Review of "When Autumn Comes" by Mary Jo Bennett

This book is advice on care and caregiving for the dying, particularly in a hospice setting or under hospice auspices.  But it is written in the form of a series of stories of different deaths, and the care surrounding them.  The first chapter, and a fairly lengthy one, opens with the death of a friend of the author, and the author's attempts at care, and family management, during that period.  The bulk of the chapter is the story, but with side note questions that can help clarify (in the caregiver or volunteers mind) a number of important issues in regard to caregiving for the dying.  The family dynamics, and stresses in family relationships that can be exacerbated during a death, are a major emphasis in the material.  At the end of each chapter there is a series of short paragraphs that are suggestions for care, for self-care, and for hospice volunteering, particularly.

The material in the book, and the stories in the book, cover a wide range of situations and problems.  However, it is difficult, because of the material on advice and recommendations being tied to the stories, to say that the material is complete or comprehensive in coverage.  In addition, an occasional suggestion seems to come out of left field, being based on some kind of personal belief, rather than prescribed hospice, respite, or volunteer care guidance.

While there are shortcomings, overall the book is quite useful.  The anecdotal style, with a variety of stories of different situations of caring for the dying, make it easy to read and not arduous to take in.  The fact that the side notes are scattered throughout the book makes it easy to approach those important questions individually, and give them due time and consideration.  The collection of suggestions at the end of each chapter does somewhat the same thing.

Because the side notes deal with important issues, and the end of chapter suggestions collate good variety of advice, it is tempting to consider the book for a study group for end of life care.  However, the inconsistent length of the chapters, and the sporadic nature of the side notes and suggestions, would make this difficult to arrange in an efficient manner.  It still might be a good idea, but should probably be approached on a somewhat informal basis.

Psalm 4:8

In peace I lie down,

and I fall asleep at once,

Yahweh makes me rest.

Sermon 7 - Faith and works, and intuitive vs instrumental grief

Sermon 7 - Faith and works, and intuitive vs instrumental grief

I am a grieving widower.  (Oh, you are getting tired of that?  Well, consider how *I* feel about it.)  In any case, I am going through grief, and I am learning various lessons from it.  Which I'm willing to pass along, to you, so you can learn the lessons, without having to go through the grief.

Some of the lessons are about grief in broad and general terms.  For example, one of the things that I am learning is that there are at least two ways that people process grief.  There is the standard, and traditional, and most likely recognized style of processing grief, which involves expressing emotions.  How do you feel about the grief?  How does the loss make you feel?  What are the feelings and emotions that brief, bereavement, and loss, engender in you?  This is known as intuitive style of grieving.  And, as I say, it is so widely recognized that many people feel that this is the only way of processing grief.  But it's not.

There are people, and, apparently, I am one, who process grief in what is known as an instrumental style.  This is much more involved in activity, and planning, and cognitive types of activities.  So, for example, I am studying grief, since I am grieving.  I am learning everything that I can about grief.  I am planning, and developing, and researching towards, providing assistance for other people who grieve in an instrumental style.  This is the way that I am grieving.  And, because of that, I have learned something that may be of interest to you.

Unless you are bereaved, or have suffered a loss recently, you probably don't care too much about grief, and what I am learning about grief.  After all, you are a church congregation, and do you want to hear about God.  And, no, I am not simply going to say that God will comfort you in your grief.  I believe that that is true, but I also believe that simply telling people that is not necessarily helpful when they are in the earliest, and deepest, stages of grief.

No, what I am going to talk about, is faith.  And, works.  We have this constant discussion about faith and works, in the Christian life.  We agree that we are saved by faith.  God has saved us from eternal separation from Him due to our sinful natures.  All we have to do is believe, and have faith, and we are saved.  We are not saved by works, lest any man should boast.  (Ephesians 3:9)  It is not our efforts that save us: it is faith in God and the work of Jesus Christ.

However, as James tells us, faith without works is dead.  (James 2:20)  If God has saved us, if God has done all of that for us, and we do nothing in return?  What kind of Christians does that make us?  So we do try to do good works.  We do try to live a proper life.  We cannot live a perfect life, the life that we would need to live if we were to save ourselves, but in gratitude to God, for all that God has done for us, we should at least try to do a little bit of good.  Faith saves us, but faith, without works, is dead.  Salvation is a gift of grace, but, if we do nothing in response to it, that's cheap grace.

Okay, what does that have to do with grief?

Well, as I said, there seem to be two styles of processing grief.  There is the intuitive style.  The intuitive style is about how we feel.  We have pay attention to how we feel.  We note how's we feel.  We believe that this helps us to understand how well we are processing the grief: how well we are moving through grief.  We believe this.  We have faith in this.

Oh, look. There's that word.  Faith.

Then there's the other style of processing grief, the instrumental style.  People who are processing grief in an instrumental manner are thinking about it.  They may be studying it, or learning other things.  They are involved in planning.  They are involved in projects.  They are working.

Oh, look.  There's that other word: work.

The thing is, people who study grief tend to find that you are not necessarily only an instrumental griever, or only an intuitive griever.  Those who are bereaved, and who are going through grief, tend to be on a continuum.  Everybody tends to have some intuitive processing of grief, and also some instrumental processing of grief.  Some people are much more intuitive than instrumental, and some people are much more instrumental than intuitive.  Me, I tend to be heavily on the instrumental end of the scale.  But I also have had lots of grief bursts.  And I still do.  Some people need to work through their feelings, and some people need to study and work.  But everybody needs to do a bit of both.

And it's the same with the Christian life.  In fact, it's even more so.  Grievers will have a tendency to need more of one, than the other.  There will be a preference for how you process grief.  But that's not the way it is in the Christian life.  Salvation comes by faith.  As a Christian you need to have faith.  Possibly only as much as a grain of mustard seed, but you need to have faith.  Salvation is by faith.  You do not work out your own salvation.  Salvation is not by works: our works are not good enough, and never have been.

But if we simply rely on faith, and don't make any attempt to do what God would have us do, then what kind of children of God does that make us?  Very disobedient ones.  Saved ones, to be sure.  But rather ungrateful ones.  So we need to try.  We need to work.  And our works, are not for the benefit of God.  God does not need what we can do.  God can do pretty much anything we can do, and probably better than we can do it.  But God has allowed us to participate in working in his world.  God has given us work to do.  And this work is undoubtedly for our benefit.  There is some benefit, to us, in doing what God would have us to do.

One of the other things that I am is a volunteer for emergency management.  Every time there is a disaster I am quite sensitized to it.  And every time there is a disaster, people ask, why?  Why did God allow this flood, this hurricane, this landslide, this heat wave, this snowpocalypse?  There are, of course, many answers.  But one that is often neglected is, "so that you can help."  Every time there is a disaster I invite my security colleagues to sign up for, and get training in, emergency management.  It's good for your career.  You get training.  You get experience.  And, you get to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.  You get to understand what is going on, what is important, what is needed.  You get to help.

Whenever bad things happen to good people, we get to help.  We get an opportunity to help.  God doesn't actually need our help.  He could handle it on His own.  But he gives us the opportunity to help.  Why does He do this?  To help us.  It is for our benefit.  The Bible tells us that.  We are laying up treasures in heaven when we help.  (Mark 10:21)  What are these treasures?  We don't know.  But we have faith that they are there.

There's that word again.  We have faith, even in the midst of our works.  The two cannot be separated.

If you want to personalize this issue, we have two people to talk about.  Two sisters, in fact.  Mary and Martha.  In Luke 10:38-42 we are told of a dinner party.  Mary sits at Jesus feet.  Mary is intuitive.  Mary has faith: faith that what Jesus says is supremely important.  Martha is putting on the dinner.  Martha is working.  Martha is instrumental.  And, generally, Martha gets short shrift in this account.  She complains to Jesus that Jesus should tell Mary to help with the dinner, and Jesus sides with Mary.  But notice: Jesus doesn't tell Martha to stop working.  Jesus doesn't tell Martha that working is wrong.  Jesus tells Martha not to be distracted, and that Mary is concentrating on the most important aspect.  But it doesn't say that Martha *wasn't* listening, while she was working.  And obviously, Martha *was* listening.

Because later, in John, chapter 11, we are told of the death of Lazarus, brother to the two women.  And, since we have been talking about grief, normally you'd expect me to talk about the illustrations of grief involved here.  Once again, normally Martha gets short shrift in this story.  We tend to think that Martha doesn't have faith.  But she does.  She has listened.  Martha says that if Jesus had been there, Lazarus wouldn't have died.  She had that much faith.  She was probably the one who arranged to get a message to Jesus about Lazarus' illness.  And, in fact, Mary's response is exactly the same: Mary says that if Jesus had been there, Lazarus wouldn't have died.  While faith is the better part, and we are saved by grace, through faith, faith and works cannot, and should not, be separated.  Both are necessary.

There are possibly two other people we can talk about.  Two brothers, this time.  And one, the younger, demanded his share of the family fortune, and got it, and wasted it, and got into difficulty.  And finally realized, had enough faith, that his father would take him back.  Maybe as a servant, but take him back.  And the other brother has been working all this time.  Now, I've got to admit, I've got a lot of sympathy for the elder brother.  He's been working all these years while the kid was out partying.  And he comes home, from working, to find that they are throwing a party because the kid has come back.  That's got to be galling.  But, there is no help for it.  He's got to work on having faith in his baby brother again.

Because we need both.

