As I sit overlooking my patio into the stark white wall of the apartment building across from me, sun on it, blinding me. Hold on, I need to draw the drapes…

Ok, much better, but now I need to go find my computer glasses to continue….

Computer glasses on. Ok. Ready to go. Now I have to take a moment due to all the distractions to remember why I wanted to sit down to write this.

Ok…got it. Well, it’s 6:30 pm here in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I should emphasize “beautiful” because there is no smoke in the sky and the temperature is a relatively comfortable 26 degrees Celsius, or 79 degrees Fahrenheit…quite warm but NOT warm compared to so many other temperatures across the world right now! Right now a LOT of the world is in extreme heat…breaking all time records. Thousands of people are dying of heat stroke and exhaustion. This is climate warming just warming up they say. The worst is yet to come.

As for me this evening, I’m ever so grateful to not have to turn on my air conditioning. My fans are all I need. What a blessing.

I was going to turn on the TV to watch the latest news. I think it’s good to keep up on current events, but tonight I couldn’t do it. I thought, what if I was living 100 years ago…I might have a radio, if I was rich. Or 150 years ago — no radio then. In the evenings they had NO entertainment options, other than walking down to the town centre perhaps to see if there was something going on, but that was it! No movie theatres or TV or radio news, no phones or computers. All they had to do was whatever was pressing…get firewood or coal for the stove so they could cook tomorrow. Entertain the children or grandchildren. If the weather was good, sit outside and chat with FAMILY, gaze up to the sky — a sky that had, oh my, thousands of stars to see. Then off to bed, sleeping peacefully — not to be awakened by sirens or cars or garbage or delivery trucks clanging and banging, and….and……!

Sounds like another world doesn’t it? Well, it was OUR world not that long ago. How far we’ve strayed in the name of progress. Not that progress and technology isn’t good! It is, but we’re in a transition stage of history now that is pretty messy, rough and tumultuous.

We are living in very uncertain and difficult times. World war 3 could be just around the corner with the conflict happening between Russia and Ukraine right now! We could even see nuclear weapons being used! Even this medium, the Internet, could go down if we go into a World War, which is partly why I’m writing this here tonight, with hopes for the best, but fearful of the worst!

What can we do in the meantime? Get political perhaps. Write to the editors of whatever papers are still left. Have a voice on social media. Post on blogs like this. Look out for ways that we can make a difference while we can? Something, anything.

God help us all.

Tim