thinking: Who the hell can think straight these days? Everyone I’ve talked to this week has complained they’re finding it difficult to concentrate. We agreed we should at least try, and we should also try not to let our outrage morph into fear because that is what autocrats want. Fear leads to paralysis and a paralyzed individual is hardly a threat, but anger, pure anger is fuel for action, sweetie darlings, so let the autocrats fear us instead.

Feeling: some Depeche Mode coming my way…
Metropolis has nothing on this /
You're breathing in fumes, I taste when we kiss /
Take my hand, come back to the land /
Where everything's ours for a few hours…
Off for a walk. What a luxury to step out without having to fear being shot at. Have a good weekend, dearest denizens, or a tolerable one, wherever you are.

A word after a word after a word is power*

It’s day 16 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and all of Scandinavia is regrouping and reconsidering its stance on a neighbor gone cuckoo. Finland shares a 1,300+ -kilometer (800+ -mile) border with Russia, so naturally they’re perturbed. Sweden likes to think they’re Switzerland but now realizes they need to up their military game chop-chop. Joining NATO is once again on the table and since that is exactly what Voldemort Putin wants off the table and out the window you have to ask: how did you think this would go? And if starting Cold War 2 is all the same to you, again, how do you think this will go? Go ahead and hate us so long as you fear us, is that what you’re saying? Again, how do you think that will go in the long run? Putin doesn’t seem to care about how this will affect Russia and its citizens, so how do you solve a problem like Putin’s Russia?

What do you do when your neighbor starts disturbing the peace and engaging in disorderly conduct? You lay down the law, of course. But what if they don’t care about rules or regulations? What if they’re playing a totally different game on a totally different field or board? You need to defend and protect yourself, of course, and you need to isolate that bully of a landlord in question. How do you do that? You assign blame where blame is due. You separate the landlord from the tenants. When speaking of the invasion of and attack on Ukraine say Putin instead of Russia. Putin (and his cabinet) is the aggressor, not all of Russia since there was no referendum. Russians can’t even call the war a war or the assault an assault, using those words in this context is now a criminal offense. So, Putin’s war, Putin’s attack, Putin’s army, Putin’s doing. Demonizing and ostracizing all of Russia and all Russians, any type of Russophobia directed toward the people and the country at large only serves Putin’s narrative. "Look! It is as I keep saying, it is true, look at how they hate us!"

What Putin is doing in Ukraine and to Ukrainians is evil and monstrous and it has to stop. The sanctions imposed will hurt all of Russia but that is on him, on Putin. And change can only come from within. Putin is finished. Maybe not today or next week, but he is toast. If he manages to hang on to power, if the Iron Curtain falls, every Russian will be trapped in there with him. That would be yet another tragedy in the too long reign of Vladimir the Terrible. We should stand with Ukraine, no doubt or two ways about it. On that other field and board, we should stand with every Russian suffering under the yoke of an ever more brutal regime.

We are not powerless. You are not powerless. When you want to speak up, do as Scandinavians are trying to do and choose your words with care. Do not give Putin ammunition by engaging in Russophobia. Assign blame where blame is due. Countless Russians still root for Putin because they have been on a steady diet of lies and state propaganda for years, and the machinery is hard at work as we speak. You can help combat that too. Swedish Dagens Nyheter, Finnish Helsingin Sanomat and Danish Politiken are now translating news articles “to provide Russians with impartial and trustworthy news and coverage.” Feel free to spread the word. Putin controls state media but has no control over us or Russians living abroad. The longer the war drags on the more questions it will raise at home and the harder it will be for him to keep an airtight lid on what is going on.

It will get worse, so much worse before it gets better, on both boards. Scandinavians will always have Russia as a neighbor, there is no escaping that fact. But as much as Putin would like to rewrite history he will only be remembered not as the strong man he thinks he is but yet another heavy-handed totalitarian who could not rule without being cruel. One day there will be no more Putin, but there will always be our Russian neighbor. Believe me when I say to you that Scandinavians would really, truly, absolutely rather wave than shoot across that border.

*Margaret Atwood