Christmas Oddyssey - Part II

Part I is in draft form, posted. Some of my family offline must be told before I can tell of these things here.

On Saturday, we left the cottage at three in the afternoon, ostensibly to get me to practice for my two church choirs that evening. Our real mission? To pick up a puppy.

My brother in law lost his dog six months after losing his wife. Living in the country as he does, the isolation and the loneliness have been very hard on him. He'd been talking about getting a dog for a while, but had dithered about the breed. He just couldn't make up his mind. The only thing we did know was what he wanted to call his next dog - “See ya!” (Not coincidentally, that is also how he bids adieu.)

So a month ago, we found a reputable kennel online, picked out a yellow Lab, and arranged to pick her up. And now were off to do just that. We had computerized directions from Google to get to North Augusta, and the lady at the kennel's directions, which assumed we would be coming from Ottawa.

The closer we got, the foggier it got. By the time we reached the spot where we expected the back roads directions to kick in, it was so foggy you could only see about twenty feet. The instructions spoke of an “immediate” turn to the left. We didn't see one. So we stopped at a farmhouse to see if they had heard of our kennel.

The man who answered the door hadn't, but tried to interpret them for us. An hour later, the fog allowed us to see only about five feet, and we were totally lost. We came across a lane. I suggested to my wife that she take it.

In tears now, she said, “What if we get stuck? Which way do I go?”

“There's a light up there,” I offered hopefully.

“Where?” She said in exasperation.

When we pulled in, I heard dogs barking. I hoped it might be the kennel itself. It was not, but an older couple told us to come on in to their house. The man set about interpreting the instructions we had and drawing a map to get there, while his wife comforted us. My wife tried to call the kennel. No answer.

Grateful for their help, we proceeded with the map he had drawn for us. We turned down roads, following the map he gave us as carefully as the fog allowed. We came up to a darkened house, and as well pulled into the laneway, a truck pulled in behind us. It was the lady my wife had spoken to on the phone. Their power was gone, so they'd gone for water. That was why there was no answer. In this day of cordless phones, even the telephone needs hydro.

They led us in to look at the puppy and pick up her papers. Their house was lit up in soft candle light, as they brought out the small, sleepy puppy. My wife was exulting in the fact that we had finally done this, but I was beginning to panic. The first choir was at eight - it was now quarter to seven. I was not going to make it, and it wasn't going to happen. I felt sick, because this isn't like missing some Sunday – this was Christmas Eve Mass.

And we didn't make it, not for that one. But when we got out of the car, my wife turned to me and said about getting Seeya, "I know you feel bad, but we have done a wonderful thing tonight. What we have done for him, he will be very grateful for."

When we got to the church at ten, I asked about the eight O'Clock choir. Apparently, it had been fine. At least I was on time for the one I was leading, the midnight Mass.

When I got to the piano room downstairs, one of my singers was there, and our trombone player arrived a minute or so later. Soon, everyone was there, and we went through all the material. I had written an Agnus Dei specifically for this Mass, but I had written it out a little wrong - I had been a bit hasty about scoring it. So while the piano player and I corrected it, the horns tooted away through their mutes.

I went upstairs, reasonably relaxed. The practice had been alright, and the music might go either way. But it was time to give that over to God. I went to the pews to meet my wife and friends. My parents spotted me from another pew, and came to sit with wife and daughter.

I said to my mother, “I will get to see you at Christmas,” and hugged her. It had been twelve years, and my eyes watered. Hers did too.

The music went well, I thought, and Father gave a beautiful homily on one of his favourite topics – intimacy, the idea that only rarely can you truly give yourself to another person, a vulnerability so eloquently spoken of by a baby in swaddling clothes. At the end of Mass, he gave me a rather extraordinary gift – a guitar. I am not normally speechless. I was this night.

Part III will soon follow.

Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah

They sort of fall on the same day today, so happy both of em! I have an adventure to tell, but today's not the day :-)

When the gel in the spotlight changes

I learned something yesterday that I cannot yet share here. There are people in my offline life who deserve to know first. But this is the most astonishing and sudden change I can think of... ever. Among other things, it means I must completely reevaluate who I believe I am and the way I think of myself. Because of when I learned it, I must, like Mary, ponder these things and treasure them up in my heart.

What kind of Superhero would I be?

Your Superhero Profile

Your Superhero Name is The Aqua Crystal Your Superpower is Accessorizing Your Weakness is Midgets Your Weapon is Your Rusty Wand Your Mode of Transportation is Flying Saucer

What's your Superhero Name?

The neverending

Yet my happiness was very tranquil, with an inward peace no earthly thing could touch. Night came at last to end my lovely evening, for darkness falls even on the brightest day. Only the first day of Communion in Eternity will never end. (St. Therese of Lisieux)

Most of us believe in the neverending.