Psalm 13:1,2

How much longer will

you forget me, God?  Forever?

Must I endure grief?

Hockey considerations ...

It's weird what triggers grief.  I learned that someone has been diagnosed as terminal, and my reaction was, "Lucky stiff![1]  He gets to die, and I have to live!"  And I even cried, because he gets to die, and I have to live.  (I'd swap, if God would allow it.  I really would.  I'd have *no* problem with that.)

And then I had arranged to take some families to a hockey game, and it's the first hockey game I've watched since Gloria died, because she was the reason we watched hockey, and I cried about that.

But I didn't cry at the actual hockey game ...

[1] - pardon the expression ...

Hockey haiku

I haven't watched a

game since she died, as it was

Gloria's hockey.

Snow

Yesterday we had some snow.  It was early in the morning, but I was up early.  (Busy day, on the calendar.)  It wasn't very much snow.  It was falling lightly while I was doing most of my early walking, and it never got too terribly deep.  The roads were not impassable, although you would have had to have been careful driving around town.  Walking on the sidewalks was a little bit more difficult, but walking on the roads wasn't too hard, particularly if you could find a track that somebody had driven down.  It didn't fall fairly heavily about 7:00 AM, but then it eased off, and, by about 11:00, it was really lovely sunshine, and remain so for the rest of the day.  It was bitterly cold, but at least there was sun, and, walking in the afternoon, it was sometimes even too warm for me to zip up my heavy jacket.  I had a fairly busy day, yesterday, with all kinds of appointments.  The fact that there was even a skiff of snow meant that I was concerned that people would be canceling the appointments.  Actually, only one of them got canceled, but there was pretty low attendance at all of them.  This made it somewhat easier, in terms of the appointments, because some of them could be shortened, and that gave me a bit of a break and margin.

Today is sunny as well, and I doubt that there is any chance that we will have any kind of snow at any point.  It looks like a really lovely day.

Tomorrow, we are supposed to have snowpocalypse.  Again, it'll be a fairly busy day for me.  I've got a number of appointments morning, noon, and night.  And by night, I imagine that I will be slogging through some fairly heavy snow.  Although, also, by nightfall I assume that people will have gone into their standard Port Alberni reaction to snow, and that everything will be canceled, so I have no idea whether my evening appointment (the "Jesus" movie screening for this week) will happen or not.  I'll have to ask.

Job 13:5

I wish someone would

teach you to maintain silence:

that would be wisdom!

Review of church 10

How do I put this?  This church, while it is quite active, and has some nice people in it, is, overall, possibly the least caring institution I have ever been involved with.

I am, of course, the newcomer here, and so my perceptions may not be completely accurate, with regard to the interactions between long time members.  Certainly the fact that I am a grieving widower, and in pain, and damaged, has to affect both my expectations of the church, and my judgment.  However, I have not been able to see any particular evidence of caring between the long time members, either.  I don't know for sure, but I very strongly suspect that they don't really provide much care for one another, either.

This is based on three months of experience.  Not a huge amount of time, I grant you.  But I'm not simply going to services, sitting in the sanctuary, and then leaving.  I have, as I have with pretty much all of the churches that I have contacted here, made extensive efforts to be involved, and fairly actively involved.  I am attending midweek events, Bible studies, prayer meetings, and other events.  When the event is a meal, I am helping out in the kitchen, and helping to prepare that meal, not just consuming it.  When I have been in a small group, or a prayer meeting, I have been honest about my own feelings and experiences, in relation to the topics that are under discussion.  I have been open, and even possibly vulnerable, in terms of sharing with these groups.  I pray daily for this church, and for the staff, and for a number of the congregants, where I know personal details.  And, I do know personal details, because I have asked, and I have listened, and I know the concerns and activities of more than a dozen people who attend this church.  I very much doubt that more than a handful of them could tell you the name of my late wife, let alone any of my other concerns.

It has been very interesting to be part of some of the small groups and studies.  The congregants involved have frequently noted that it is important for all of them, all the members of the church, and particularly all the members of the various groups, to share, honestly and even vulnerably, their concerns and experiences.  I would agree.  But, in my experience, in multiple groups, and in multiple attendances to the different groups, I would seem to be the only one who is willing to share openly and vulnerably.  Most of what is shared in these groups, by the other people in the group, are simply verses from the Bible or other cliches.  There are some experiences that are retailed or shared, but these experiences tend to be well in the past, and current concerns are pretty much never shared in these groups.  In addition, when I have shared, the people in the group have felt free to respond to my experiences and concerns.  But their sharing has been rather cliched.  Someone will say that I need fellowship.  Well, yes, that is true, but no fellowship seems to be on offer from this church, or any group, or individual, in it.  Somebody else will say that I need someone to come alongside me.  Yes, that would be nice.  But no one is actually doing it.  Someone will say that I need to find someone who cares about me.  Yes, that would be nice.  It also seems to be pretty much impossible to find in this church.  Neither the church, nor any of the groups, nor in any individuals that I have encountered, seem to care whether I live or die.

I can't help wondering, in light of 2 Corinthians 1:4:

"[The God of all consolation] consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God."

what unconsoled affliction this church has that they are unable to console anyone else?

Psalm 69:19,20

You know my trauma,

I had hoped for sympathy,

found none to console.

Insurance

I'm pretty skeptical about insurance.  (I'm a security maven, so I think of it as "risk transfer," which, of course, it isn't.)  I recently had some kind of spam pop up in my email that was offering me some version of cyberinsurance (which is generally a really bad idea) that seemed to be offering to insure me against ransomware.  (It was offering to pay my regular salary if I was forced to miss work, so, as a contractor, that's an automatic "no" anyway.)

Packing and arranging for the move I had to get "strata" insurance, which, as far as I can tell, is just bog standard tenant's insurance, with the addition of some coverage of the deductibles that the strata's insurance doesn't cover.  It all seems unnecessarily complicated.

And then there were the movers.  I had a bunch of quotes.  A number of them itemize the costs, and those that do always include insurance.  Now, let's analyze this.  The movers are insuring *themselves* against any damage *they* cause to *my* stuff while they are moving it.  And they *don't* cover anything that *I* pack: only stuff that I pay *them* to pack.  And they want *me* to pay for the insurance in case *they* break anything?

Psalm 27:13

This I believe: I

shall see the goodness of God,

in the land of life.

CISSP seminar (free!)

Study the CISSP on your coffee break!  (I realized that that is one advantage of this weird, social media posting regime ...)

The CISSP is the Certified Information Systems Security Professional designation, the professional level certification for security in the field of computer, communications, and information systems, and the people who work in them.  It is, of course, the people who write the exam and get certified.

The exam is fairly rigorous, not to say onerous.  It's intended to do a difficult job: to assess the level of experience, and judgment and critical thinking, necessary to be a professional in a complex and demanding field.  Many people who are preparing to write the certification exam choose to take preparations seminars, in order to ensure that they have the full background, and have the best chance of passing the examination and obtaining their certification.

I have facilitated such preparation seminars, and contributed material for such seminars, for multiple organizations, including (ISC)^2, the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium, the maintainer of the CISSP certification and examinations, for more than twenty years.  I have taught on six continents.  A lot of the people who facilitate such seminars feel that they've done a good job if they get high marks on the evaluation forms filled out by candidates at the conclusion of the seminars.  I always judged my facilitating on the basis of how many seminars I conducted where a hundred percent of the candidates actually passed the examination and obtained their certification.  Over the years I had a number of seminars where 100% of the candidates passed, and there's even one *city* where every single seminar that I conducted had 100% pass rate.

The preparation seminars are not cheap.  And they're not always available.  And they're not all of the same quality, nor are the people facilitating such seminars.  So, now that I am, ostensibly, retired, I figure it's time to do my bit in aid of the profession.  So, I'm conducting a seminar, for free, in a rather unusual way.

I'm doing this seminar while I'm walking around town.  In bits and pieces.  Specifically, in little video segments, that I can then upload to various of the social media platforms.  Since TikTok seems to be very popular right now, I'm including TikTok, and it's TikTok that seems to be the limiting factor.  TikTok has a ten minute maximum limit for video clips, so I'm keeping the individual video clips under ten minutes.  So, there are going to be hundreds of such clips, in order to cover the full forty hours of the material in the seminar.  I figure it will take at least a year, and possibly two, to get the whole seminar done this way, but, once it's up, then all of you lot can use it, in any way you like, forever.  Or, at least until social media, as an activity and as various companies, falls out of favor, and these various systems go by the board.  Anyway, this seminar will be available for a while.

I'm posting the clips to YouTube, where my channel is, apparently, known as @TheRslade or  TheRslade, and which I consider to be the central repository and most organized, and I've created a playlist for it, as well as the aforementioned TikTok, Fakebook (yes, I *do* have an account, but I only use it for emergency backup posting, so don't try and contact me there), LinkeDin, and Instagram.

(As of 20240108, all of the introduction [CISSP 0.xx], the security management domain [CISSP 1.xx] , and the access control domain [CISSP 2.xx, security architecture [CISSP 3.xx], applications security [CISSP 4.xx], and cryptology [CISSP 5.xx] are complete.  I am starting into physical security [CISSP 6.xx].)

Of course, I expect a number of people will simply follow along on the video clips, and do their preparation that way.  However, I hope that some of you will take the opportunity to form study groups, watch the video clips together, and discuss them.  Study groups, formed and operating over a period of time, allow you to prepare much better for the exam, and to bounce ideas off each other in order to more fully understand the principles of security, and form the appropriate attitudes to the security profession, which is really what the examination is trying to assess in any case.

