Willfully Blind

It saddens me more and more when I read the news or hear accounts that so much is done to deny the reality.

Deny the truth.

Deny. Deny. Deny.

In Alberta the top doctor and government have made the decision that Covid is gone.

As of Aug. 16th the Alberta gov’t will no longer trace positive Covid cases.

There will be no close contacts told.

As a matter of fact even if you test positive for Covid you do not have to self-isolate.

Positive.

Go to work.

Go to the bar.

Go the football/hockey games.

Do not social distance.

You don’t need to wear a mask.

As a matter of fact from the sounds of it they are planning a full on return to pre-pandemic life.

Despite the fact that Alberta is reporting some of its highest Covid case counts and the rate of infection is climbing to heights not previously seen during the entirety of the pandemic.

Here in my very own province of Manitoba yet another idiot Catholic priest has hit the headlines.

Once more denying the truth of the devastation of Residential schools.

How survivors were lying to get more money.

That the priests and nuns were not the perperators of the said abuse but custodial staff.

Not only did he make these statements but he made them during a church sermon which was also posted on line.

He also made jokes about shooting those writing graffiti on the churches.

And this statement that I really like ‘if you are poor it is hard not to lie’.

Pardon me?

Take your asinine beliefs and yourself off for sensitivity training.

Also keep your fucking mouth shut if you have in no way had to endure the abuse, the neglect, the deaths of innocence.

Once more it becomes apparent that the Catholic church loves to collect ignorant men.

The icing on the cake was an article which laid out how instead of paying the residential school survivors millions of dollars were spent instead on lawyers, a private fundraising company, administration and unapproved loans. (As per an article by Jason Warick-CBC News)

There are so many contradictions to the Catholic Church financials in Canada that it has lead to concern.

Yet the other church lead residential schools; Anglican, United and Presbyterian not never engaged in these types of tactics but paid the full amounts quickly and quietly.

Makes one wonder about the truth of religion.

Is it about the money or the people?

There are a lot of lips flapping about who is right and who is wrong.

The rest of Canada is wondering what is going on in Alberta.

Doctors around the country cannot fathom this absurdity.

Everyone is waiting to see if their return to ‘normality’ is going to be the best thing to happen or the worst.

Are we going to have to close our internal borders again to keep Covid from spreading?

I am not all the optimistic in regards to either.

In Alberta as the Delta variant picks up speed how many are going to have to die before they decide it is possible a mistake was made?

How many beds are going to be filled and will they need to send patients out of province to other health facilities as Manitoba had to during the peak of our third wave?

How many children are going to become infected and end up with long term effects?

The Catholic Church will continue its blatant disregard for life and healing.

Collecting millions from collection plates, building more cathedrals, more ostentatious building from which to preach the word of a carpenter.

A man who decried the merchants and money makers who were using the temple as a ‘den of thieves’.

And yet you have a church that steals the lives and money of so many.

In each case there is willful blindness.

Willful ignorance.

Where does it end?

And how do we make it better?

©July 30/21

Picture is my own

My Secret Brain

I am still surprised at how my brain continues to protect me from things I may not be strong enough to confront.

I have been lucky in being able to have confronted my demons and casting them from my being.

However just because I have does not mean that I am aware of all the damage that truly has accrued given my brain’s propensity for protecting me.

You might wonder what the heck I am talking about and I will explain.

I have had the limited series The Keepers from Netflix on my To Watch list.

About the death of a nun in 1969 and what happened and why.

Watched the first episode or two and found myself drawn in.

Cried when the brother of another murdered young woman told how he had identified his sister where she lay to save his parents the burden.

To this day that is the last memory he has of her.

I cannot even fathom the level of pain that they are still carrying around.

I believe it is episode three (I could be wrong I was letting it play as I wrote and read) when there was the introduction of another woman and what had happened during this time period for her.

I first realized I had missed something when I came back to ‘he would call me a whore and pray over me as they did things to me and I to them.’

Whoa okay so I rewind and begin again.

Wait what how did I miss that again?

Rewind again.

And again how did I miss what is going on.

Fourth time I got to where it took her five tries to walk to the confessional and again realized I was missing something pertinent.

Fifth time ‘If I had never gone to confession that day.

This is my 6th time rewinding and I put down the phone.

I set the laptop down.

I focus on the t.v. and watch.

In this segment the woman is telling how she had been sexually abused by an uncle.

He was a pedophile.

After telling the priest about the abuse and the lingering guilt that she-the victim-was carrying around he asked to see her and know her name.

She was horrified thinking that this was such a grievous sin he had to actually put a face and name to what was suppose to be anonymous confession.

No he was a classic abuser but I see that given what I know and I am an adult watching a young woman who believed and trusted that the priests in her life were there to care and help her not use her abuse against her.

We are talking 1969 when people still observed all the catholic tenets.

It was the last sentence she made as in the recreation she was walking away from the confessional.

‘He told me that he was going to have to pray on this. That it was such a large sin that he did not know if god could forgive her.’

This is where I stopped the show.

I will go back eventually but I realized what was going on.

I was brought up catholic.

I was brought up to believe in the all powerful god who watches over and subjugates us to terrible pain and suffering to gain his love.

I was brought up to believe that one did not question the men who taught us the word of the lord.

I was 14 when I lost faith.

I was 14 when I ran away from home because I did not know how to cope with what I was going through.

I was 14 when my world began to turn.

I was 45 before I was able to set those demons to rest.

And I no longer believe.

I cannot put faith or trust in a being that we are taught to fear and blindly follow.

We are taught that these abusers are handpicked by god to be his mouthpiece.

This is not a rant against religion.

This is about my brain protecting me.

It only happens that the show I am watching contains religion due to the subject matter.

I had three days of torturous hell when I broke.

Or my mind broke.

Or the barrier I had erected fell down.

One single act was all it took and memories returned.

Not all but enough that I knew what happened to me.

I finally understood truly that vile voice in my head that said no one cared.

I finally was able to understand why I was killing myself with OTC muscle relaxants.

I finally was able to put my pieces back together after so many years of running and hiding from my truth.

What I do not know is the extent.

My brain is one of the most secretive and protective in the world.

But I am okay with that vault in my mind that has been drenched in concrete/chains wrapped around/dropped into an abyss with like a gazillion locks protecting me.

Because as I have said time and time again this is protection that keeps me safe and sane.

And for that I tip my hat to my brain which knows me better then I know myself.

©November 8/20

Picture is my own