It has been worse and it can get better!

In 2019 a book was published entitled Epidemics and Society from the Black Death to the present. It was written by Frank M Snowden.  It is fascinating to learn that only half a century ago two infectious disease departments of renowned US universities were closed under the misguided belief that their job was done.  The fact that we are now in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, rates of measles and mumps are rising and even newer infectious diseases are appearing should shake us from that previous complacency.

Snowdon’s book suggests that infectious diseases, over history, have shaped society in ways that are as critical as other crises such as wars, revolution, famine, shortage of water, or economic collapse.  Given that, perhaps we need to give this topic a great deal more attention.  A table can help to put it in historical context (see below).  It certainly indicates that pandemics have been around a long time and highlights how deadly the Justinian plague, the Black Death, and the Spanish Flu were compared to all the rest.  It is salutary to realise that those who survived the killing fields of World War I also endured the deadly Spanish flu that followed it.  In case we thought our present generation was particularly blighted by disease it is worth remembering humanity has seen much worse days.      

A quick look at the WHO disease outbreak page today,  provides an urgent wake-up call. The war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo is suffering from more than Ebola (fatality rates of 90%). There is also a measles outbreak, and a circulating strain of polio that mutated from the live, weakened one in the oral vaccine. It is worrying to discover that the old enemy of humanity, plague broke out in Madagascar in the last five years. It is endemic in that country, but has been successfully brought under control by the concentrated efforts of International bodies and local government.  It is worth understanding the vocabulary used in discussing diseases.  I have to confess I only recently understood the difference between endemic, outbreak, epidemic, and pandemic.  For something that has impacted us all on so many levels, it is worth understanding these words precisely.

Between March and July of 2021 there has been an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus in Saudi Arabia.  Although only 810 deaths have occurred, this disease has an eye-watering fatality rate of 35% (Covid 19 is around roughly 2.5%).  In reading the information about this outbreak the WHO declares (WHO)

“Food hygiene practices should be observed. People should avoid drinking raw camel milk or camel urine, or eating meat that has not been properly cooked.”

You are no doubt relieved to hear that your personal risk of catching this disease from eating camels or drinking camel urine is low!  Camels can be easily avoided by most of us, but don’t feel too relaxed this MERS-CoV has demonstrated the ability to transmit between humans too. Indeed other species of animals and creatures are also perfectly capable of spreading diseases to humans.  Monkeys are responsible for the Monkey B virus with a horrendous fatality rate of 42%. Well, I say responsible but if we didn’t hunt, keep, kill and eat such animals we might be fine.  Bats are responsible for horrid diseases with huge fatality rates ranging from Marburg virus at 50% to the Nipah virus with a 75% rate.  Worryingly even the tiny simple Tsetsy fly can cause the African Sleeping disease which has a 42.5% fatality rate.  The cute sounding Dear mouse can cause Hantavisus pulmonary syndrome with a fatality of 36%.  Not to mention bird flu whose fatality rate is also in the region of 20-40%.  Then finally, to freak everyone out there is the Brain-eating amoeba which lives in warm fresh water and enters our body through our noses and results in a 95% fatality rate.  I suspect your feeling of relief at the start of this paragraph has just about dissolved by now.  

There is of course good news on many fronts and I’ll just mention three. 

• When the world collaborates and works together to fight a deadly virus, as in the case of Smallpox, it is incredible what the world can achieve. This virus caused 500 million deaths in its last 100 years of existence but a united humanity managed to eradicate it in 1980.  However, it did take 200 years from the discovery of a successful vaccine for this to happen.  The signs are that the world has been able to speed up this process considerably as shown by the recent Covid 19 pandemic.  However, without a unified approach communities left unprotected from any disease are not only more vulnerable to this disease but also provide a perfect breeding ground for new variants/viruses which can undo all that has been achieved. 

• The other good news is the range of treatments now available for so many of these contagious diseases and this has helped reduce the fatality statistics mentioned earlier.  Providing good timely medical treatment is such a no-brainer we should be supplying it to every human being in need. We should certainly not be allowing immune systems to be weakened through lack of food or access to safe water.  Prevention is not only extremely cost-effective it helps us use our medical interventions in a more targeted way.