Again, on YouTube, my channel is @TheRslade or TheRslade, and I've created a playlist simply called "CISSP seminar."  The description for the CISSP seminar playlist also provides references and contact information and links for the other social media channels.  It also provides links that I may need to make available in regard to study resources, such as the lists of questions that I have posted to the (ISC)^2 "community,"  and Ross Anderson's excellent text, "Security Engineering."

References:

(ISC)^2 no longer makes the CBK readily available.  If you want a copy, do a Google search for “site:isc2.org cissp exam outline” and do some pruning.

Get various versions of the "Information Security Management Handbook" if you can find them.

"Security Engineering," Ross Anderson

Dictionary of Information Security, Robert Slade

Cybersecurity Lessons from CoVID-19, Robert Slade

RISKS Forum Digest

References by domain http://victoria.tc.ca/int-grps/books/techrev/mnbksccd.htm

Reviews of study guides http://victoria.tc.ca/int-grps/books/techrev/mnbkscci.htm

There is a great bundle of other resources at https://start.me/p/b5epnR/free-or-near-cybersecurity-training

For (and from) all the newbies out there who want help for studying, there have been numerous questions about, well, questions.  As in, "what's the best set of practice questions to use while studying for the exam?"

The answer is, none of them.

I have looked at an awful lot of practice question sets, and they are uniformly awful.  Most try to be "hard" by bringing in trivia: that is not representative of the exam.  Most concentrate on a bunch of facts: that is not representative of the exam.

So, from my own stash, collected and developed over the decades, I'm going to give you some samples that do represent the types of questions that you will probably see on the exam.  Note that none of these questions will appear on the exam.  You can't pass the CISSP exam by memorizing a brain dump.  These will just give you a feel for the format and style of questions, and the overall level of "difficulty."

For each question I'll give the answer, what type of question this represents, and possibly ways to approach this type of question.

https://community.isc2.org/t5/Exams/CISSP-questions/td-p/18626

https://community.isc2.org/t5/Exams/Practice-Questions/td-p/18626

Good luck to those who are willing to put the work into a difficult profession.  For those of you who are hoping to just get all the answers for the exam and pass it without much effort, you deserve everything that happens to you when you fail the exam.

Grey day

Grey is a background.

Use the background to colour

your great achievements.

Review of "Self-Care for Caregivers: A Twelve Step Approach" by Pat Samples/Diane Larsen/Marvin Larsen

(I include the subtitle here, because there is another "Self-Care for Caregivers" by Suzanne White.)

This book on self-care is based on the twelve step program, which may be familiar from Alcoholics Anonymous and other similar programs.  The first two chapters talk about, and give a number of examples of, problems and issues of caregiving.  Chapter three deals with the first three steps in the program; step one being "letting go," step two being "accepting that a higher power can help," and step three being "surrendering to that higher power."

Chapter four looks at step four.  After one chapter covering three steps, taking only one in a single chapter may seem odd, but, given that the moral inventory that one is supposed to take requires six steps of its own, for each individual emotional item, this could take considerable time.  Even the six steps for a single item, such as loneliness, could get really weird.  For example, if I do an inventory of loneliness, is there a benefit to loneliness?  Is the desperation for company a benefit, because it gives me an excuse to pursue people?  Or hang out with people that I might not otherwise hang out with?  This can get very meta, very quickly.

Chapter five looks at step five, "admitting the nature of our wrongs," step six "being ready for God to remove our defects," and step seven "humbly asking God to remove our shortcomings."  The next two steps, eight "making a list of all persons we'd harmed and becoming willing to make amends to them all," and nine "making direct amends to such people where possible," are in chapter six.

At this point the steps move to ongoing and future development, and so chapter seven covers step ten "continuing to take a personal inventory," which is assisted by a useful tool referred to as HALT, telling us to beware of becoming too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired, and to using those indicators to stop and deal with issues that may be upsetting us in those events which engender such reactions.  Step eleven "prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God," and step twelve, which assumes that we have had a spiritual awakening as a result of the steps and carrying this message to others to practice these principles.

It is interesting to see, through the material in the book, the movement from initially talking about a Higher Power, to the later direct references to God.

The idea of using the twelve step program, generally seen as a process for dealing with addictions, in terms of dealing with the problems of caregiving, and, indeed, any kinds of problems in life, is probably a good one.  The 12-step program is simply distilled wisdom in relation to a number of areas that psychologists have been recommending for years.  Admitting powerlessness, and that there is a greater power, is simply realizing that we are not the center of the universe.  Making a moral inventory is simply a realistic self assessment and examination.  Admitting failures and wrongs, and then taking steps to remove or otherwise deal with defects and character, have their basis in confession, realization of problems, and commitment to doing something about the problems.  Again making a list of persons harmed and making amends is part of the forgiveness situation, which many psychologists would understand as a very positive thing.  The the evangelistic emphasis of step twelve is interesting, and doesn't seem to have a direct psychological factor associated with it, but doing something for others, even if it's only telling them what worked for us, is, again, always a positive thing.

In any case, this process does seem to be overall positive for any kind of problematic situation, and the stories of problems associated with caregiving will be helpful for any caregivers who are, after all, pursuing a very complicated and demanding calling.  This book would seem to be quite helpful, and probably the earlier any caregiver addresses and identifies these issues, and takes steps to deal with them, the better.

Psalm 35:22

Now, break your silence!

Yahweh, you were looking, too!

Do not stand aside!

Seminar

Well, it started earlier with a meeting stressing the importance of meeting, and sharing, and being open, and completely ignoring the realities of what the meetings here *are* like.  But, I'm getting used to that.  (Or, I thought I was.)

And then, the seminar was great!  Those attending were active, and involved, and questioning, and not only questioning but asking great questions that I was able to give really informative, and extensive answers, and broaden the seminar into new areas.  And they were specifically thankful that I *moved* to Port Alberni!  And they immediately arranged for redoing this one, and setting up the next, more advanced, seminar!  And I was feeling great, afterwards!

And then I got home, and there was absolutely nobody to share it with.

And I crashed, and went to DQ and pigged out.  (Which was stupid.)

I'm really exhausted ...

(And I've got to go to the men's breakfast, which will be stupidity, ignorance, and uncaring personified ...)

Heart monitor

Does it show that it's

broken, damaged, in deep pain?

Does that result show?

Sermon 6 - Ask and ye shall receive

Sermon 6 - Ask and ye shall receive

Gloria's death was relatively sudden.  However, I did receive some advance warning.  This was prompted by advice from a security colleague, who happens to be a physician, who told me to bug the staff in ICU about the cytology results coming back from the lab.  Cytology is the study of cells and tissue.  I knew that, but I didn't know the implications of what Martin was looking for.  However, I did take his advice, and, every time I visited Gloria, I asked the ICU staff if the cytology results had come back from the lab yet.  I asked every day.  It took several days for the results to come back from the lab.  But, because I had been bugging and bugging them every day about the results, when the results *did* come back from the lab they told me flat out it was adenosarcoma.  I reported this to Martin, and his response was that he had thought so, but hadn't wanted to say so, and were they talking about palliative care?  I *definitely* knew what the implications of palliative care meant.  So, because I kept bugging them, I had at least a week to prepare myself before the hospital was willing to use the term "death."

When I got to Port Alberni, a couple of the churches that I was attending various functions from, had had a number of deaths in recent history.  Two of the pastors expressed interest in some kind of Christian grief counseling, or grief group.  I was interested in this, along with my grief guys idea, and so, whenever it seemed appropriate, I bugged those pastors about whether they had thought anything more about these grief groups.  And I talked about it in prayer meetings and men's groups.  And, eventually, I annoyed G enough that he formalized the idea, and actually started something.  So, because I kept bugging people, the group actually started.

This sermon is not about grief.  It's about bugging people.  Actually, it's about bugging God.  Jesus tells us, at least twice, to bug God.  In one parable, he uses the illustration of going to a neighbour, late at night, to get some provisions for a guest who has arrived unexpectedly.  The neighbour has gone to bed.  The whole household is in bed.  Probably in one bed.  If the neighbour gets up to give you provisions, he is going to disturb his children.  And we all know how difficult it is to deal with children when they have been awakened unexpectedly and unfairly.  You don't want to wake your children up and have to deal with that.  But, Jesus says, even though your neighbour doesn't want to get up and give you the provisions that you need, if you keep pounding on his door, and keep bugging him, he will, however unwillingly, get up and give you what you need.

Why does Jesus say that God is like an unhelpful neighbour?

The other parable is even worse.  Jesus says that God is like a corrupt judge.  A widow has a court case that needs to be decided in her favor.  She has a good case.  If the judge will only render his decision, it's going to go in the widow's favour.  But the judge is corrupt.  The judge is waiting for a bribe.  The judge thinks that if he just holds off long enough, the widow is going to offer him a bribe in order to get what she needs.  But the widow keeps on bugging the judge, and finally the judge just gives up renders his decision and she gets what she needs.

Is Jesus saying that God is corrupt?  That God is like a corrupt judge?  That God is looking for a bribe?

The point of these two parables is to keep on bugging God.  Is this because God is forgetful?  Is this because God needs a reminder?  Of course not.  Is this because God is unwilling to give us what we need?  Of course not.  We are to keep bugging God; we are to keep on praying, for our benefit, not for God's benefit.  It is important for us to pray.  It is important for us to keep praying.  There is something of benefit to us in keeping on praying, even though God knows what we need, and God knows what the best time is for us to get it.  Prayer is for *our* benefit, not for God's benefit.

