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That pissed you off?

These last couple of weeks has tried my patience and stoked my resolve. A broken phone, work problems, and endless bureaucracy timesucks. Through it all I’ve attempted to keep my heart empathetic and my language as tame as it can be when I’m upset. I’ll let the people around me judge how I did…

Well except for that one guy. He’s the man with the brilliant idea to attack my religion. No, in truth he didn’t really attack the religion, he attacked me for my religious beliefs. It was probably my fault for announcing that January 24 was the 17th anniversary of taking my vows to become a Tibetan Buddhist. It’s a special time for me but I should have been quiet. These days you never know what will rile people up when it comes to religion and personal beliefs.

Though as a Tibetan Buddhist I have it pretty good. People don’t tend to say bad things about His Holiness the Dalia Lama. What are you going to say… he laughs too much?

But this man decided to get very vocal about my choice and “why if you were born a Christian would you EVER decide to change religions, are you stupid?”

The only stupid thing I did was stay at the table where he was and let him rant at me. He did go on and on. I just laughed. I also asked him why he cared. This made him a tad angrier. I laughed even more.

I do not advise laughing at strangers when they are mad at you.

Luckily he got tired of taunting me and left to probably judge someone else.

I was left with the knowledge that a Muslim would not have gotten off as easy as I did.

Hate is everywhere and can easily catch fire.

I was blessed to leave that all behind and go spend a few days at Long Beach to look out at the ocean.

Hate is everywhere and the water’s edge is my antidote.

Long Beach, Vancouver Island January 25, 2017

 

 

Happy New Year

My favourite pastime at Long Beach was the continuation of my “People Watching” photography that I talked about in my Reactions blog. The opportunities were endless and the backgrounds are stunning.

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This week’s plan was to tell the story about how I was walking along Chesterman Beach and saw a woman at the shoreline screaming into a phone and pointing out to the crashing waves. Two men were running to some huge rocks at the end of the bay. I could hear them calling out a name. There was no sign of anyone out in the surf. This had all the signs of a disaster. I said a prayer and walked on.

Clearly it was too much of a heart wrenching event to witness let alone photograph.

In the end it was blog worthy. So yesterday I sat down to write the story.

Then my Twitter feed pissed me off.

Monday was the Lunar New Year and Tuesday was Losar, the Tibetan celebration of that New Year.

And last night, when I should have been writing the, “Oh my god, my kids went surfing and might be dead.” blog, I was again explaining to someone that it was inconsiderate to call February 8, 2016 the Chinese New Year.

I had pointed this out many times over the last 48 hours. Now it was beyond annoying and just plain rude. I admit my problem might stem from the Chinese/Tibet conflict. I am biased.

But still… there are other people in the world that celebrate the Lunar New Year.

Do we ever say Merry Catholic Christmas? Or Happy North American New Year? Never.

I applauded each person , company or organization that sent out “Lunar New Year” greetings and called it just that.

If you’re Chinese or are attending a Chinese event, then yes, by all means, get swept up in a Chinese New Year celebration!

But for me, I marked this day wishing people “Tashi Delek” at the Losar ceremony.

I also made the aspiration to take more “people watching” pictures throughout this Year of the Monkey.

Which brings me back to those kids out surfing.

Minutes later the rescue boat could be seen circling the water. I couldn’t help but watch. Then from around a huge boulder came the men climbing over the rocks back to shore with two other people. That’s when I started taking the pictures…

I was able to give the family a picture of the mother hugging her daughter.

I also gave them this shot of them all heading back along the beach…

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As the Dad gave me his email address his voice started to waver. I looked up and said, “This was a good ending.” His eyes teared up and he just nodded.

It’s all about capturing the little moments.

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Happy Lunar New Year…