• It is excellent to know that our own bodies have a system of defence that is truly breathtaking.  Our immune system has huge groups of cells designed specifically to defend the body from illness and infection. These are crack troops designed to fight pathogens, viruses, bacteria, and mutated cells that seek to do us harm.  We actually have two separate armies to defend us one innate and the other acquired through previous exposure. One army is excellent at attacking quickly, the second is battle-hardened troops who have successfully fought this enemy before.
  
  
  

        

Keeping your immune system functioning normally, via the right nutrition, is a simple preventative step that makes so much sense (mayo clinic advice).  Researchers have also found considerable evidence that positive emotions boost the immune system, while negative emotions act to suppress it. 

        The more you think about the human body and how all the major organs work to keep it healthy perhaps a similar pattern is necessary in a world community working to address the important problems we face.  Diseases can shape societies as history has shown but they also force us to think globally as one people on one planet. 

“The bedrock of a strategy that can engage the world’s population in assuming responsibility for its collective destiny must be the consciousness of the oneness of humankind.” 

Bahá’í International Community

The Lord's Prayer

 

What is prayer?

At the lowest level, prayer can be a mere shopping list of requests to God. A conversation with God dominated by desires for all the things we don’t have and yet desperately think we need. A bit like a child at the window of the toy shop; no longer aware of the huge collection of toys at home he can only stare in dire longing for those toys he does not have.  

When work challenges, testing relationships, or daily difficulties arise our shopping list becomes pruned.  It becomes focused on these priorities of life without which we feel our happiness is threatened.

When disaster strikes, loss of health, or loved ones, our agony makes our prayers into cries from the heart to God. Urgent calls for aid against impossible odds. When we can find no way forward or no hope, then our prayer becomes a desperate plea for assistance.

Of course, it can be hard to know to whom we pray when our understanding of God is so very limited.  Sometimes we have only vague thoughts of one greater than anything that we can mentally encompass.  That is why using prayers from those who have gained true closeness to God or His chosen Ones can be so helpful. Not only do their words and aspirations tend to remind us of what is worth asking for but they also have a greater understanding of God.

For example, the Lord’s prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; 

begins by reminding us that God resides in the spiritual world, heaven, that He is our father and that we should revere His name.

thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

This is followed by the promise that His kingdom will be established on earth in the same way it is in the spiritual realms.  The words indicate that this present civilisation will become more divine in nature. Humanity will acquire spiritual qualities and virtues and civilisation will be transformed from this present turbulent adolescent stage into a more spiritually enlightened state.

After reminding us of who we are talking to, reassuring us of the future direction or vision of mankind there follows three pleas. 

Give us this day our daily bread; 

The first is that we be provided with the basic material necessities of life to survive.

and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; 

The second asks God to pardon our sins or transgressions. Those deeds, words, and thoughts which deprive us of our spiritual progress.  Interestingly, the prayer links our forgiveness from God with the degree to which we forgive those who have done us wrong or sinned against us.

and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 

The third plea, following on from repenting from all that we have done wrong in the past and present, asks for protection from future failings, sins, or transgressions.  It ends with a cry that we will be freed from evil and all that takes us further from God’s will.

Amen.

So many spiritual writings and devotionals end with Amen, like the Lord’s Prayer, so it is worth remembering its meaning.  

The basic meaning of the Semitic root from which it is derived is “firm,” “fixed,” or “sure,” and the related Hebrew verb also means “to be reliable” and “to be trusted.” The Greek Old Testament usually translates amen as “so be it”; in the English Bible it has frequently been rendered as “verily,” or “truly.”

Prayer, we learn is both an inner reflection; to be grateful for the blessings each day brings, awareness of what wrongs we have committed, how important it is to forgive others and brings to mind a concern for our future actions and failings, as well as an external call; a recognition of the station of the Divine, obedience to His Will and recognition that obedience to God’s will befits us all both in this world and the next.  It reminds us of a higher standard to which we are all called to attain and its vision of the future helps fuel our endeavours to build a better world.

The scholar does not consider gold and jade to be precious treasures, but loyalty and good faith - Confucius

Once on a trip to Canada some years ago, my mum and were exploring the beautiful city of Vancouver. We watched fascinated as the little water taxi planes came down to land on the seafront. But after several hours of the city landscape, we grew weary of the shops, the noise, and materialism. We spotted a tiny sign, it said ‘the Chinese scholar’s home and garden’. We decided to enter. 

