MIDDLE-EAST vs. MIDDLE-WEST
Thursday Sept. 11, 2014
This day, so many celebrate, relate, remember and grieve senseless losses when a few people perpetrated horror upon so many, it seems to me we should reflect on who we are.
Are we peaceful, or something else?
Are we kind, or something else?
Are we committed to our beliefs and values, or do we treat it as a casual affair?
Do we reap what we sow?
Do we earn our own pain and difficulties, or are they wholly someone else’s fault?
Lessons must, it seems, be repeated until they are learned from.
So much strife centered so near where humans began. Life there seems so far removed from basics of oldest greatest (or should I say most dominant) religions that originated there.
Strife over power, money and territory – but seems more rooted in animosity than love and kindness, more re-living atrocities of past generations than building bridges to better saner futures, more destructive than constructive, more pained than joyed.
Are there universal rules?
For being human.
I don’t mean being Christian or Jewish, Muslim or Budhist. I don’t mean being Canadian, American or _____-ese.
Are there rules for being dogs?
There must be. Regardless of breed, size, age – they wag tails in every circumstance, and we can at least all agree a tail-wagging dog is a happy dog, right?
Gusta is more evolved than me. Doesn’t worry. She loves every day, active or not, inside or out. Or sleeping. She seems to love car rides, ice-cream and strangers (especially women who need their hand-cream licked off).
I wouldn’t suggest animals have all the answers, but I think they are on to something.
Mark Kolke
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: -2C/29F, full moon, clear sky – sunrise will quickly add some heat to rid us of this snow and we can go back to late-summer conditions; Gusta loved her romp in the snow with sojourns to the street when fallen tree limbs blocked the sidewalk, ah .. what a wonderful day in paradise!
