I’m old enough to remember the polio scare in Toronto which peaked in the early 1950’s. Fear of dirty water, fear of getting sick, pictures of kids and adults in iron lungs, fear of ending up in one – and then blessed relief, a vaccine to immunize us against the disease.

Some of us remember a thing called cash. We may even remember a $50 bill which had a picture of the RCMP musical ride with the Mounties in a circle with lances pointing inward. In a prior world we would call it a “Nxxxie firing squad”. But not a bad picture of what we are doing increasingly in Canada in these challenging times.

It’s ten days since Good Friday and many of us are confused, anxious and maybe angry with all the shifts in circumstances around us since then. Around ten days after his crucifixion, Jesus’ friends were still figuring out what it all meant and shared much confusion and fear – in spite of his appearing physically to them and offering them words of peace.

My first experience of speaking to an audience alongside an interpreter happened in what was then called Rangoon, Burma at a church of the Karen people. That was 1979 but I’ve never forgotten the experience or the people. A year later one of the other members of the team that night joined me in Zambia for some youth leadership teaching. He was a gifted and experienced communicator from India and after hearing me speak in Zambia his compliment was: “I knew you had to be better than you were in Rangoon”.

On Friday my neighbour feared that the first chattering sound of the power tool removing the nuts from my snow tires would upset the balance of the cosmos. He had called over the fence that I was going to jinx us all with more bad weather when he saw me moving my summer tires (too early for him). We laughed, but there are many weird false equivalencies like this that hold us hostage.