CHRISTMAS MORNING 2021

Christmas Morning 2021, with snow falling outside, Christine has made Cheese biscuits and dark roast coffee and we have listened to George Handel’s ‘Messiah’ oratorio, recorded in 1987 in Roy Thompson Hall. We were there in attendance that year.

EARLY START

FIT4LESS 

Awake @3:30am with pain due to PMR; went to gym @ 5:00 to loosen a bit. Not too helpful but was amazed that upon arrival I was the only occupant and no staff and no one came in during the hour.

TENSIONS ON THE RISE

In this current pandemic with its polemic

We don’t all agree

You’ll see

Some are delirious because it’s so serious

Life is no picnic

So sick

Imagine the majority for whom disease is distant

Fortunate their strong bodies seem to be disease resistant

We hope that’s true

Health officials try to keep us safe

Laying down restrictions for the senior to the waif

It is nothing new

Covid’s not going away

It’s clever

Variants are here to stay

Forever

The population is divided not knowing whom to trust

Conspiracists and skeptics fill others with disgust

The problems grow

Demonstrations show

The disease is airborne and vaccines are barely born

We’re all supposed to be shot but many people are not

Tensions on the rise

No surprise

Debates run strong, about personal rights and choice

For what goes into our bodies do we not have a voice

Or must government decide?

An immense divide.

So we legislate vaccination passports, put wardens at the gate,

Creating a two-tiered society while generating hate

Proprietors with broad shoulders stopping none passport holders

The human cost is great

We’ll come out of this and we’ll be well again sometime

Look back at several years of sickness that we had one time

Loved ones lost, relationships damaged, opportunities vanished

Some candid medical professionals banished

And so much more

For sure.

© Ron Unruh, September 20, 2021

THE WAY I’M COUNTING 80

I celebrated my 79th birthday Sept 13th. I am living to get the most out of my 80th year. The PGA inspired me with the slogan, ‘Your best golf is ahead of you.’ On the last day of our Men’s’ League I shot my best score of the year. I’m taking that further.

I’ll manage my health, fit my clothes better, buy shorter belts, spring spontaneous pleasurable dinners on Christine, taste new international flavours. Christine will know she is the classiest and most attractive woman that I know. In a winsome manner I’ll pass on wisdom to my five youthful grandchildren. I’ll give all I can to others: time, surprises, kindness, gifts, help, coziness, encouragement and joy. I purpose to look enthusiastically with the sight that remains and to listen eagerly as long as I can.

I’ll deepen my faith, sweep sadness from my room. My bucket list will shorten, i.e. become an approved member of the Federation of Canadian Artists. Assemble and publish a book of poetry. Complete a family history book. Paint 25 oil paintings and sell half of them. Watercolour, print, package and market a series of golf course post cards and sell them quickly. Synonyms of More and Best are my operative words. Maybe my life can yet be my best work of art.

I THINK OF MY DAD

4:30 AM. I hear an alarm. False. Just a dream. Stiff & sore. Up anyway. I’ll walk now. Shorts & sweatshirt & cap on. Lee Child novel in hand. I walk, outside. To Horton’s. Prefer other coffee. But. It’s nearby. No pedestrians anywhere, no cars. It’s quiet. I walk softly. Nike, soft soles. I think of my Dad. Loved Horton’s. Walked daily. Loved walking. Could hear him walk. Hard leather shoes. Didn’t own sneakers. Surprise! Horton’s is not open yet. Dad - Gone so long. Not earthbound since 2008. What a man! Died @ age 93. Observant, rational, unselfish, always. What a man! Gr.11 grad. 45 yrs on a furnace assembly line. Raised three sons for something better. Never raised his voice. Mom predeceased him in death by 6 months. He lost her years earlier to dementia. Wouldn’t let her go. Until he had to. Loved her always. 66 yrs. Legacy.

OLD MEN WILL DREAM DREAMS (a poem)

OLD MEN WILL DREAM DREAMS

 

Words well intended without being asked,

Sycophant clichés and comfortless themes,

Podcasts and Ted talks and endless live streams,

A foreboding world so cunningly masked,

Foretold by prophets in a distant past. 

I’m an old man and I dream old men’s dreams.

Weary of evil and damaging schemes,

I dream superior dreams that can last.

Of what do such admirable dreams consist?

Surely not just naiveté and pretense

But intuitive awareness and a sixth sense,

That prayer births the dreams and their contents exist.