Why is it important, for us, that we pray?  I don't know.  We aren't told why.  We are just told to do it.  There are a few possibilities that we might consider.

Praying means we are talking to God.  Therefore, we are thinking about God.  That's probably a good thing.  Thinking about God, meditating on God, focussing our thoughts on God, considering the nature of God: all of these things are probably good for us.  Anything that keeps our focus on God is a good idea.  God wants to have a relationship with us, so it is only right that we pay attention to Him.  And that is what we were created to do, so doing it is undoubtedly good for us.

There is an additional side benefit from praying: it gets our mind off us.  Now, there are times when we should think about ourselves, and ways that we should think about ourselves.  But it is unlikely that we think of ourselves too seldom.  Thinking about ourselves tends to happen automatically.  And, a lot of the time, we think about ourselves too much.

For example, I am a grieving widower.  Because of that I am damaged, and in pain, and lonely.  And I think about that a lot.  Way too much.  And if I let myself think about that, then I spiral into a pity party: oh, woe is me!  I'm all alone!  I'm lonely!  God, you said I am not supposed to be alone!  Why did you leave me all alone?  Why am I so sad and lonely?

Well, I am sad and lonely because I am dwelling on the fact that I am sad and lonely.  So, when I start into that spiral, I try to stop it by praying.  And not just praying about being sad and lonely, but praying about other people.  I pray about you lot.  I pray through the churches of Port Alberni.  Now, hopefully, these prayers, for you, do you some good.  But they definitely do *me* good, because when I'm thinking and praying about your problems, I'm not thinking about *my* problems.

So when you see me walking down the street, talking to myself, I'm not talking to myself.  I'm probably talking to God.  Likely about you.

Job 19:25

This I know: that my

Avenger lives: and, at last,

takes his stand on earth.

Small town

Everybody warns me that Port Alberni is a small town, and I have to watch what I say, because everyone is going to know I said it five minutes after I say it.  But then when I come across a situation where I figure that "small town" can work to my advantage, like a store knowing who I am, nope, it's the same "they ain't no reason for it, it's just our policy" that you get in the metropolis ...

Small town my ... no, better not say that, five minutes after I do, everybody in town is going to know I said it ...

[Sigh ...]

Job 16:2

How often have I

heard all this before: sorry

comforters you are!

Caregivers bibliography

This entry is primarily a reference for the Alberni Valley Hospice Society library, and will be added to, regularly, as I plow through it.  (Keep checking: I won't be making any specific note of additions.)

See also: Grief bibliography https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2022/12/grief-bibliography.html

See also: End-of-Life bibliography: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/05/end-of-life-bibliography.html

"Attending the Dying" by Megory Anderson https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/05/review-of-attending-dying-by-megory.html

"Be the Noodle" by Lois Kelly https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/02/review-of-be-noodle-by-lois-kelly.html https://search.virl.bc.ca/iii/encore/reviews/Sb1168926/

"A Caregivers Guide" by Dennie Hycha and Robert W. Clarke https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/02/review-of-caregivers-guide-by-dennie.html

"I Don't Know What to Say" by Robert Buckman https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/05/review-of-i-dont-know-what-to-say-by.html

"The Lost Art of Listening" by Michael P. Nichols https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/03/review-of-lost-art-of-listening-by.html https://search.virl.bc.ca/iii/encore/reviews/Sb1343287/

"A Pocket Full of Happiness" by Richard E. Grant

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/11/not-quite-review-of-pocket-full-of.html

"Searching for the Silver Linings" by Pamela Rosemary Adams https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/05/review-of-searching-for-silver-linings.html https://search.virl.bc.ca/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1025894__Ssearching%20for%20the%20Silver%20linings__Orightresult__U__X7

"Self-Care for Caregivers: A Twelve Step Approach" by Pat Samples/Diane Larsen/Marvin Larsen https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/02/review-of-self-care-for-caregivers.html

"When Autumn Comes" by Mary Jo Bennett https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/02/review-of-when-autumn-comes-by-mary-jo.html

Review of "A Caregivers Guide" by Dennie Hycha and Robert W. Clarke

This is, indeed, a guide for caregivers.  It is intended for those who do not have medical training, and must care for a loved one, particularly with regard to end-of-life care.  The bulk of the material is about physical care, physical problems, and complications and related material, but it does start with a section about the first diagnosis of a terminal illness, and also, later in the book, contains a section about life ending.

The material is practical, and primarily in point form.  There is little discussion, and a great many bullet lists of material to be considered.  The material is basic, and most advice can be obtained elsewhere, but having it compiled in this single volume can be extremely helpful.

The material is, however, basic, and may seem facile in many areas, for those who have any experience with caring for the sick at any level, quite a part for any who have any level of professional nursing background.

In this regard, there are areas of potential weakness in the material.  For example, in the section on pressure sores (decubitus ulcers), there is a simple mention of looking for red spots on the skin.  There is no discussion of the fact that these are more likely to appear under areas that make direct contact with the bed or seat, or checking, if areas that have been red, turn white, or start to take on a purplish bruised color, or break down and start losing or leaking fluids.  There is no discussion of the progression of pressure sores, and the warning signs as they become more serious.  True, in most cases simply checking for red areas, and massaging them until the redness disappears, is acceptable and will result in continued good skin health.  But pressure sores are a major problem with the bed bound, and likely a fuller examination or explanation could have been warranted.  In addition, sometimes the material is, in fact, incorrect.  For example, in the section in regard to the use of oxygen, the statement is made that oxygen fuels fires.  Technically, this is incorrect.  Fires need heat, fuel, and oxygen.  Pure oxygen, in the presence of heat and fuel, will support a much fiercer blaze than normal atmospheric oxygen, which is always available.  This may be considered a distinction without a difference, but it may leave the impression that oxygen itself is flammable, which is not correct.

There are various worksheet type resources printed with the book.  For example, early in the book there is a page which the caregiver can use to collect and fill out names and contact numbers for doctors, therapists, social workers, and other connections, in addition to family and friends who may be able to care for the loved one, or provide respite.  Later in the book, as well as books and other resources, there are worksheets for creating a home medication schedule, symptom assessments, and other helpful materials.  In addition, there are there is a section in the end of life, or dying, material, which provides financial, legal checklists, and checklists for offices and agencies to contact following a death.  All of this can be very helpful.

Overall, the book is very useful, particularly for those who do not have any experience with any kind of nursing care.  In addition, for those who do have experience in nursing, or home care, while the material may seem simplistic at times, the compilation into one volume, and the checklist format, makes it a handy quick reference to ensure that nothing is forgotten in any particular situation.  This is definitely a resource that should be made available to anyone who is providing home care for a loved one, particularly in the end stages of life.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day and
 wearing a heart monitor.

Oh, the irony!

Party Line Port Alberni proposal

There are many people in an aging population in Port Alberni.  A number of them have mobility issues, medical problems, or other difficulties which keep them either housebound or somewhat isolated.

A number of agencies or people do attempt to address this with phone trees, or other systems that provide for a daily or weekly check on those who are housebound or otherwise physically isolated.  An important example is the "Friendly Phone Service" of the Sunshine Club.  However, these checks do not provide very much in the way of socialization, and, in particular, socialization between those who are isolated and have concerns in common.  There is a need, and a desire, for these people to socialize with each other.

There is a possibility of creating social spaces using systems like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or Google Meet.  A system can be created, where a meeting, or space, is set up, and the isolated can join with smartphones, tablets, laptops, computers, or sometimes even telephone bridges.  Multiple parties can participate in such a meeting.

The creation of such a system will need the assistance of technically competent people, both to determine the most appropriate system to use, and to create the initial accounts necessary to provide for it, and to provide at least basic training for those housebound and isolated individuals who would be participating, if they are not already familiar with how to use such systems.  However, the systems themselves, once established, would likely the subject to fairly minimal maintenance, and minimal technical knowledge requirements, and, therefore, could be run by the participants themselves once established.  Thus, technically competent people would be needed for the startup, but probably would not be required on an ongoing basis, after about six months' involvement.

The intent of creating the social spaces is allow the shut-in, housebound, and otherwise mobility challenged, manage their own communications and socialization.  There would not seem to be a major requirement for oversight of such spaces, on an intense basis, over the long term.  However, in the initial setup there is likely to be a need for some oversight and assistance to nascent moderators or co-moderators for the social spaces, recruited from the isolated themselves.

There will be some need for such oversight, and training in moderation, for those who will become the eventual moderators for the space on a permanent or rotating basis.  The pandemic, particularly in the initial stages, when people were learning how to use Zoom and other platforms, was subject to such phenomena as Zoom bombing, where online vandals (if you will), would find meetings and socialization spaces, and would deliberately attend and make provocative statements.  Therefore, it is likely that these social spaces should be password protected, and provide facilities for the blocking of such Zoom bombing attacks.  It is unlikely that such zoom bombing attacks would be extensive, as the phenomena has reduced as various forms of protection have arisen, and as people have become more used to meeting in protected spaces.  However, training in the use of such protections would definitely need to be a part of the setup, and recruitment and training of moderators.

