The world we live in.

I used to hear ‘All the world is mad but me and thee, and sometimes I have my doubts about thee.’ In the light of that consider the ‘me’ below and, if you want to, answer as the ‘thee’.

The world I live in has many levels. No doubt your life is as complex as mine, but I live –

• inside my skin (which has different levels also!) – I’m old, unable to do what I used to do. Still mentally with it (my interpretation); a bit frustrated with the limitations of age, but fairly contented.
• inside my family – as I’ve experienced contact with many families I think ours is pretty good; as family expands beyond a couple to children, their marriages, their children and their marriages down to great-grandchildren there is never going to be a trouble free family tree but ours is, on the whole as good as can be expected in an imperfect world. Whilst I love my kids dearly, I try to see them as of no more significance nor less significance than the smallest latest child born of any colour anywhere today. Truly they are more precious to me, and I’d gladly die for any of them, but of no more worth in the whole scheme of things.
• inside my local community – sadly we are seeing too much unemployment, too much crime at all levels, but particularly in the youth aged group with house break-ins, and stolen vehicles high on the list. There is a feeling amongst a significant percentage of the community that offenders often get a slap on the wrist and are allowed to return to their previous activities. To quote a recent news article from the channel 9 News ‘Townsville’s growing youth crime problem has it listed as one of the worst criminal hotspots in the world, with the regional Queensland city named alongside Tijuana, Baghdad, Caracas and Tripoli’.  
• inside my state – there is high unemployment and the rural area has been affected in a significant extent by the action against transport of live animals and the anti-mining movement. This has had a statewide effect on unemployment and financial viability. At the moment the jobless rate in the state is 6.8%. Quoting the Queensland Times – ‘Outback Queensland’ included Mt Isa, Aurukun, Cape York and Longreach and the region had an average 28.4% youth jobless rate.
• inside my country – we have had major fires, significant floods and of course the coronavirus restrictions with major social and economic effects. There are Black Lives Matter riots, seemingly brought to the boil by the killing of a black person (with a significant criminal record) by a white policeman in the USA. It seems to have acted as the straw on the camel’s back at this moment. The bit in parenthesis is not put as an excuse for the killing but as a fact to be considered, as it would be in any accused murder situation – something about ‘innocent until proven guilty’.
• inside the world. USA, which claims to be a democracy, ever since the last President was elected, has been the scene of politically stirred up and cause-aided disturbances to bring it to the situation where it is no longer acting as a democratic country. It is complex but it seems to me as if the entrenched rich from all political streams don’t want the changes promised by successive Presidents, (promised in my view, to get elected) but not acted upon. The present President has fulfilled their ans some of his promises, and stirred up the entrenched who never wanted the promises fulfilled, but their person to get into power. Black lives matter is absolutely true; then, if that is true, may I ask, why are the majority of black people killed in the USA killed by black people, and why the issue of roughly 50% of abortions being performed on black people (only about 15% of the population) isn’t a major issue with the cause? Is there any reason why we don’t hear of the religious and inter-tribal murders of hundreds of blacks mainly by blacks? This is happening in big numbers in West Papua and Nigeria at the moment. There are the Middle East wars and many other concerning issues to be considered in addition.
• inside the cosmos – well I think that there are efforts being made by a number of nations, at great cost and in the name of Science, to mess this up also. There may be some advantages which come from their searching.

I’ve read that ‘3 things remain – faith, hope and love’.

I guess my faith is that God, the Creator is still in control; my hope is that at every level we’ll act with integrity and learn from our mistakes; my aim, concerning  love, is to be able to love friend and enemy and treat each person as I would seek to be treated.

Dominic Cartier