What a delight! It was a replica of a Chinese scholar’s home from the past and had wooden sliding doors, ornate desks with huge sheets of paper, endless paintbrushes for calligraphy, and the most exquisite gardens. It was built in 1986 by fifty-three master craftsmen from China using 950 crates of traditional material and constructed using 14th-century methods so no glue, screws or power tools.  Everything was made with so much care. Every tree, plant, rock, table, bowl or pond seemed to have been positioned with meticulous intent. 

Just as accurately as the traditional Chinese scholar would have placed his brush on the crisp rice paper to make his figures. The clean lines of the building and the beauty of the gardens nursed our weary spirits.  

Suddenly the noise of the busy city disappeared. Instead, the trickle of water or the noise of a leaf as you brushed past filled the quietness. Each view had been landscaped both externally and internally. A circular wooden opening captured a part of a tree, a corner of a pond or a storm perfectly. We sensed an eye with better taste had carefully honed all this beauty.  Its simplicity spoke to the senses and made you want to absorb it all in respectful silence. Our time there passed peacefully and it was only when the tour ended and we found ourselves on a busy Vancouver street once more, did we suddenly feel the loss of all its calmness and serenity.  

This week a dear friend was leaving the country. Returning to family members in the UK after many years abroad. The cost of posting her belongings, post-Brexit, was not only complicated by endless form filling but also plagued by horrendous shipping costs. It felt as if every item she owned had to be catalogued, described, and recorded by both Foreign Offices and UK official bodies before transportation could begin. Horrified by the high prices my friend carefully culled her precious belongings and then in panic as departure day loomed discarded even more.  She decided the only way to cope was to give her belongings to those she cared for. I received her treasured writing desk and chair, from her father. Soon all of her friends were blessed with her thoughtful bequests. The last few boxes were part of her father’s library and over the last few days, I have been sorting through his books in my flat.

What a delight. Here has evidently been another scholar, not of Chinese calligraphy or gardens but of that mindset. Books on history, religion, philosophy, and biographies abounded. Not one book on serial killers, paedophiles, or romantic fiction and it felt such a privilege handling the scholar’s library. Here, in a huge book on 'Excellence', he had placed a handwritten card with page numbers and recorded insightful quotes on this topic.

One sensed the careful mind behind all these books. The delight in spiritual questions with many books on prayer, Saint Thomas Aquinas, meditation, the life of Christ, and from other different religions. Many were books on education and public speaking or the art of conversation. Then, there were the detailed history books on ancient Greece to medieval Europe and even modern political studies.  Classical literature was there from works by Shakespeare to Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novels. There was an unexpected little map that folded out to show all the great monasteries and religious centres that had ever existed in the UK.  So many are no longer in existence. There were endless dictionaries in English, Italian and French. I felt like an apprentice who keeps finding his teacher’s tastes are so far beyond him. A book of idioms in both English and Italian, detailed descriptions of societies, intricate philosophy treatises all hurt my mind.  I began to feel like a huge carthorse following a thoroughbred and avoiding the tricky fences while they soared over all before them.  

I was delighted to discover that a scholar’s library is like peering into another’s interests and enthusiasms. It felt like being awakened by their dedication to learn, examine and search for truth wherever it can be found. Wide-ranging and omnivorous in appetite. It seems so refreshing in the world that seems focused on perversity, character assassination or killer’s confessions.  I finished going through the library inspecting the books and discovered I felt the same gratitude I felt outside that scholar’s home in Vancouver. Grateful that such people exist in this world and heartened to think that there are probably other scholars still out there now gleaning things of beauty from this confusing and distracting world.

“Every good habit, every noble quality belongs to man’s spiritual nature, whereas all his imperfections and sinful actions are born of his material nature.”

Bahá’í writings

Divine Letters - tea stained and creased but read them!

 

Should we claim spiritual insight or clarity due to birthright, experience, or education?

Gosh no!

Is there some special mental skill or knack that enhances our spiritual capacity?

Gosh no!

Is there something of value to be found in our own words that will engender internal change or growth?

Gosh no!

Do we encounter souls that allow us to learn from their insights, skills, and experience?

Gosh yes!

When we listen with heart and mind to the lessons wrought from lives, honed by their unique path in life, do we feel the possibilities of change within ourselves?

Gosh yes!

