I was asked to give the benediction at our community choir presentation on April 15, 2018. Here is what I said:
My latest editorial for Kindersleysocial.ca – March 15, 2018 issue
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Cannabis and Me
My Grandmother was a faithful member of the Kindersley chapter of the WCTU. Most of you will have no idea of what WCTU stands for. Let’s just say politics, women’s rights, social equality, all were a part of the WCTU. This movement has been branded as the first women’s rights movement in Canada.
As the Canadianencyclopedia.ca explains: “The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) . . . [believed] that alcohol abuse was the cause of unemployment, disease, sex work, poverty, violence against women and children, and immorality, the WCTU campaigned for the legal prohibition of all alcoholic beverages.”
Alcohol?? In the 21st Century, that sounds like a non-starter!
Now that Cannabis (we used to call it marijuana) is about to be legalized, I think I’m a step closer to understanding her passion to limit a social ill!
This past decade I sat on a community committee called KDAWN. Membership over the years included social workers, RCMP, town administration, ministerial and other interested individuals and agencies. We cooperated with the P.A.R.T.Y. program (a secondary school educational program dealing with alcohol), sought to find a way to bring a drug and alcohol rehab center to Kindersley area, and provided educational resources and events regarding drugs and alcohol.
If I didn’t realize the depths of the problem before joining KDAWN, I was soon filled in. While alcohol has been regulated for some time, the social cost has been enormous. While some drugs have been illegal, and others (such as cigarettes) have been legal, the social cost has been enormous.
An attempt to restrict drugs and alcohol in relation to children/youth has met with mixed results. While we claim that this age bracket is too easily influenced and unable to responsibly partake, adults have sometimes served as poor role models! Maybe the adults need to be regulated more stringently as well.
In a recent email circulated to the Kindersley Town Council, I addressed the issue of cannabis. I understand the Council would like to have others provide feedback.
In my email I asked that, while medical cannabis has a place in pain management, the recreational use of cannabis has been documented as harmful to our society (and the second hand smoke has much the same effect as cigarette smoke). I do not think we need a dispensary for recreational use of cannabis in our town – and if individual grow-operations are allowed by the legislation, let’s find ways to make sure both regulation and enforcement are sufficient to restrict harm to our citizenry. Finally, I suggested that the Town Council consider proclaiming a day of mourning for those whose lives are adversely affected by drug and alcohol addictions.
And here I thought Grandma was merely “pushing against” alcohol use. Some will think I’m merely “pushing against” cannabis use.
The truth is, I’m “pushing for”! For a citizenry who are seeking to live healthy lives. For a culture where the heart is set on loving others and not harming them. For an opportunity to be an example, as a region, that we not only seek harm reduction and rehabilitation for those who are addicted, but that we want to be proactive in producing a citizenry whose heart is set on the good of all and not just the pleasure of the individual.
Proverbs 14:9 says: Fools make fun of guilt. The godly acknowledge it and seek reconciliation.
I’m not sure how our society looks at guilt. I sense we are interested in coping with guilt more than addressing guilt.
One approach is to completely do away with guilt. There is no wrong if there is no standard for wrong. By redefining morality as the erasure of all wrong, we are most likely to end up seeking “my happiness” as our goal. If happiness is the final and ultimate goal, then the only “guilt” is whatever stands in the way of that happiness. We are victims of those obstacles – not sinners!
My own approach is to admit that there is a “God”, and that that God has a definite standard of deviation from what is right. My “happiness” is defined by God’s desires for me, not by my own desires. If God’s desires are the ultimate goal, then guilt is based in God’s standard. We are sinners when we stray – not victims.
In the first case, the victim laughs at guilt – dismissing it as a cruel joke of a misguided deity. In the second case, the sinner recognizes guilt and seeks a way to approach the rule-giver for reconciliation.
A great thread of comments on a picture of a puzzle rife with shells and ocean beauty.
This is lovely, it makes we want to clam up!
I guess that would keep you from shelling out your resources! (my wife was just waiting for your comment – I think she likes to see what we will flood the ocean of vocabulary with)
Every puzzle holds the pearl of a pun…
. . . I think that you have won (note the rhyme in time).
I have a knack for this, it’s how I have… fun!
Thou are a wordsmith and a punster’s . . . son
With a good pun, oi’ stir it up …hon!
And with that, I have to . . . run
Hmmm….I wonder if they sell pun-free puzzles???
What would they be called???That’s a puzzling question.
Pun free puzzles? I don’t understand the question. Up is this jig, saw past the pieces to the whole picture.
LOL. Just couldn’t resist asking
Pondering punless puzzles can be a perfectly, perplexing yet precisely, pleasing priority. Go alliterations!!!