For those who may not believe in God, but who believe in what can be infered from the visible universe, then some kind of existence is neverending - be it an unseen chain of universes in a multiverse. While the scope of creation is unimaginably vast, and this view of existence is not without beauty, I think that this view of the neverending lacks one thing.

For those who believe in heaven, the neverending is the stateless eternity of God. As St. Augustine said, Your years are but a day, and your day does not reoccur, but is always today. Your "today" does not yield to tomorrow and does not follow yesterday. Your "today" is eternity. God's eternity, the kingdom of Heaven, is as neverending as the multiverse, and beautiful like it, too. But it has one additional feature: love. "God is love," John tells us, and an eternity full of love is a far greater eternity, as impossible as talk of greater eternities may seem. Who could not wish to attain such an eternity?

Jingle bells

So my parents have been enjoying their stay with us, I think. It has been twelve years since we have had them here this time of year, and I have quite enjoyed being able to spend this time with them. Since they go south in October, it is normally many months before I can see them again. But seeing them at Christmastime is a special treat. And it is a thing that my youngest daughter has never known - she was only a month old the last time we were all together this time of year. Yesterday, my Dad took pictures of my daughter riding a horse at the stable. She is still in lessons, and won't take her helmet off until she gets home. :-)

We drank wine and ate roast beef at my brother's place on Tuesday, and we got into a profound meaning of life discussion. My brother lamented the fact that every year at Christmas, when we were young, we got five dollars from my grandmother.... but we spent it, and now it is gone. My mother noted how little she could afford to part with five dollars per grandchild. I said that I noticed the absence of the five dollars every year. I mentioned how my grandmother used to send me wallets, lots of wallets, and as my wallets kept falling apart, I'd replace them with a new one she sent me. I mentioned how I have kept one in check... so that I always have an extra wallet from my grandmother around. It helps me feel like she is still in my life, still a part of Christmas.

My father is writing another book. We discussed that, and it sounds interesting - a fictional narrative examining life, what it means, why we're in it. We're all over the map on that question in my family, going from the practitioner of a specific creedal system (me) to skeptical agnosticism, and apparently, all our views make their way into the story - I'm assuming in a Platonic dialogue kind of way.

I'm not sure how well my family knows my views and beliefs on faith and religion. They all know I have it, but I'm not sure if they realize how... intricate and complex a web of insights, fears, hopes, beliefs, and skepticisms my spirituality is. Of course, the same holds true in reverse. We've had quasi-religious discussions in our family, of course, but we hold such wildly divergent views that I don't think any of us has real insight into any of the others. My brother became something of a disciple of Nietzche in university, for instance, but I know his business has led him into contact with many Hindus and Muslims, and he takes enough interest in people that he now knows something of each. Has it affected his thinking?

I don't know. I've never asked.

I Confess

From The Ignoble Experiment:

I confess: When I was five years old, I stole a jellied candy from a shelf at the Dominion store. I knew I shouldn't have. People tell me that it was okay, I was only five and did not have a sense of right and wrong. But I remember - I knew it was wrong, and I did it anyway. It is the first thing I remember doing that I conciously knew was wrong.

I confess: I am neurotic, and it is genetic. It manifests itself in various ways such as singlemindedness, unreasonable fretting. These are indistinguishable from the way my daughter does these things. There are other relatives who do as well.

I confess: to being a procrastinator, and then worrying and stressing about it (see above.)

I confess: that I am far too often certain about things I should not be.

I confess: to being insufficiently patient.

I confess: to being easily offended, and being quick to judge the offender.

There - that is not everything of course, but these are things I am embarassed to admit, and where I wish I could improve my personal character.

In Heaven

What a brutal week. My wife, her friend, and I have been cleaning our brains out, as my parents arrived today for their first Christmas in Canada in twelve years. I snuck out with her to get the last of our Christmas presents. And now, we're done all the work. It is all done. Now we can just enjoy the holidays.

I read the question somewhere - "do you believe in Heaven?"

Most of the time I believe there is a Heaven. Belief is a thing you can struggle with all of your life. Even Jesus had his moment of doubt, exclaiming "Lema sabachtani!" So every once in a while I've had that chilling moment where you feel someone walking on your grave: a dreaded feeling of, "Well, what if there is nothing? What if it is all a cruel cosmic joke?"

On the flip side, there are moments when I know, I just completely know, that God has been walking with me. In church, in the Eucharist, I always feel him near. And in grief especially, I feel the helping hand of a friend who does not want me to suffer, or despair that a loved one is gone forever. He brings them near for me, and comforts and holds me.

It is hard to just "know." Sometimes faith is more valuable, because faith is a kind of trust, a hope tossed to eternity even without the assurance of absolute answers. It is trust that the glass that appears to be half full, is in fact entirely full - by half with what we can see, and in the other half, what we cannot yet.

Snowed in

We had a ton of snow dumped on us yesterday. 40 cm. I had a miserable day, but it ended well. Let me explain.