In any social space there is a risk of various types of predatory behaviour.  It is not reasonable to insist that such spaces be entirely risk free.  The socially isolated are more susceptible to such attacks and predation, and the moderators should be trained to recognize such, and attempt to deal with it.  The target audience for this activity is definitely a vulnerable population.  There should be provision, in addition to the training for the moderators, for some kind of on call assistance for the moderators in the case of particularly difficult predators attacking the social space.  However, policies and "constitutions" for the social management of such spaces should probably come from the more permanent moderators of the social spaces themselves, once they have been recruited and trained.

The choice of platform will likely be an issue to be decided fairly early.  Microsoft teams is unlikely to be a candidate, as it is rather expensive, and tends to require a fairly sophisticated technical support in order to maintain and use it.  Zoom is widely known, and tends to be much more robust in terms of maintaining a stable platform for discussion, but is additionally somewhat costly.  There are of course free accounts, but these are subject to limits in terms of number of attendees, and the length of time that a meeting can take place.  The party line platform concept will initially use short meetings at specific times, for initial setup and familiarization, but the intent in the long-term is to have open meetings, that attendees can drop into and out of on an ad hoc basis, as long as moderators or co-moderators are available to keep the space open.  Eventually the idea might be him open out of possibly sixteen hours a day, or even twenty-four, if moderators or co-moderators with sleep disturbance issues or insomnia are recruited.  Therefore, time limits on meetings on the platform of choice are the avoided if possible.

Possibly the preferred medium would be Google Meet.  Google Meet is widely accessible, and does not require additional software to be downloaded.  It is accessible on cell phones, tablets, laptops, and computers.  I am not aware of phone bridges: it might be that phone bridges could be available on commercial Google accounts.  In any case, the wide availability and lack of restrictions on Google Meet would probably make it the first choice for testing as an appropriate platform for the socialization of the party line idea.

The Jit.si system is an open source platform that may be suitable for such purposes.  There are, of course, no commercial restrictions on the use of Jit.si, however there is, similarly, no support for it, and a general expectation that those who are using it are technically competent themselves.  Therefore, it may be technically demanding to use Jit.si as the platform for the party line idea.

Party Line Port Alberni

Let them speak of life,

the universe, everything:

the same as we do.

Review of "Men Don't Cry Women Do" by Martin and Doka

In my research into grief, I ran across references to the research by Martin and Doka fairly early.  But, although I was struck by the relevance of the ideas, I did not have access to Martin and Doka's book, at that time.  I based my original development of the Grief Guys idea on these references to their work, and I now somewhat regret that.  Even the name itself, Grief Guys, is a slight misrepresentation of their emphasis and intent.  Where my understanding of the references to their work was that men and women processed grief differently, for which the terms instrumental and intuitive were handy references, in the book itself, Martin and Doka emphasize, and stress, that there are two ways of processing grief, and that these two styles do have some, and perhaps a strong, gender related preference.  But the important point, for these researchers, is the two distinct styles.  Putting the emphasis on the styles changes the way that we would perceive how grief should be handled.  It makes a much stronger reason and rationale for the grief industry to look much more closely at instrumental styles of grieving, which gets short shrift in favor of the much more widely perceived and catered for intuitive style of grief.

Chapter two of their book provides a very useful overview of recent research into grief, grieving, and mourning.  This is not only of use to researchers, but could provide a handy, although somewhat demanding, guide for the bereaved who are in mourning.  It provides a more balanced conceptual framework for both affective and cognitive (and even physical) reactions to a loss, which are often a surprise to the griever.

If chapter two raises a number of questions for future and additional research into grief, chapter three, on the patterns of grief, and therefore the distinction between intuitive and instrumental, does even more so.  The authors assert that intuitive grievers do not seek out potential problems and solve them, but my own experience, as a combined intuitive and instrumental griever, seems to indicate that the situation is more complex.  The authors note that intuitive grievers, while they do fulfill their obligations in their jobs, or for their immediate family, tend not to solve problems related to their own grief, affect, or emotions.  As an instrumental griever, I have been very active, and even somewhat organized, in regard to the grief projects.  However, I have decided to, seek more time in professional counseling.  But, I have not yet done so.  It is interesting to note that, with combined grievers, grief work styles may vary not only by person, but also by topic.  Combined grievers, at the very least, may be able to pursue problems and solve them with regard to projects and activities, solving problems with affect, feelings, and emotions, is more problematic.  It may be that the ability to find and solve problems is more related to the type of problem then strictly to the type of griever or the balance of the style of grieving.

Martin and Doka also note, in different places in the text, and in different contexts, that perception of control is more important to instrumental grievers.  This is, again, an interesting observation, and may present a means of identifying or differentiating the style of grief of a given individual, and the balance, in an individual, of combined intuitive and instrumental grieving styles.  The perception of control is frequently identified, even in the counseling of those who are dealing only with intuitive styles of grieving, as an important factor.  However, in the intuitive counseling style, it is simply noted that the bereaved, grievers, and mourners, are frequently highly aware that they are not in control, and that life can be changed in an instant, in unpredictable ways.  Therefore the tying of the importance of control, for instrumental grievers, and the perception of overall lack of control, for intuitive grievers, may be able to either predict the style prior to any bereavement event, or to very quickly assess the preferred style and overall balance, for a bereaved person.

In an attempt to provide a theory of emotion and grief (in chapter five), the authors posit that instrumental grievers may be hiding their emotions from others, and possibly even themselves.  This idea is never formulated into a full hypothesis, but. later in the book, seems to return in the idea of "dissonant" grievers, who may experience grief one way, but present (possibly due to cultural pressures) in another.

Again, in the chapter examining gender issues (seven), Martin and Doka raise the possibility that men deal with external problems because they can't deal with internal (emotional and affective) ones.  Interestingly, Gloria always noted, both in school situations and in business management, that women had a strong tendency to take issues personally, whereas men tended to see any issue as a problem to be fixed, even if it was an interpersonal matter.

The latter chapters, and even parts, of the book are possibly less useful.  The material tends to be fairly similar to generic grief counseling texts, albeit with a definite academic tone, and some rigor in the analysis.  The material on dissonant grievers, for example (those who may present as instrumental, but actually experience grief in intuitive fashion), is interesting, but not terrifically helpful in many ways.  The lack of utility for this later material may simply reflect a lack of research in the field, and the limitations of existing tools.

Overall, this book presents an important and valuable contribution to grief counseling and analysis.  The grief industry has, for too long, concentrated almost exclusively on intuitive and affective grief styles, and instrumental grievers have been very poorly served.  Raising the awareness of this issue, and attempting to address it will likely be of great benefit.

One issue that is raised in the last chapter of the book is that of the utility of counseling groups, or group counseling, for instrumental grievers.  This is an area that I am currently experimenting with, and hope to examine more fully with a project that should be undertaken soon.  Martin and Doka's work will heavily influence the way that I designed this experiment and project.

Sense of accomplishment

Make to-do lists for

things that you have already

completed and done.

Review of "Be the Noodle" by Lois Kelly

"Be the Noodle" is supposed to be a guidebook, for caregivers providing end of life care for a dying relative.  There are fifty short essays in the book, roughly divided into three sections, the first and largest being a kind of introduction to caregiving and the beginnings of a caregiving journey, the second dealing with conflict and crisis, and the third being the end stages after the person has died.  Although supposedly in the form of a set of instructions, this is really more of a memoir of the death of the author's mother.  Which is fine, and real, and reasonably helpful in some ways.

There are a number of the essays that do address specific issues of being a caregiver.  However, particularly in the first section, most of the essays really should be addressed to friends, and extended family.  Most of this is about the outsiders' reaction, unreasonable demands, and unthinking attempts to address the situation, by those who are not really part of it.

The second section of the book does address more issues that caregivers will need to think and know about.  The final section of the book is, of course, after the mother had died, and, to a certain extent, is about grief.  This section is fairly lyrical, but not necessarily helpful in terms of either preparation or addressing grief after the death of a loved one.

Small mercies

Earlier mornings.

Reading the Bible, watching

my beautiful view.

Losing archival materials

Well, the reason that I didn't post anything this morning was that I was late for the reconciliaction meeting, and, in addition, had to respond to an important message from one of the volunteer organizations with which which I am working.

It was interesting to go to the reconciliaction meeting today.  The meeting started out with some discussion of the churches in town, and attempts, by this particular population, to attend them.  One particular church, which was quite identifiable by its address, was seen as closed, and unwelcoming, even back in those days.  It is interesting that so little has changed in the intervening fifty years.

An additional point of interest was the extensive mention, and discussion, of grief, in this week's session, by various participants.  This was particularly interesting in view of the non-attendance by someone who had made a big deal about the importance of attendance, and so it was too bad.

The most interesting part, though, was in relation to a project by the speaker.  T and D were, at lunch, in extended discussion about archival materials, and the importance of the retrieval of archival materials, in particular video tapes and pictures.  T mentioned an extensive collection of video, and, of course, my attention was fixed when he mentioned Betamax.  D was talking about retrieving both video and still images, and the difficulties she was having with the archives of various organizations.  However, the discussion of what she was actually doing with the still images, in terms of enlarging and enhancing, and retrieving identifiable images so that faces could be recognized in large group photographs, fixed my interest again, since I do know a little bit about the loss of detail involved in transferring from images themselves into digital format, and in terms of the different digital formats for still images.

The problems of archiving of materials, and the possible loss, to history, of a variety of files and sources from what may, in the future, be ironically referred to as the "information age," is not a new one.  Many people have noted that there is both irony, and problem, in the fact that our information age, while it is creating content much more quickly, and making it available much more widely, then at any period before in history, the storage of this information is not being attended to in any meaningful way.  There are two particular problems in this regard.

