Friday Night Rambling

As with so much of the world, we continue to get very odd weather here in NW Alberta. In our case, this odd weather is manifesting as well above normal temperatures. After a very warm and early spring, we had a short return to normal conditions (around +10C in the daytime, but with very cold winds, and then freezing pretty hard at night), but yesterday the weather shifted into June-type conditions. We nearly reached +20C and today we almost hit +25. I admit that it is absolutely beautiful but this is also rather disconcerting.

If we do not receive a fairly significant amount of moisture throughout the next 4-6 weeks, I fear there will be very little crop this year...if any. We could manage a year with no grain crops, although it would be a harsh blow, but I am not sure we could make it through the winter with no hay.

I am often told, or it is suggested, that I shouldn't be so pessimistic. I appreciate the sentiment and the concern for my mood, but I also know that I don't intend or even like to be pessimistic. My pessimism comes from active observation and assessment of what is being observed, and a desire to move forward from as rational and balanced mindset as possible. Having said that, I do realize and accept that I must find a way to channel as much of the resulting energy as positively as I can, and to release the remainder so that it does not build up and weigh me down.

This is not always easy.

Especially living here where most people just bask in the extra heat and do not realize where it is heading (especially as Peak Oil seems more and more imminent), where most people are concerned pretty much only in themselves and their immediate present. It amuses me that so many of these same people then flock to some church for a couple of hours on Sunday, looking to fill that empty part of themselves that they spend the rest of the week avoiding.

I do not mean the church comment to encompass all those who attend church though, or who belong to some faith or church or what have you. The passing of my dad's mother yesterday (turns out she wasn't made of steel after all), and the subsequent increase in interaction with the many Protestant Christian members of my family and its circle of acquaintances has provided plenty of reminders, both from the past and the present, of the real good and selflessness that I have also seen in the Church.

It has also been a good reminder to me of what I believe is the main, yet most often ignored/forgotten, tenet of Christianity...forgiveness. I think all "faiths" have something to offer, and this is Christianity's real message.

Perhaps that is enough rambling for tonight.

May you be at peace and in comfort now Granny, and may the rest of us find them both as well.