No posts for a short while, as I’ll be in the oil patch until the 5th or so, acquiring fabulous wealth and suffering from staggering boredom. Maybe I’ll have some stories when I come back. One of these days I’ll figure out pictures too.
So Dima informs me that Christmas has only been on the calendar in Russia for the last 15 or 20 years. Which is very confusing, because I was pretty sure that it had been celebrated at least since Cyril and Methodius came through that way in the 9th century. I had trouble figuring out exactly what he meant, but so far I can only think of two possibilities:
1. The Orthodox Church has been in way worse trouble this century than I realized, so much so that Christmas was publically forgotten for a while.
2. The version of Christmas publically celebrated in North America is so secularized that Dima didn’t think of it as the same holiday as the Russian one.
I suppose there’s also:
3. The Orthodox aren’t particularly public in their liturgical celebrations.
Having spoken at greater length, I’m leaning towards #1.
“Then shall the just answer him, saying: Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee: thirsty and give thee drink? Or when did we see thee a stranger and take thee in? Or naked and cover thee? Or when did we see thee sick or in prison and come to thee? And the king answering shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.” (Matt. 25: 37-40)
It is in God’s nature that nothing can be done to Him. Nothing occuring in creation increases or decreases His Godliness, or changes Him in any way. Gramatically, God is always active, never passive: “God created,” not “God was created.” Out of love for us, however, He became man, able to be hugged, nursed, fed, struck, spat on, and killed. The culmination of this new state of affairs is aptly named the Passion, a word denoting the fact that for the last hours of His life, Christ allowed men to do whatever they wanted to to God.
It is beautifully fitting that Jesus entered life the same way that He left it: passively. Babies do nothing, even to themselves. Their survival requires that others act on them. We should find great comfort in realizing that at the beginning of His earthly life, in contrast to the end, Christ’s passivity allowed His blessed mother to wrap Him lovingly in swaddling clothes and lay Him in a manger. We are guilty of the harm done to Christ at His death, but we need not lose hope. Instead, we must humbly ask our Lady to share as well in the good she did Him at His birth, and I’m convinced that she’ll let us.
None of the vehicles used to transport food this evening was designed for that purpose, and I don’t think much of the food was packaged with transport in mind either. The result is that a lot of ham and turkey juice ended up on a lot of upholstery, not to mention Matt’s last clean pair of pants. The crowning glory of this wide-spread ignominy is that at least one RCMP squad car will smell like ham for weeks.
Criminal: Is that pork I smell?
Officer: Hey! Watch your… oh, yeah, that was… never mind.
If nothing else makes the town of Fort Nelson noteworthy, then the annual Emergency Services Christmas Dinner does. It has to be seen to be believed. The basic premise is that the businesses in town donate enough food to feed all of the four or five thousand people who show up at the rec centre between two (when Santa’s helicopter lands in the parking lot) and seven in the afternoon. Food is even brought to the mill crews at the edge of town. To put this in perspective, Fort Nelson’s population has yet to pass five thousand in a census. No kitchen in town is big enough to cook that much food, so it’s prepared at a restaurant and two grocery stores and carted to the rec centre by a fleet of private trucks, ambulances and police vehicles.
The line is unbroken for five hours, and has something like the feel of the whole town doing a curtain call: Oh look, there’s the lady who runs the laundromat. There’s the director of education for the school board. That guy was in our ambulance last week. So was that one. Dr. Suiker’s sitting with Dr. Mostert. Oh, that’s nice; I didn’t know that cop’s wife was pregnant. Here’s the pilot we usually fly with, and there’s the owner of the flight company. Wait, who’s she?? Taken. Damn cops. And so on.
Near the end of the dinner, my partner and I slipped out the back, put on our uniforms, and started our shift with, among other things, a hearty Romeo y Julietta in the beginnings of the first snow in a couple of weeks. Not a car in the streets, just the snow and a couple of good cigars. Under the circumstances (duty time means Mass is postponed til morning), I think this was about the best Christmas Eve imaginable. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Dima: Hello?
Ditch: Hey, it’s me. Is Tina there?
Dima: Yes… [long silence] …and what?
One of the things you learn pretty quickly in an ambulance is how easy it really is to stay calm around sickness and gore. You’re worried about how you’ll react, and then when you first see a really mangled limb, you think: “Hmm. So that’s a mangled limb,” and then get on with the job. Things you thought would be frightening are more interesting when they actually happen. But you want to know how to thoroughly scare a couple of paramedics? Tell them you need to go to the bathroom, and can’t hold it til the hospital.
In my experience, the field of pre-hospital care is a fascinating blend of long-winded medical theory and just plain peasantly common sense. Here’s an example from “Essentials of Paramedic Care”:
“Blunt trauma associated with sternal contact with the
steering wheel in an unrestrained motor vehicle collision
can result in pericardial tamponade, myocardial contusion,
dissecting aortic aneurysm, and pulmonary contusion. All
four are bad.”
Thanks to Dz, this is now my favourite CD.
I don’t know how many times I’ve listened to it, but I hear something new every time. Even adjusting the equalizing reveals new layers of meaning. Most of the album hangs together almost like one song, and subtly quotes itself throughout. The best parts are firmly anchored in a well defined, driving bass line that still manages to sound searching. Hints: #1 Make sure you’re playing it on something with pretty good bass. This is music you hear with your kidneys almost as much as your ears. #2 Think of a train while you’re listening.
Places not to leave your steel boots overnight during a northern winter:
In your car.