The first problem is the actual physical storage of devices.  First there were punch cards.  Then there were tapes.  Then there were different formats of tapes.  And, in that regard, there were even differences in the most basic formats of the tapes: most tapes were magnetic tapes, but there was a period of using actual film images with microscope dots storing the data on reels of film tapes.  (Then there was the period of computer drums, but those probably aren't much of an issue since they were really only ever used for short-term high-speed storage for actual processing of data, and not long-term data storage.)  But then came computer disks, and, particularly, the floppy disks.  There were twelve inch discs.  There were eight inch disks.  There were five and a quarter inch disks.  There were three and a half inch disks. Then there were cds, and DVDs.  (We actually don't know how long these will last.)  And now, mostly people don't store any data locally at all.  But if they do, it's probably on USB sticks, also called thumb drives or jump drives or SSDs (Solid State Drives).

Now I've mentioned how long CDs and DVDs will last.  Probably the longest lasting of any of these media are the punch cards.  But, these days, where can you find a punch card reader?  They just don't exist anymore.  Even if you could find one, you probably wouldn't be able to find someone who knew how to keep it fixed, maintained, and in working order.  So, anything that was in long-term storage on punch cards is probably lost.  Then we go to the magnetic tapes.  A friend of mine had some nine track tapes, quite a collection of them.  He did, a few years ago, run them through a tape drive, and retrieve the data.  He could successfully retrieve the data.  Once.  Because, while he was doing the data retrieval, as the tapes were going through the tape drive, the magnetic media was delaminating from the actual Mylar tape.  So, if you have anything stored on magnetic tapes, it may be possible, if you do have access to a tape drive, to actually retrieve that data.  But, as I say, you had better be ready to do the data retrieval in one pass, because you aren't going to get a second chance.  The situation with floppy drives is probably even more fraught.  Floppy discs are constructed in the same way as magnetic tapes, and so the situation of delamination probably does exist.  However, in addition, you don't read floppy drives by passing over it it over a reed head once, and once only, but you put it into a drive, where it is spun, at high speed, and so you may not even get a chance to read it the first time, if, in fact, the magnetic media delaminates off the mylar substrate, even before the material is actually read.

CDs and DVDs should last a longer time.  The operative word there being "should."  We really do not know, with regard to CDs and DVDs, how long these entities do last in a readable state.  It could be 100 years.  It could be 10 years.  We simply don't know.  The technology has not been around long enough for us to understand what may happen over long periods of time.  Maybe we'll get lucky.  (Have we ever been lucky with regard to archival material?)  In any case, there are many factors that can ensure that the lifetime of a DVD or CD is much shorter than we actually think.  For example, how do you label your CDs and DVDs?  Well, maybe you bought the fancy labels that fit on to them, and label them that way.  That was probably a good idea.  But a number of people will have labeled their CDs and DVDs simply with a Sharpie marker, particularly if it was just an archival backup copy that you wanted to keep around, but never expected to use.  Nobody ever expects to use archival backup copies, and that's why they are so seldom tested, and that is why so many people are disappointed when they go to retrieve a backup and find that they don't, actually, have one.  In any case if you have labeled your CD or DVD with a Sharpie marker, one of the components in the ink in Sharpie markers will, actually, penetrate the plastic substrate (which on a CD or DVD is actually more of a superstrate, and is on the outside), and, over a period of six months, penetrate down to the metallic layer which is deformed or dimpled in order to store the data.  At which point, this particular component of the ink will, in fact, start oxidizing that data storing layer.  So, if you have labeled your CDs or DVDs with a sharpie marker, the actual period of time during which the CD or DVD is usable is probably about six months.

And, of course, all of these various technologies rely upon being able to find a device that will actually read punch cards, tape reels, floppy drives, or CDs and DVDs.  These devices are becoming increasingly uncommon.  It is very hard to find them.  And, therefore, reading such archival materials is becoming increasingly difficult.

Then there is an additional problem.  The data format in which a file of information is stored.  The nice thing about computer standards is that there are so many of them.  So, what is your video file, audio file, picture file, or data file stored in in terms of the data format?  I tend to store pretty much anything that's important, simply in text.  Partly that is because, as somebody who grew up, on the Internet, with email, I like to keep things simple.  I don't need any fancy formatting.  If I want to indicate that something is to be emphasized, I don't use bold, or italics, or anything that requires any extension of a basic font.  I'll just put an asterisk at the beginning and end of the word or phrase that I want to emphasize.  Everything is stored in text.  Text can be read by anyone.  Except that these days, nobody knows how to read text anymore, so if you send them a text file, they can't read it.  Argh.

But for anything else, you need a specific data file format.  And data file formats go in and out of favour.  And if they go out of favour, they are probably never going to come back into favour again, and they are going to be obsolete.  So, if you have any data file in an old data format, you probably aren't going to be able to find any program to read it.  That is going to mean that your data is lost anyways, even if your physical format is, somehow, still readable.  If your data is in a format that is no longer used by any particularly popular program, it's unlikely that you're going to have a program that is old enough to read those old data formats.  So, your data is lost anyways.  Once again.

Allow me to provide some personal experience.  When Gloria died, we had to do a memorial service for her.  (Well, we *wanted* to do a memorial service for her.)  And, in planning the service, when we came to think about what we wanted in terms of special music, the girls, of course, immediately thought gee, it's too bad that Mum couldn't sing at her own service.  Well, since Gloria was a singer, and a soloist, and since I drove her around to all of the events that she sang at, once I got a video camera I did, on occasion, record Gloria singing.  When I could catch her unaware.  Mostly while she was practicing, so an awful lot of the clips that I have of her singing are somewhat incomplete, or interrupted by having to go back over a section or decide what to do in a particular place in the music.  But, yes, I do have several hours of videotape of Gloria singing.  But, when I originally copied it off the camera, and onto a format for us to view, it was, originally, in VHS.  And, as it happened, with various and sundry situations in the family, I dropped out of first place, in terms of being the family videographer, many years ago.  So, I didn't really get to the point of transferring from VHS to DVD.

I had, in fact, purchased a combination VHS and DVD recorder.  For exactly this reason.  So that I could convert the VHS tapes to DVDs.  And, in fact, I had already started the project before video became a rather less important project than doing caregiving for Gloria.  But, shortly after I started the project the Toshiba device that I was using suddenly quit.  At least the VHS side quit.  So I bought another Toshiba combination VHS and DVD recorder.  But, by this time other requirements had taken over and I never did get around to continuing the conversion project.  And, only a few VHS tapes had been converted, and none of them were the compilation tapes of Gloria singing.

And, of course, while I still had the Toshiba combination VHS and DVD player when Gloria died, and we had been using it to view DVD movies for a number of years, the first time, after Gloria died, when I went to test it out and convert one of the VHS tapes to DVD so that we could decide what we wanted to have in terms of Gloria singing at her own memorial service, of course, the VHS side of the Toshiba player recorder had, once again, given up the ghost.  This can be taken as a review of the reliability of Toshiba equipment if you like.

In any case, I was now searching, once again, for a combination VHS/DVD recorder.  Or, even a standalone VHS player.  At which point I discovered that none of the manufacturers of video equipment even *make* VHS players anymore.  You can, of course, buy used VHS equipment.  But you're taking your chance in terms of whether or not the player will, actually, play anything.  I did buy a guaranteed new VHS player, from a firm called Trusty Electronics, from Texas, for a rather exorbitant price.  When it arrived, it would not play anything.  And when I contacted Trusty Electronics in order to complain about this situation, they had so thoroughly gone out of business that their Website didn't even exist anymore.

I did go to a source that promised to convert VHS tapes.  I provided three VHS tapes, and had them converted.  They did all convert, although 1) they were converted to a computer file, which I then had to find a video editor for, and 2) the quality of sound on a couple of the conversions was disappointing to say the least.  And, in addition, I later found out that, in the conversion process, one of the tapes had been completely overwritten, so there was no possibility of recovering that material, ever again.

I did, in the end, get a used, but still working, VHS player from a friend.  I converted my tapes as quickly as possible, onto DVDs on the, still working, DVD side of the Toshiba recorder.  However, I am now being informed by various and sundry parties, that DVDs are *also* going out of style.  Therefore, I will need to find some way of converting the DVDs to some more current, more readable, and more accessible version of video files.  However, I am sure that, at some point in the future, which may be sooner than anyone thinks, that I will, once again, have to find some way of converting those computer video files, to a new format of computer video files.  This will probably continue to happen, at regular time periods, forever.  And, this is a situation that faces anyone, who has any kind of archival materials these days.

Free translation of a song which has apparently not been sung by the people of this area for the past fifty years

These are my treasures:

things on the land, sea, and sky

received from forebearers.

Tai Chi

I have just attended my first Tai Chi class.  I assume that the Tai Chi exercises will help with general health, and particularly balance, which has never been a strong point for me.  But I also assume that I'm not going to particularly enjoy the classes, as such.

I've seen the boys do karate classes for years.  I know the style.  As an educator, it's easy to recognize this particular style.  I tend to call it the Asian style, which is probably not fair, since it is a standard apprentice model of education.  But, in the west, even the apprentice models of education for the trades are now following more advanced methods.