Precisely that a new generation

Will rise humble yet boldly courageous,

 ‘Til virtue becomes virally contagious,

And then promise and hope become our conversation.

Such new initiatives I see in my dreams,

A season fresh with visionary youth

Who shun cynicism to embrace the truth,

Revealing the best of the two extremes.

 

© Ron Unruh, August 2021

DAYS OLD, SHE SLEEPS

JWW Turner believed that poetry and painting flowered from the same fountain. I think he was correct, at least in my case. Here is the painting I completed to commemorate the birth of my granddaughter almost fourteen years ago to my much loved daughter in law Gina. The poem describes what I saw as I painted it. Composed December 2008  © Copyright by Ron Unruh

Long awaited she came, first a wife for a son

Then a daughter for them both


A sister for their boy.


She let me enter that chamber 


Where birth happens and is seen,


Not usually by fathers in law


But on this occasion I was there.


I saw Kadence come into the world 


A new sight for older eyes


Another life to love and nurture.


And now on one of those following days


The two girls sleep
Gina and her child.


'Kadence' meaning “with rhythm” 


Is rarely given
So Kadence with a K she is


A strident girl, a girl with a voice


A girl who will be heard


A girl who will sing and laugh 


And make parents proud


And give grandparents joy.


They sleep now, one only days old


But soon we will wonder where the years went.

 

DEATH IS NO STRANGER TO ME

DEATH IS NO STRANGER TO ME

 

This is not a gloomy mindfulness. End of life is on my mind more frequently than it ever was in previous decades. The proximity of death is easily apparent to me, particularly because of my age.  I am 78 years old. Furthermore, the passing of close friends and acquaintances who are my contemporaries occurs with increased frequency. Two days ago another friend’s life on planet earth ended. She was four years older than me.  

I am no stranger to dying and death. At the age of 27 I began my work as a church pastor. For forty years one of my responsibilities was spending time with dying parishioners and residents of the community. I sat with families as their loved one weakened and I comforted them when the loved one died. Many who died were close personal friends. I had my own load of grief to manage. I officiated funerals within the churches that I pastored.  I lost count of how many hundreds of funerals that is. Death is not a stranger to me.

My grandparents and parents and most uncles and aunts and some cousins have died. We have been people of faith, not just any faith, but Christian faith. Early in my life and then through concentrated linguistic and theological investigation I confirmed for my own satisfaction that my faith rests on promise based on evidence. So I am content to trust that God was telling me the truth when he inspired writers to record that eternal life awaits those who trust that Jesus was divine and resided on earth for the purpose of atoning for human sin. I believe that Jesus’ own dying words to a dying convict promising him life in paradise was true, and is true still. What this comes down to is assurance and hope and peace. 

Yes, I have bought the whole meal deal. It’s a worldview that includes a future beyond life here. Not for one moment do I believe that it is easier or more intelligent to accept that life began spontaneously in some cell somewhere or through some cataclysmic celestial explosion. I rest my trust in a transcendent pre-existing God who created this remarkable universe and chose to fashion humanity in his image, and who has prepared something for us after this. I am unafraid and I am content.   

FIDELITY AND TRUST NO MORE

FIDELITY AND TRUST NO MORE

 

Fidelity and trust could soon be obsolete. 

Fidelity is noncompulsory. Trust is hard to find. 

“I promise to be faithful.” “I don’t believe you.” 

Two assertions juxtaposed

But now they correspond.

Fidelity, once founded on a pledge

Implied continuing faithfulness to that contract,

Is now a casualty of our times.

Aberrant public mores won. 

Trust wore thin and then dissolved. 

The adhesive of relationships, gone.

 

We trust clergy, doctors, leaders and spouses;

We trust parents, and teachers until we don’t.

We don’t when we have lost faith

In the trustworthiness of a promise given,

And the promise neglected.

Our trust is lost and irrecoverable it seems. 

We believed fidelity made a promise 

That was a virtual guarantee.

Our times are known for distrust

And infidelity.

 

In our spirits we wish to regain them both,

The constancy of truthfulness

And the allegiance of trust?

Yet no one can be made to trust.

It is a choice to be made when the two feel safe.

Conceivable with open communication,

Indispensable regret and earnest apology,

Met with heartfelt forgiveness.

Only then does trust recover,

Indispensable to robust rapport

So affinity is what ex-antagonists discover.

 

© Ron Unruh, January 2021