Majoring in Minors

This morning quite early I was offered today's paper along with my coffee at McDonald’s. These stops have become kind of routine at halfway point of my morning exercise regimen, the paper a small gesture (customer relations 😉) from the big corporation. So I sit down with my little hot brew and start reading. In a few minutes I’ve read enough. Never having subscribed to The Calgary Sun, I realize afresh why it’s available at giveaway price to indiscriminate half-awake morning oldtimers. The irony is in titles; top of front page “Smith Clears the Air”, with little arrows pointing. At page 5 is the referenced article, “No Interference: Premier”. Lead paragraph describes her latest “walk back” about earlier claims that she had spoken with Crown Prosecutors regarding several covid-related charges, now saying she didn’t say that. What did she say? We’re not sure. The correction she offers is that she asked the questions differently than earlier stated, and that should be fair and square, also no longer as important because public interest isn’t as strong as it was then. This of course ridiculed by the NDP, asking whether Crown Prosecutors need to consider polling numbers in doing their jobs? That would be political interference in the justice system. Thus ends the article. Nothing is clarified and I am left to wonder what air was cleared!

We read much of this these days. Choose you which magazine or which disseminator of news you will watch or read or listen to. Editorials and Op-eds churn out the required themes of particular publications. This morning’s Alberta ‘news’ in this particular paper reads almost like American news of the last while. Was former President Donald Trump an instigator in the Washington, DC Capitol Hill riots, January 6, 2021? Legal procedures are reported by journalists and endless media experts who provide a full menu of investigations, indictments, lawyers and official statements complete with all necessary sound and video clips including some of today’s responses by supporters or opponents of the former president. To what purpose? Apparently this is to get to the bottom of a disturbing event after last election. Yes, we want and we need believable credible elected officials, and violators of the electoral system must be found out, but this preoccupation with investigative reporting I find quite tiring. It causes me to wonder whether anything else is happening anywhere.

Same thing in professional sport. Last night, after watching an impressive hockey game, Edmonton Oilers defeating the Seattle Kraken, and savoring that victory I take in a little further news (opinions?) at Sportsnet Central. There it was center stage, indeed  like breaking news. Philadelphia Flyers’ Ivan Provorov had refused to participate in warmups because the team’s rainbow colored exercise jerseys in keeping with Philadelphia’s Pride Night violated his religious beliefs. Coach John Tortorelli, NHL’s most colorful and outspoken on many issues, met the media with surprising candor. He spoke clearly about Provorov, saying “Provy’s being true to himself and his religion. I respect that.” Provy would not be benched. No more questions about that; hockey only. Interesting, the talking heads could not quite leave it alone, making sure we get all the info; Provorov is Russian Orthodox! Even on Sportsnet the main events of the evening, the games with winners and losers are all but forgotten. The news of the evening is rainbow colored hockey jerseys.

I do not fully agree with Torts's antics on some occasions, but this time I appreciate his perspective. Even as we live in a free country including freedom of religion and freedom of assembly and of course freedom of the press I find myself still looking for the “main thing as the main thing” as I heard in a sermon once upon a time. A coach's job is to lead a hockey team. In the last several decades as religious and other assemblies are turning themselves inside out to prove to everyone that they are affirming, not prejudiced and dealing only in the love of god (small g my emphasis) there is a real tendency to inflict our open-mindedness on everyone. And before you know it we have religious assemblies, christian churches and others, spending half their worship or assembly time doing land acknowledgements and assuring everybody that they are a welcoming community and you won't find anything offensive here! God may well be in agreement with open-mindedness, but I know the son of God dealt with much closed-mindedness. It cost him his life. My understanding is that we gather to worship the God who is greater than all these statements!! 

The biggest armament of ‘progressive’ thinking is social media. Almost all notifications in Facebook these days are by those unable to write full sentences of their own thoughts. So they forward smart-ass sayings posted by creative jokesters, cynical friends, inspiring friends, questionable or inspiring organizations, woke friends, redneck friends, or ...?  Social media is the art of deflection, and it's unfortunate when it becomes a driving force in religious assemblies.

The NHL and all professional sport along with churches et al are now seeking to improve the image, hence these current media scrums.This is like other media frenzies ongoing right now (eg Prince Harry dissing his Royal family and of course NFL players ‘taking the knee’ during U.S. National anthem because of racism and other issues). Image or perception of images is a very real distraction. 

Even as I point this out regarding news media and churches and institutions, I confess that some of the ‘distractions’ may in fact be okay, especially if one is a person of faith. There is need for discernment among all this. One of humankind's greatest sins is self-centredness, especially prevalent among those of us with ready opinions! God is beyond the things which I might deem to be important, indeed able to do abundantly beyond all that I might ask or think or understand for that matter. 

Among all things that may want to be absolutely 'modernly' important but perhaps are not, I cannot but remember a benediction from that little epistle Jude, near end of the New Testament, oft quoted, 

²⁴ To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— ²⁵ to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Neither the news nor the media give the full picture, and it behooves us to be careful to keep main things as the main things. And even the Russian Orthodox Church (Vladimir Putin also a member) may have some snippets worth considering.😳