The traditional Asian method is used by people who have never heard of task analysis.  There is no attempt to break down the task that is to be trained, or to figure out what the important parts of the task are, or which parts or skills or functions of the task may be common to a number of different skills or trades.  There is just the fact that you are given grunt work to do, while you are given an opportunity to observe the master.

That is, of course, not quite the style used in karate or Tai Chi classes in the western world.  For one thing, you are paying for classes or courses in these fields, and so you aren't being given grunt work, because nobody would tolerate both having to do the grunt work, and having to pay for the instruction that doesn't happen.  However, even the Western instructors, who have been instructed in Tai Chi, or possibly Western modified Tai Chi, still don't seem to understand any aspects of task analysis.

I'm the newcomer.  I'm new in the class.  I am completely new to this field, although, of course, I've seen videos of people doing Tai Chi in news stories, and advertisements for recreation centers, and old folks homes.  So I wasn't completely surprised by what we were being asked to do.  According to the instructor, I did all right for a first-timer.  Which is nice, although that doesn't particularly make you feel an awful lot better.

I can already see that I'm going to have to take the explanatory sheets, which don't explain an awful lot, home, and do a fair amount of practice.  Of course, they do promote the idea that you should be practicing at home, and repeating the exercises, anyways, in order to get the greatest benefit from it.  Sure, as an exercise regime, that makes sense.  But I can already see, in my initial beginners class, that nobody has done any analysis on the individual forms and exercises.

The instructor said that the particular exercises that I had particular problems with are exercises that everybody has problems with.  Well, as an educator, I can tell you why.  Most of the exercises have both upper body (hands or arms) and lower body components.  But, there are exercises that have very simple components, and exercises where the individual components can be very complex indeed.  Some of the introductory exercises will have some lower body movements that are simple, one directional, movements forward and back.  These are sometimes combined with simple, one plane, movements of the upper body.  When two simple, one plane, movements are combined, it's not terribly difficult.  But then we move, seemingly with no understanding on the instructors part, to movements where the lower body leg movements are in two directions, and this is combined with upper body movements where the arms are moving in two planes, and that is combined with additional hand movements, all of which have to be coordinated.  Suddenly, instead of simply coordinating two axes of movement, we have five axes of movement.  And, while the instructor seems to realize that everybody has problems with these latter, complicated exercises, she doesn't seem to understand why they are complicated, and hasn't made any provision for making them any easier.  Nobody has done any task analysis.

Of course, I am not going to make any changes to a model which all the instructors in this particular field have been trained on.  This is what all the instructors are going to do, and they are going to run into the same problems, and none of them are going to understand why.  I will have to do the exercises, and practice, myself, and do my own task analysis, and break the exercises down, simply through observation of the instructor, if I'm going to practice Tai Chi.  That's the reality is situation, and that's the way it's going to be.  I don't have to like it.  I just have to do it, and I have no other option if I'm going to get the benefits of the exercise.  Eventually ...

Teaching

I am a teacher.

Regardless of the topic,

I love doing it.

Hitting the wall

Sometimes walls are there

in order that we can lean 

against them and rest.

Walking distance

I've recently discovered that it's much faster getting somewhere if you are driving, rather than walking, even when it's within walking distance.

Of course, for me, these days, "walking distance" is anything within a ten kilometre radius ...

Banana phone

You call it the banana phone, and you think it's called the banana phone because it has a yellow cell phone cover.  I very strongly suspect that originally, back in the '80s, it was an actual "banana phone": that was the form factor of handheld cell phones back then.  They were about a foot long (or tall), with easily swappable external battery packs, and slight projections, at the top and bottom, housing the circuitry for the speakers and the microphone, since the technology has somewhat modified since then.

I strongly suspect that generations of emergency directors have passed the banana phone from one to another, along with the name, even as the phone itself has been upgraded, and the form factor has changed.  And that a yellow cell phone cover was added at some point ...

The banana phone is currently an iPhone.  And therein may lie a problem.  Currently we are using text messaging to alert the emergency team.  The iPhone does have provision for group texting, but you have already noted some limitations: that the iPhone will only allow eight numbers per group.  This means that we must use multiple groups.  But there is another, and more serious problem.

Text messaging is based on SMS, or short message service.  This is a standard protocol, and is common to pretty much all cell phones.  Unfortunately, that is not what iPhone uses when it creates groups.  When it creates groups, all messages, regardless of type, are sent as MMS messages, MMS standing for multimedia service.  This is the service that allows for audio messages, video messages, pictures, and other types of media aside from just straight text.  Unfortunately, the protocol for MMS is not fully agreed to by all cell phone manufacturers, or cellular providers.  And, specifically, Apple uses some quirks of its own in the MMS protocol.  Therefore, any messages sent from an iPhone, when being received on a non-iPhone, may result in some oddities.

Sometimes the message simply isn't received at all.  In other cases, the receiver may receive a message saying that a mixed media message is about to arrive, except that the message never actually does arrive.  In any case, it is often problematic, and therefore it is an unreliable way to send messages to a large group of people, with different types of cellular equipment and service.

Online spam, scam, fraud, safety and security seminars

Safety seminars

so that my fellow seniors

learn security.

Sermon 5 - Heretics

Sermon 5 - Heretics

Job 13: 5 - 10

Oh, that you would keep silent, and it would be your wisdom!

Hear now my reasoning, and listen to the pleading of my lips.

Will you speak falsely for God, and speak deceitfully for him?

Will you show partiality toward him, will you plead the case for God?

Will it be well with you when he searches you out?  Or can you deceive him, as one deceives a man?

He will surely rebuke you if in secret you show partiality. - RSV

Ecclesiasticus 19:10

Have you heard something?  Let it die with you.  Courage!  It will not burst you!

Romans 14:1-4

Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling overe opinions.  Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables.  Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them.  Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another?  It is before their own Lord that they stand or fail.  And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

1 Corinthians 3

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?

5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. 9 For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.

10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”[a]; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”[b] 21 So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas[c] or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.

H. G. Wells said, "No passion in the world, no love or hate, is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft."  Of course, he was wrong, and we have to alter his quote.  No passion is equal to the passion of proving that we are right, and someone else is wrong.  There.  We have now corrected H. G. Wells' erroneous statement so that it is right.

We are willing to defend the fact that we are right, even at the expense of our salvation.  Isn't that the point of our doctrine of salvation by grace?  We keep trying to do it right, to prove that we are worthy of salvation, and it's not until we finally admit that we are, in fact, wrong, and that God is right, and should be in control of our lives, that He can, in fact, save us.

I am a stranger and sojourner in a strange land.  Which is to say, I'm new here.  I am trying to find a church.  I am church shopping, which involves going to a number of churches, attending services, meeting new people, talking to members of the congregation, and even helping out, whenever and wherever I can, since working with people you learn much more about them than just simply talking with them over coffee after service.

It's not an easy task.  It takes a lot of work.  It takes a lot of effort, and a lot of what might be termed social energy.  But it has to be done.  There is no point in expecting that a church will find you.

There is one church that I have visited on my rounds.  I have been warned away from it, by two different people, from two other churches.  One person gave me a specific reason why he felt that this church was populated by heretics.  The other person did not give a specific reason, and was quite coy about it, but was obviously very disappointed when I noted that I had seen no evidence of heresy and nothing to upset me theologically.

There's an old song.  It's at least fifty years old, now, and I haven't been able to find a copy, and I don't even know who wrote and sang it.  It was called "My Brother's Faults," and it pointed out the dangers of Christian gossip: telling all the world my brother's faults.  It even gave the reason that we use to justify gossip: "I only wanted you to know/So you could pray for so-and-so."  But that is not the way that scripture tells us to deal with faults.  With good reason: gossip about individuals is dangerous.  It is contrary to what we are commanded to do in Matthew 18:15: If they brother trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.  And, indeed, that requirement goes right back to Leviticus 19:17: you must openly tell [...] your neighbour of his offence.

But gossip about churches or groups is even more dangerous, and *that* goes back to Leviticus 19:16: you must not slander your own people.

We do it so easily.  And I have to admit, to my shame, that I am guilty of it.  I recall, not that long ago, in my search for a church, one person mentioned a particular church, and I made a cheap joke, based on a stereotype and prejudice.  About a church that I had never been to, and people who I had never met: a situation I knew nothing at all about.  For the sake of a cheap joke, I may have slandered a church and congregation.

We have to be holy.  We have to be righteous.  We have to be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect.  The trouble is that we're not.  We are not perfect, and we are not holy.  We are not righteous, no not one.  We are saved, but that is by the work of God in Jesus Christ.  God accepts us as holy and righteous, because of it.  But we are sadly mistaken if we assume that this in any way makes us actually righteous and perfect.

We should try, of course.  We are *commanded* to love God, we should love God for all that God has done for us, and if we love God we should try and do what he wants.  Not only that: if we do do what he wants, it is the best for us.  God created us.  God knows what is best for us.  God *wants* what is best for us.  And if we do what God wants it is the best for us.

But, we are weak.  We are sinful.  We sin.  And we are mistaken.  We have mistaken beliefs about God.  At the very least, we do not, and we cannot, know God fully.  Our minds are merely human: they are limited, they are restricted by the playpen which God created for us, which we call the universe.  Any idea that we have of God, no matter how large, is not comprehensive.  It will always recall to mind the title of Jim Packer's book: "Your God is Too Small."

To return to the people who warned me about this particular church: One did give a reason.  And the reason has a point.  There are definite indications in Scripture that support this person's position but, it is hard to say that that position is absolute.  It's also hard to know the reason for the position that scripture takes.  The mentions in scripture, under various rationales, may allow for some leeway, at least in terms of the issue that this person seemed to find troublesome.