It is said that every person we meet is a letter from the divine. Some creased, written covered in tea stains, worn over time from repeated handling with last-minute additions scribbled in the margin. When encountering any soul find something of worth within. Some wisdom they have gained from suffering or from actions they have undertaken in service to others. Even if you find them bereft of every gift normally given to a human, destitute of personal graces or material means draw close and ask them about their life’s journey. Are such lessons from the poor and humble infinitely better than the prattling of the powerful and the rich?

Gosh yes!

Does the quality of any letter depend on its letterhead, embossed in gold with a fancy address and ornate seal?

Gosh no!

Somewhere in the grace of listening, we grow in empathy and awareness. Cynical analysis will not suffice only kindly acceptance befits the listener. Can progress result?

Gosh Yes!

Should we be grateful to these letters of the divine, hidden in simple garb? 

Gosh yes!

Does the quality of our response to such human letters become a measure of the Divine mercy we ultimately receive?

Gosh yes!

 ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Matthew 25.40

Our channels of communication have silted up with debris

My ears went pop and suddenly I could no longer hear, particularly from my left ear. Annoying, irritating but it has happened to most of us at some point. The usual remedy is to put your finger in your ear and give it a good shake. Or put one finger over the front of the ear and press hard to open that blocked inner channel. Pinching your nose while closing your mouth and giving a quick blow through your nose usually works. But for me despite all efforts, this strange deafness continued. 

My ear was obviously full of wax I surmised. And advice online from the Mayo Clinic warned against cotton buds in the ear. Who knew you could pierce the eardrum so easily with such soft things? On the fourth day, I consulted a pharmacist and was given drops for my ear to be inserted every four hours. I did that for two days with no positive outcome. Given the growing deafness in my left ear, I found myself adopting coping strategies. I walked on the left side of friends so that they are on my good side and I can hear them. I began to shout when I talked as if a raised volume in my own speech would help during conversations. 

I found myself strangely perplexed as to where the source of background sounds was coming from. Who knew that it was the stereo signal of two ears that helps you pinpoint where exactly that rumble originates? Without it, I look around bewildered awaiting visual signals to give me clues. Then, there is the noise in the deaf ear. That, I never expected. Instead of silence, at night in bed, the ear had a high-pitched hum with odd crackles randomly thrown in. As if my brain and ear have decided to stop normal communication channels and act like angry adolescents.  With either sullen silences or mumbling incoherence. Conveying no sense but a constant wall of annoyance and sudden unexpected hums of a range of frequencies.  

Finally, in despair, it had been a week, I queued to see a doctor. I sat in a waiting room with no official appointment but was shown in by the receptionist as the waiting room was completely empty. I sat 30 minutes in an empty waiting room hoping the doctor would finish with his client in his consulting room and fit me in as the receptionist had hoped.  After 40 minutes he was still with that same client and there was a surge of new patients into the waiting room. I realised with my heart sinking that my window of opportunity had closed. All these new people had pre-booked appointments while I had none. All of them, despite my 40-minute wait, were ahead of me. I left as deaf as I arrived and no further forward. I would have to endure the situation a little longer. Sleep was much, much harder with this noisy deaf ear. 

In these pandemic days seeing doctors in the UK is like finding the golden fleece. It requires extraordinary endeavours and persistence. Dear help those with serious conditions like cancer who have been left in limbo for too long. Lessons certainly need to be learned about how healthcare must be maintained and nurtured in good times so that in dire times it hits the ground running. Not underfunded and disembowelled from either incompetence from within or targets/changes from above. Too often, nowadays, it seems those put into positions are not there because of abilities but simply because of a lack of choice or who they happen to know. If the pilot of your plane got that position because he was someone’s cousin not because he was the best pilot you’d be outraged. You want the surgeon who operates on you or your loved ones to be of the best quality and a safe pair of hands with experience. Not someone promoted due to lack of other surgeons applying. Even before the pandemic two relatives of mine left their jobs as GPs because they were permitted to only spend on average ten minutes in appointments with each patient (one of the shortest times in the EU). We have to be so careful that we do not lose our best due to bad practice.

A recent study by the British Medical Association (published in May of this year) indicated that thousands of exhausted doctors in the UK are considering leaving the NHS in the coming year, citing excessive levels of stress and burnout due to the demands of the pandemic. The number of mature experienced doctors who are deciding to take early retirement has doubled in the last 12 months.  Professor Martin Marshall, Chair of the Royal College of GPs has indicated the chronic shortage of GPs in the NHS. Worryingly despite this present shortfall family doctors in England are quitting at a rate of three a day.  

