They wanted a voice.

This week the Canadian Government will take a vote on the Citizenship Act. I have been following closely. Bill C-3 is the latest iteration seeking to allow so-called "Lost Canadians" to claim their citizenship. The tap root, if you will, is heritage: The root that connects families through lineage from one generation to the next. The current law limits that lineage to first generation Canadians. How do you limit lineage? Pas possible! The final vote by the Senate is in debate as I write. It begs the question: What does it mean to be a citizen?

The Canadian debate is playing out in Parliament while simultaneously American citizenship is under violent attack in the streets. How we got here is our collective story. If you want a complete version of that history, Ken Burns' documentary: The American Revolution can be seen this week on PBS. The irony, of course, is that Public Broadcasting Stations have been eliminated from federal government funds. And, that is exactly where the American story began: Breaking with government.

It took a while, but those who fought for freedom, ordinary folks like you and me, stood up and took their shot(s) for the rest of us. They made a valiant effort against the British crown in Quebec City, home to my maternal grandparents.

That city is an impenetrable citadel that has served the people within its walls well for centuries. That wall should not keep out their own in the twenty-first century. "A Canadian, is a Canadian, is a Canadian", someone said. It could not be any clearer than that.

While they proceed to the vote on my, and many other generational citizenships, it evokes painful comparisons for those who do not wish to be citizens in places where they were born. When a person cannot live in peace and safety in the homeland, what else can be done but try to find a better home. The original colonists (rightly named) were immigrants seeking freedom from oppression, freedom from religious persecution, freedom, period. It would have been well and good had they arrived from their trans-atlantic sail to settle in a new homeland while leaving behind the King. As we know, the King had no intentions of letting the people go, no matter what. Kings are like that!

Many people knew their arduous decision to leave the homeland was just the beginning. Freedom was another thing. All they wanted was a voice. "Give me liberty, or give me death", turned the tide from an ongoing debate in Parliament to standing up for what was and is right. Liberty, Patrick Henry pointed out, is a pursuit, "a holy cause". These words were spoken not in a government house, but in a house of God, St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia,*giving the patriotic Henry the freedom he sought to speak the truth. His inspired words, in essence were free speech that led others to follow what inevitably became the American Revolution against the British Empire. The beginning came in the town of Lexington, Massachusetts where I lived for a time.

"The birthplace of American Liberty" is represented by the Minute-man statue standing over the green in the middle of town. Each year, today's minute-men recreate that first "shot heard 'round the world". It is a powerful demonstration of the pursuit of liberty in action. We, too, are in pursuit. We want what they wanted: a voice. When that is taken, there is no liberty or justice for all, or any.

*ebsco.co Analysis: Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death

“THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love

Supermoon from St Augustine Florida

and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated”

― Thomas Paine, The Crisis

The photo of the celestial supermoon was taken from my home in St. Augustine, Florida, named for the fourth century Bishop of Hippo, in North Africa.*

The call to prayer in North Africa is heard five times a day beginning with sunrise until sunset. Millions of people pause in place to listen and pray. The moonrise offers the same evocative, yet silent call.

Listen to the Moroccan Call to Prayer:

https://youtu.be/17YPTlOnS9o?si=ZHwqwExsIzhdHIau

*https://augustinian.org/spirituality/saint-augustine-of-hippo/

Cows don't know what time it is!

From the Greenwich Observatory, England

In the 1950's, the reason given for "changing the clocks" twice a year, was the farmers needed more daylight.

"The cows don't know what time it is!", said a long-time farmer after all these years.

In the 1970's during a man-made "energy crisis", I rose early to get in long lines with my neighbors to buy my share of gasoline for the week. Daylight Savings, fell in line with saving energy by providing more daylight.

Okay . . . if you say so.

Here we are in 2025, coming up with reasons for ending this time-honored tradition. Arizona and Hawaii do not follow the rest of US, sticking instead to the same time year-round.

Several states are considering doing the same, Florida among them. I generally do not agree with what comes out of this state's legislature, but this time (pun intended), I am not opposed. Why not? I do not want to manipulate Father Time, anymore than we already have.

There is a long history behind how we got here that begins in Greenwich, England.

Read on, if you have the time:

Essentially, mean time is clock time rather than solar (astronomical) time. 

Solar time varies throughout the year, as the time interval between the Sun crossing a set meridian line changes.

But each day measured by a clock has the same length, equal to the average (mean) length of a solar day. It’s a way of standardising and regularising time so we can all know exactly what time it is for our (or anyone’s) location.

Today GMT is reckoned from one midnight to the next.

What does GMT stand for?

GMT stands for Greenwich Mean Time, the local clock time at Greenwich. From 1884 until 1972, GMT was the international standard of civil time. Though it has now been replaced by Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

How did Greenwich Mean Time begin?

It wasn’t until the invention of the pendulum clock in the 1650s that it was possible to work out the relationship between mean (clock) time and solar time.

John Flamsteed came up with the formula for converting solar time to mean time, and published a set of conversion tables in the early 1670s. Soon after, he was appointed as the first Astronomer Royal and moved into the new Royal Observatory in Greenwich.

Here he had the best pendulum clocks installed and set them to the local time. This was Greenwich Mean Time, or the average time when the Sun crossed the meridian at Greenwich. At first though, Greenwich time was only really important to astronomers.

I prefer the Greeks' version of Kairos over Chronos time. The latter is self-explanatory, but the former requires at least a few words. Kairos is non-linear allowing for anything to happen at just the right time to be meaningful. There are myriad examples throughout Greek mythology and the Bible. But, here in our own time, Kairos is always right around every corner, if you stop to think about it.

One small example of seeing Kairos as it happens is in the photo above with the clock face "Liverpool Street Station". Contrary to what you might think, this photo was not taken in London. It was taken the evening before my flight to London when I stayed overnight on the outskirts of Orlando at the historic Park Plaza.

Restless before the flight, I got up in the wee hours for a cup of tea. Nobody but the desk clerk was around. As I waited for the kettle to boil, I looked around at the surrounding memorabilia scattered throughout the lobby. I looked above my head and saw what I had yet to see: the clock with the insignia LS for Liverpool Street Station. I had a train ticket for that station in my suitcase. Coincidence? Serendipity, if you please. Kairos time had confirmed my destiny before I stepped foot off the plane an ocean away.

Mystics call Kairos "deep time" because it eludes all the relative time-sensitive issues by which we plan and live.

Changing the clocks twice per year, is one way of staying stuck in Chronos, thwarting Kairos from expanding our way of relating to time. I think we would get used to it, and might even enjoy keeping up with Father time, instead of running from it.

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”  – J.R.R. Tolkien

Greenwich Observatory Clock