As noted, the other person did not give a reason.  But his very coyness in not providing a reason, makes me suspect the issue that he is finding troublesome.  Again, this is an issue where scripture does give us some, limited, support for his position.  But, again, there may be cultural factors at play in the scripture reference, and it's also possible that there are larger issues at stake which override the specific point that he finds most difficult.

We are given instructions, commands, and directions from scripture.  We would do well to heed them.  But we would do well to heed *all* of them.  If we fixate on a particular issue, we may find that we are, in fact, forgetting things that God has told us to do.

For example, pretty much none of us separate our kitchens, and utensils, into those for meat, and those for dairy, anymore.  We do not follow the dietary food laws.  We eat shellfish.  We eat pork.  Very few churches actually kill people who break the Sabbath.  We find that these are not important in the Christian Life.  These are commands that are written in Scripture, but pretty much all of us have decided that they are not vital commandments anymore.

We are trying to follow the commandments.  And we find some of the issues to be primary importance.  For example, the greatest commandment: we are to love God.  And the second commandment is like unto it: we are to love our neighbors.  We have the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have others do unto you.  It's just an extension or reformulation of our second commandment.

So there are commandments that we consider important, and there are commandments which we consider unimportant, or of a lesser importance.  And in a number of situations, when we accuse other churches, or other people, of heresy, we should be very careful that we are not majoring on the minors.

There are many things that our society seems to consider important, and we have let those, sometimes, bleed into our faith and practice.  For example, anything that has to do with sex tends to be very, very important.  Infidelity is important.  And it is.  But that tends also to extend to other issues.  Some of which may have reasons in our difficult and complex society.  Such as divorce.  Sexual activity outside of marriage.  Any departure from traditional marriages.  All of these will get you pretty much barred from any church.  Oh, but if you murdered somebody?  And you served your time and you repent?  Oh, that's all right!  That's just a nice example of a repentant sinner.

I could rhyme off quite a list of topics for which you might be prepared to call another person, or another church, heretics.  There can be all kinds of issues over which we disagree.  I won't attempt to provide such a list here.  But I'll give you a moment to think of one particular topic that you think warrants sending a particular church into outer darkness, in terms of the Christian community.

***

Okay, have you picked your hot topic?  Have you thought of some issue for which you are prepared to say that any church which supports it, or opposes your particular view, can't consider itself Christian?

Bear that topic in mind.  Fix it in your mind.  Keep it in the front of your mind as I continue here.  This is an issue that you are prepared to say means that another person, or another church, cannot be considered Christian.  They are to be excommunicated.  They cannot be part of our communion, and should not be.

Now, I won't ask you why.  You have good and valid reasons.  They are probably supported by scripture.  I'm not going to argue that point, because I don't even know what your topic is.  But now I want to ask you: is that issue, is that topic, is that activity more important than loving God?  More directly to the point, is that issue so important that you cannot accept the fact that God loves that other person?  God loves that other church.  God loves the people in that other church, that hold to the opinion that is contrary to yours.  And God has commanded you to love those other people.  Is your topic so important that you are prepared to disobey that which God commands?

But wait, as they say in the infomercials, there's more.  And, for the more, we turn to my field.  For almost forty years, I have been researching, and working in, information security.  And I get to talk to people in related communities, like the intelligence community.  Those are the spies.  And the counterspies.  And we talk about things like disinformation.

Now there's misinformation, which is just when you make a mistake, and you believe something that's wrong.  That's bad enough.  But disinformation is when somebody deliberately tells you a lie, designed so that you will believe it.  This has been happening for as long as people have been fighting, and that goes back an awfully long way.  As a matter of fact, possibly we can go right back to Cain and Abel.  God comes to Cain and says, where is your brother?  And Cain tries to tell a lie, without even telling a lie.  He just says, am I my brother's keeper?  But God, of course, sees through this and it doesn't work.

Now, when you are dealing with human beings, and not God, it works a little better.  So, someone tells you a lie.  And they tell the lie that they know you are going to believe.  Because it's a lie about someone you don't like.  And the person who tells you this lie, knows that you are going to believe it, because you are willing to believe the worst about the person that you don't like.  So, you believe that lie.  And you repeat that lie.  You tell that lie to other people, because, of course, you want to cause trouble for the person that you don't like.  Or, at the very least, you want to warn other people about the person that you don't like.

So, you have now become a liar.  Oh, maybe you will object that you don't know that it's a lie, but you're repeating a lie anyway.  So, in fact, you are a liar.  And you know what else you are?  You are now a weapon.  You are the weapon of the person who told you the lie in the first place.  That's what disinformation does.  It weaponizes lies, and it weaponizes people.  And if you believe, and repeat those lies, you become the weapon.  You become evil, or at least a part of evil.  You are working for evil.

Now, one of my other fields is emergency management.  We deal with disasters.  And one of the things that we know about disasters, is the disasters bring out both the best, and the worst, in people.  There are going to be people who try to help during a disaster.  And then there are those who are going to try and take advantage of the situation.

But the pandemic has been different.  For me, personally, the pandemic has been very disappointing.  The pandemic seems to have given everyone permission to be their very worst.  To misbehave, although misbehavior is far too weak a term for what we have seen during the pandemic.  The pandemic has given everyone permission to be racist.  To consider anyone who believes in a different political party or stance to be evil.  To allow people to engage in violence on the streets because they don't like another person's skin color, or facial characteristics, or the political symbol that they put on the back of their car, or they don't like the fact that somebody has an "I got vaccinated" sticker on their shirt, or they don't like the fact that somebody has a "vaccines kill" bumper sticker on the back of their car.  And everybody just seems to think that because you don't agree with me, I have the right to beat you up or run into your car, or post lies about you.  Oh yes, we're dealing with the lies here.

We'll come back to the lies in a bit here.

As I've said I've been very disappointed during the course of the pandemic by the way that people have been misbehaving.  And I expressed this to a friend and she said, well, it's because they're all grieving.

Now, of course, one of the other things that I am is a grieving widower.  And I have been studying grief.  And I have been studying the ways that people behave when they are grieving.  And suddenly, because of what she said, everything came into focus.  Yes, people have been grieving.

Grief is about loss.  And, during the pandemic, everybody has lost something.  Maybe it wasn't a close friend or family member who died.  Maybe you lost a job.  Maybe you just lost an opportunity.  Maybe you just lost the ability to go down to the pub anytime you wanted for a beer.  But everybody has lost *something*.

Those who are grieving experience a range of emotions.  But one of the most common is anger.  We are angry about our loss.  But, as human beings, we are not particularly good at identifying why we are feeling anger, or indeed any good at identifying any strong emotion that we are feeling and what it actually is.  Our brain tries to find a reason for the strong emotion that we are feeling.  The reason that it generates doesn't have to be correct.  It doesn't even have to make sense.  It's just a presentation that our brain makes to us about why we are feeling some strong emotion.  So, very often, we feel that we are angry at God.  Or at the universe.  (Or even the person who died, which makes no sense at all.)  Or at that person who has skin of a different color.  Or at that person who holds a different political view.  It's their fault.  Whatever "it" is.

Thus, we have a whole bunch of people who feel very very strongly that those people over there are responsible for my pain.  They are angry.  Whether they have any valid reasons or not, they are angry.  And they are taking it out on those people over there.  Maybe they won't actually perpetrate physical violence against them.  But they are certainly willing to believe anything bad about them.  And to repeat any lie that they hear about them, as long as it paints them in a bad light.

There's another thing about grief: desperately intense loneliness.  If you are grieving, you are not just grieving the loss of relationship with one particular person.  You seem to be grieving the loss of relationship in general.  And, therefore, it's almost a cliche that when mom dies, dad, all too soon, falls for some inappropriate female, and forms an inappropriate attachment.

And so what have we seen during the pandemic?  We have seen all kinds of people, joining all kinds of groups, groups espousing all kinds of weird conspiracy theories, just so that they can belong.  To anything.  With anyone.

And so we come back to the lies.  Because of the anger, people are willing to tell lies.  They're willing to believe lies.  Because of the loneliness, they're willing to join with other people who believe lies.

And how does all this fit together?

Well, like I told you, some of my friends are spies.  And they have been noticing, that during the pandemic, the campaigns, by various foreign governments, to try and make trouble for those of us who live in democracies, have stepped up the disinformation campaigns.  Because, right now, with everybody angry, and everybody joining with cults and conspiracy theories, everybody is willing to spread lies.  There are all kinds of people who are willing to become weapons of disinformation campaigns.  It's become so prevalent that the intelligence community has a name for it: they call it discord attacks.  People who are our enemies are sowing lies knowing that a large number of us will believe the lies, and spread the lies, and even amplify the lies.  Thus making disinformation campaigns very much more successful recently than they ever have been in the past.

All right, you say, but this is politics.  We are in church listening to a sermon.  Why are you talking about politics?

Okay, it's not foreign governments who are attacking the church.  But we do have an enemy who is always attacking the church.  And who specializes in lies.  In fact, he's called the father of lies.  And, what earthly governments are doing, probably not terribly well, he is undoubtedly an expert at.  I'm sure that he is well practiced in coming up with lies that he knows that we will believe.  About other churches.  About other Christians.  And if we believe the lies, and we spread the lies, we are being used as his weapons against God's Church.

Do you want to be his weapon?