As I live in Malta there is a different setup available here.  Each pharmacy usually has an in-house doctor available to see for a reasonable payment.  You do have to book in advance during these Covid days, whereas before you were able to just walk in and see a doctor.  Needless to say, after my experience of waiting in the surgery I made an appointment with the doctor.  He saw me the next day and prescribed ear drops and told me I would have to use them for three days and then come back.  Having already used drops to no avail I was unimpressed. And after three days, during which I became even more deaf I was back in his surgery.  This time the doctor took out a huge syringe that you would use on the rear end of a horse and blasted my ear with warm water while I held a metal kidney-shaped dish beneath my ear.  After three hard blasts, my ear popped open while the most disgusting stuff imaginable poured out into the dish.  The doctor showed me triumphantly the debris he had removed and it was impressive.  No wonder I had been unable to hear!  

I cannot begin to tell you of the relief I felt.  I could hear!  The world opened up to me again and a dreadful oppression of the spirit lifted.  How I sympathise with the hard of hearing now.  Every interaction becomes a source of concern, can one guess what the person is saying?  And even more worrying after three days you just pretend to listen, as if a person is speaking a foreign language you don’t know.  Gradually you withdraw from conversations and sit silent but uncomprehending adrift in a world of the deaf. It feels so good to be hearing again.  Why is it we only appreciate things when we lose them?  I like this quote on hearing loss as it strikes a chord.

“I hadn't really noticed that I had a hearing problem. I just thought most people had given up on speaking clearly.”

Hal Linden

There is I am sure a spiritual metaphor for this experience.  Sometimes we cannot hear the truth because our channels of communication have silted up with debris.  We can accept this new reality and just lower our expectations or we can take action and seek to cleanse the senses of all that has impeded them giving wings to our spirits and hope!

“First in a human being's way of life must be purity, then freshness, cleanliness, and independence of spirit.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, 

It only took two months to complete

I had left it undone for two months at least, which is obscene. I put the task off as it seemed non-critical in the face of larger global issues. In fact, I have long felt that tidying cupboards and drawers etc is best left to my close family members after my passing. I’m quite convinced that after writing that line there was a communal hiss of annoyance, “well count me out!” from my kith and kin around the world.

It’s not as if my belongings will attract rich pickings. In my case, anyone willing to tidy and address the chaos of my life will discover mostly loads of unused notebooks along with a hoarder’s collection of pens.  I will happily admit these two are my main weaknesses and despite already having a lifetime supply hidden away, the need for more ever beckons.  But back to my two-month lapse in tackling a much-needed task. I speak not about the drawers and cupboards but something much more personal, my handbag! Ever since I discovered the joy of a small backpack my handbag has literally become invisible. No more bags slipping down my shoulders or filling my hands. Now I experience the world free of this lifelong encumbrance. The blissful freedom is added to because the backpack also serves to straighten my posture. I’m not sure if I am developing a stoop or a dowager’s hump but either way the backpack makes it feel straighter. The only disadvantage is that out of sight is definitely out of mind. 

Today I tackled that forgotten task. I sorted out my bag.  I discovered boarding flight tickets and receipts galore. Official papers I thought I’d lost. An odd collection of passport photos. I think I’d become convinced that another set would produce a less horrendous result.  There were endless scraps of paper, chocolate wrappers, and handwritten notes to myself. I am a writer of to-do lists that are aspirational rather than achievable. For example, tidy my handbag had appeared on one list over four weeks ago. 

So why am I recommending it? Well, as a reflective tool the debris of your handbag exposes the personal state of your life. The chaos and confusion speaks volumes. Even one’s priorities in life become crystal clear. For example, I am obsessive about my phone and carry it everywhere. Not because others might phone me or I might need to phone others but because it records the number of steps I walk.  I now feel duty-bound to carry it with me at all times. Heaven forbid I do even five unrecorded steps! If I forget my phone I almost weep at the lost steps. Yes, you’re right - it is sad! I have even on occasion been caught by family members bounding from one foot to the other while watching TV and holding my phone, in a vain effort to boost my pathetic daily score. When I first downloaded the health tracking app it would send me little congratulatory texts. Like, 'well-done you’ve beaten your average daily step count'. Or tell me excitedly that I had walked the equivalent of London to Paris in the past week. Now, all that has stopped. The app is either sulking, disappointed, or knows me far too well to be willing to comment.

