‘Edgy’ times.

“Hark!” Calls the white bearded sage: “Repent! The end is nigh!”  These words have been spoken, called and shouted out over the millenia by the prophets, seeres and doomsdayers of old and new.

Now more than ever before, the world is waking up to that call. None of it is that surprising, should you turn the pages of the last book in the world’s most read book, The Bible.

No surprises then for the times that we are living in – those dreaded and much feared “end times”. Thankfully, I know that there is a sense of peace in the anticipation of these “birthing pains”, heralded by drastic climatic changes, natural disasters, overpopulation and ever growing poverty, accompanied by disease. Sounds cheerful, NOT! Thanks to my personal faith, I am able to face these crises with a different sense of anticipation.

Without wanting to become a sage, seer or prophet, I do know that the truth of what we are experiencing does not require any “rocket science degree” – we as humanity have made a right old mess of the blue planet that we call home, evident in the drastic change in climate, extinction of animal species, world hunger and poverty, sharply contrasted with the burgeoning wealth of a few.

It is no surprise that this week has revealed the statistics that are likely to send our planet bursting through its own stratosphere.

Let me hasten to say that I am not a denialist, flat earth-ist, nor even a very rabid conspiracy theorist. I prefer to think of myself as something of a realist.

The reality of all these natural disasters, all VERY real, is that nature is cyclical by virtue of the shape of the globe, the axis upon which it so magnificently tilts and turns and so the seasons and the tides change to a cyclical rhythm. Thus it is not a hard push to note that these disasters have occurred since the beginning of time. One only needs to ask any little kid about dinosaurs and you’re likely to hear all about how very long ago, in the “olden days”, these massive creatures roamed the earth and were then declared extinct due to the catastrophic events in the cosmos. The same goes for the ice age – the very popular animated movie of the same name was enlightening in these matters of global climatic change in a humorous way.

The difference in today’s disasters is the alarming pace at which they are occuring. The speed at which animals, birds, fish and plants are disappearing into extinction is nothing short of devastating. So too the extreme temperatures experienced in parts of the globe, resulting in apocalyptic fires to break out and engulf vast tracts of wild and residential land, all fast tracking the rising sea levels and dwindling polar ice caps. None of it “new”, only frighteningly faster than ever before!

To this end, every single one of us human beings is able to make a small difference, mostly by respecting the planet we call home and not being wasteful of our resources. Sounds simple, right? Not so fast: human beings are selfish and destructive so, “Woe betide us all!”

What has turned into something of a doomsday/eco-warrior post was actually intended to be something a little closer to home… when things feel “a bit out of sorts”, something similar to, but on a microscopic scale, to what the earth is feeling.

This past week we celebrated our eldest daughter’s birthday, albeit remotely via video call, but we are thankful for technology that provides this means of communication. (Back in the “olden days”, I recall a picture of futuristic inventions, one of which was a video telephone – who would ever have imagined…?!)

So it was that I instinctively reached for my “Edgy”. My instinct stemming from my earliest memory of a “comfort blanket”, literally a blanket. This one, originally a wedding gift to my parents, is of pure wool, bound by a soft black binding tape. As children do, I soon became attached to this blanket. When it came time for me to leave home for weekly boarding school, at the age of around 7 or 8 years, there was a time of fairly stressful shopping with my Mum: we had to find the exact same edge for a new school Edgy… it was eventually located, after many meters of finger testing edges! This one, also of pure wool and bound with the same soft black binding tape, depicts the majestic Kudu antelope, native to South Africa. It was the perfect home comfort for a homesick young scholar.

Fast forward through the ages, stages and adventures of my life, and in each one, either one or both my Edgies have been present for the instinctive association with home comfort, especially during “out of sorts” times. There are too many to mention in one blog post so the summary is that Edgy has kept me company, provided me comfort and still gives me the same feeling of finger fiddling satisfaction, some 50 years on! They have stood the test of time, institutions, continents and adventures. Needless to say, they are both looking decidedly frazzled and frayed about the edges, but still manage to help me keep my sanity during these “edgy times”!