A week of turmoil in New Zealand

A week in Auckland, New Zealand is a long time these days, because you just don’t know it’s going to pan out. We have now been in a strict lockdown for the last 12 weeks with no certainty of when (if) it will end.

The general population did as they were told initially when the lockdown started, even if they didn’t agree with it, and meekly obeyed the Prime minister Jacinda Adern.

However, she has started to go off the tracks, and has been applying peer pressure to get everyone to get vaccinated. To this end, she has tried to get the vaccinated to ‘encourage’ the others to get the ‘jab’, as well as heavily implying unvaccinated people will have less rights after the lockdown.

Unfortunately for her, Youtube has a good memory even if some people don’t. It’s plain to see from the link below she has lied.

She kept implying that if Auckland got to 90% vaxxed, we could move on…..

But then she came up with the ‘traffic light system’ which moved the goal posts just when was about to get 90%

Since then, she has kept saying there will be an announcement ‘next week’ with everyone eagerly expecting good news. They have done this too many times now, and patience is wearing very thin.

Protests are now commonplace, even if the MSM don’t report them, and it’s not possible now for Jacinda to go somewhere without protesters turning up.

In my dealings with people this week, I’ve had several people talk angrily about our PM without any prompting. (these are people that never normally talk about politics.

In short, New Zealands love affair with their prime minister is over.

In the coming few weeks, it’s just going to get harder for the PM (Jacinda Adern). Their are more protests planned about lockdowns, but also about radical new leglislation that they were trying to rush thru parliament while everyone was concerned about covid.

As we get closer to Xmas, the pressure will ramp up exponentially, because having NZ’s largest city under lockdown over the xmas holidays just isn’t going to be something the average person will stand for.

The next month will be dramatic, just how much, I’m not sure.

A lesson from Halloween about living and dying

Shared from MitchTeemly @ WordPress -Redeeming All Hallows Eve

Few people realize that the ancient church’s All Hallows Eve (“Hallow-e’en”) and All Saints Day were intentionally focused on both harvest and death, not in mindless emulation of pagan traditions, but for healthy, meaningful reasons. 

Harvest festivals celebrate the ingathering of fruits and grains. And yet, at the same time, all around the town are the now-dead crops that produced them. Sad? No. Because this means they’ve accomplished their purpose, borne their fruits, and now rest in the earth. It’s a healthy perspective, one of death as fulfillment, not fear, as a time of rest and, although it cannot yet be seen, of a coming resurrection in the spring. 

People too complete their work, die, and rest in the earth, All Hallows Eve reminds us. And yet they too will be resurrected one day. Therefore, on All Saints Day, those who’ve completed their purpose in life are honored (the Latin world’s two-part Day of the Dead stems from this idea, as well). And for those whose souls are less secure, the predecessor to trick-or-treating emerged: 

On All Hallows Eve, the poor, especially children, would knock on doors, offering to pray for the souls of the family’s dead, and would be rewarded with sweet, fruit-filled little “soul cakes.” One spiritual-minded baker even put holes in her soul cakes, making them into circles representing eternity (and in the process inventing doughnuts!). 

So let us refuse to surrender All Hallows Eve to that dark, unhealthy fear of death as something evil, something to be feared. Richard Rohr was right: one of the best ways to celebrate life is to acknowledge death as a grace, as a rest, a passage. For without death, there is no completion of this life’s purpose, no resurrection to the life to come. But for those whose souls are truly at rest, death is not an end… It’s a doorway.

The yearly climate of fear

2000 -Y2K is going to destroy everything!

2001 -Antrax is going to kill us all!

2002 -West Nile virus is going to kill us all!

2003 -Sars is going to kill us all!

2005 -Bird Flu is going to kill us all!

2005 -Ecoli is going to kill us all!

2008 -Financial collapse is going to kill us all!

2009 -Swine Flu is going to kill us all !

2012 -The Mayan calendar predicts the world is going to end !

2013 -North Korea is going to cause World War 3 !

2014 -Ebola Virus is going to kill us all!

2015 -ISIS is going to kill us all!

2016 -Zika Virus is going to kill us all!

2020 -Corona virus is going to kill us all!

The truth is that Fear is going to kill you….

Turn off the TV and wash your hands.

Lockdown Protest in NZ

It’s been over a decade since I’ve been involved in a protest, but we live in strange times indeed. Our rights and freedom have been taken away from us on the pretext of a disease that ‘might’ kill us.

Fun fact -I’m 55yrs old, and have a 0.0128% chance of dying from covid, If you consider that I am in good health, that percentage is practically zero.

I’ve had a few sleepless nights about going, because they have been arresting organisers lately. (protests are illegal under NZ covid laws, but judges have been acknowledging our right to protest)

I gave the kids the option of coming along and they were quite excited by the idea. They understand whats going on quite well. We got there several hours early because my youngest was so keen to get there.

We were having a picnic in a park, which just happened to have thousands of other people there with the same idea, which is legal within the covid rules here.

The kids spent some time making some signs before the event really got started with some very inspirational speakers.

Some of the speakers were quite religious and spoke very candidly about the effects they see on the community around them. Another speaker was an Early Childhood Teacher who is about to lose her job, unless she gets a mandatory vaccination.

We then went for a protest march thru the local city center. It was quite a buzz walking with so many people of all different ages and races who had the same views as we did.

We certainly weren’t walking alone anymore, which is how its felt for the last few months.

It was also quite ironic that I was chanting “FREEDOM” on the march by the way, because I was campaigning in the last election for a ‘freedom’ party that sold out.

In short it’s the best thing I’ve done for months, and it feels like I’ve cleansed my soul.