I carry some of my precious little notebooks in my handbag and at least half a dozen much-loved pens. Including one that will write on the moon. I kid you not. I have alcoholic wipes and a portable spray for these pandemic days as I am convinced that these hand dispensers in shopping centres are a source of contamination.  It is what everyone touches after all.  Masks are also a must. Who would’ve thought such things would be commonplace. This world is certainly unpredictable. Here I sit outside a café in Malta drinking coffee and remembering the last time I did this was December of last year. Spending all this time under lockdown really re-calibrated my personal habits. It feels really good to put pen to paper again. I have taken them from a very tidy handbag with a driving license, bus pass, personal cards, and currency all carefully sorted. I look around at others in the café wondering how tidy their bags might be with a righteous air.  I am then forced to admit that little amuses the idiot and what puerile things I pride myself on! 

But do tidy your bag. A dear cousin of mine had her house burgled and the police officer examined the atrocious mess of her bedroom and told her sympathetically,

“I’m so sorry that they have really trashed your place!”

 My cousin was thinking that it was actually tidier than normal, as the thieves had removed some of the contents. She didn’t say that of course! But it does suggest that at least with a tidy bag you can spot when something has gone missing and that is helpful right?  

There is also that peculiar feeling that when you tidy one thing, your bag, a drawer, a shelf that you have turned over a new leaf.   That having completed that one task everything else in your life becomes accessible and achievable in a strange way. As Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC) so eloquently pointed out, 

‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’.

Recalibrating in Dangerous Days

I sit and breathe deep. I think of all those we have loved and lost these days. Has not all thought become strangely recalibrated? It feels like one of those seismic moments when the atomic bomb exploded, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds’. 

The poor have suffered disproportionately. Refugee numbers have swelled as the fear of fleeing is outweighed by the danger of staying in areas afflicted by conflict, famine, or drought. In response, the wealthier nations have pulled up the skirts of their borders to avoid being besmirched by the hordes. Old racial, religious, national, and sexual prejudices have harmonized with the selfish preoccupation finding vogue. Fashions fly in and fly out, but who would’ve thought that while we face a global pandemic these old poisonous siren calls would lure us onto familiar rocks once again. 

We’ve lost 3,9 million citizens, so far, to this new virus and yet there is little soul-searching as to the lessons learned.   Older problems causing even greater numbers of deaths each year are usually largely ignored. 

• Globally, at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces. We shouldn’t be surprised then that 850,000 of them die each year because they have no clean water.

• Nine million die each year in this world from hunger. 

• Seven million die each year from smoking. 

• Three million die every year from the consumption of alcohol. 

• At least 2.8 million people die each year as a result of being overweight or obese. 

• 4.6 million die each year just from air pollution. 

We have money-making industries that thrive despite causing millions of these deaths each year and I fear it is viewed as merely collateral damage. 

Nations have shown a perverse greed to protect only their own during this pandemic, allowing others to die from a simple lack of oxygen or access to a vaccine. There are lessons needing to be learned about how corruption plagues society. Of how even personal protection equipment can become a moneymaking endeavour for those with the wrong perspective but the right connections. How much money marshalled to face this pandemic threat has been swiftly side-tracked into the coffers of those whose greed exceeds their integrity. I fear we are suffering from a moral decay that has been eating into the vitals of human society for some time. It has lowered humanity’s immune response and as a result, opportunistic cancerous elements have been given free rein. 

Yet, I have a hope that the younger generation has a clarity the older population may have lost. They are not afraid to make the changes that we, who have been moulded for decades by this system, cannot. Whether it is admitting climate change, addressing injustice, or simply wanting transformative decisions on gun control, I find myself respecting this younger generation more and more. Astonished at how much they understand and how clear their thought processes are. Not tied into toxic habits that have twisted our own mindset. They are more united and more in touch with each other. They question these false gods of consumerism, materialism, and all the other ‘..isms’ that have dictated so many of the poor choices we have made. 

The world is tired of words it wants actions. It requires deeds that show we have found a way to live moral, responsible lives that contribute to the health of both this world community and our precious planet Earth