I set off for work at seven in the morning. I knew the buses would be running late, but my first bus wasn't too bad. When I got to Greenboro station I waited. The time for my bus passed. I waited some more. The O-Train arrived on the nearby train platform. The fellow next to me grumbled, "at least the trains are running on time." I sighed and wished that the O-Train went by my work (I think the new extension to Barrhaven will do so when it opens.) Route after route went by - some of them many times. While some buses were delayed, mine looked to be the only one ridiculously so.

Finally, after fifty minutes of waiting, a bus bearing my route number pulled up. Given the build up of an hour without the route in question, forty people spilled out of the station. The first twenty got on. In frustration, I shouted at the bus driver, "Is there another one soon? We've been waiting an hour!" He shrugged and said, "I'm the one from an hour ago."

When I finally was able to get aboard one, I went to my seat and found that half my transit ID was missing - the half with my picture had snapped off and fallen out. Almost in tears by this point, I ran up and down the bus frantically looking for it. But the bus filled up at the next stop, and I had to cease my search.

After leaving work, I pleaded my case with the bus driver, and told him I was headed straight to the OC Transpo office at the Rideau Center to get a new one. He smiled at me and let me on - thank God for small human kindnesses. At the OC office, I got my new ID, and bought a hard leather shield, one that will hopefully prevent my ID from snapping or falling out.

When I got home, everybody was in as bad a mood as I was. My wife and daughter were on their way to my niece's baby shower last night, along with my nephew's girlfriend. My wife was in distress about the condition of our house, so I got the vacuum out and fixed up the entrance hallway and stairs while she, my daughter, and an increasing number of people who were at our house straightened up the living room and kitchen. No longer able to bear the crowd of people in my house, I hid upstairs for a while. Then I hid in the basement practicing for Midnight Mass. My wife announced they were leaving, so I came up and kissed her goodbye.

When I came back upstairs, my older daughter looked shocked - then sheepishly admitted that "my friends are coming over." I leaned on the kitchen counter in distress. She was having a party, because she thought she had the house to herself. I couldn't bear this. What could I do?

It came to me. It had snowed. It had snowed a lot. I said, quite out loud, "I do know how to get the solitude I need!" I found my ski boots, put on my scarf, my ski jacket, and went out to the garage. I found my skis, but my heart sank when I could not find my ski poles. But with a bit of looking, they were there, and I reminded myself that the raincloud hovering over me was really one of my own making.

I walked over to Conroy Pit, where there is a huge toboggan hill and several forest trails. By this point it was ten at night, but in the city in winter, it never gets dark. The city lights bounce off the clouds, which in turn bounces off the snow, creating a feedback loop of light. To boot the moon was glowing behind the veil of clouds.

When I got to the tobbogan hill, I noticed that they've lit it up this year, just like at Green's Creek. So I climbed up the hill with my skis on... and about halfway up I realized just how huge the hill was. I said to myself, "This is stupid. I haven't done a hill this big on cross country skis in twenty years!" So I went down from there. I was fine - skiing is like riding a bike, you don't forget.

So I went all the way up, and went down. I have these superfast Telemark skis, so I bombed down the hill at super speed. But it was exhilirating. So I went up, down, up, down, carefully avoiding the two teenage boys who were there with a sled, doing jumps.

After starting to bore of this a bit, I went cross country into the forest. As I slid into the pine forest, I took a moment to appreciate where I was. The snow covered the pine boughs, the downed and hanging trees, and shrubs. Overhead, the moon cast down its light, and all around the snow glowed purplish-white in the soft light. I stayed and stood for an undefined period of time, one without real beginning or end, appreciating that I had been given the chance to snatch this out of the ruins of my day. Although I may not be a pantheist, I know God is present in moments like this. His snow has fallen on his trees in the moonlight like this for millions of years, and for a fleeting moment, I felt connected to every scene like this, across an eternity of winters.

How petty a thing is one day of small, trifling inconveniences on a canvas as large as the one I had been painted on.

Walking home with my scarf in my pocket and my coat unzipped, I knew my bad day was not quite done. I had a house full of loud nineteen and eighteen year olds to face. But I had been given my small moment of grace. I knew it was enough to carry me right to the end of things.

Buffy the Kuiper Belt Object

That'll put the marzipan in your pie plate, Bingo!

Universe Today - Buffy the Kuiper Belt Object

Rumsfeld vs. Yoda - who would win?

Well if you've ever seen a Donald Rumsfeld press conference, where he always gestures like the Emperor in Star Wars, then you know Rumsfeld will kick some green butt! See evidence below:



See? Told you!

The War on Christmas

Every year now, people get upset about the "war on Christmas." I even wrote about this last year. Now, apparently, it has become a left wing vs. right wing thing. Left wing sites like Buzzflash and DailyKos have taken up the defence of anti-SallyAnn Target stores and crecheless mangers, while Bill O'Reilly reports breathlessly on the alterations to Silent Night that weren't. But how did this get to be a right vs. left thing? Surely there are conservatives who celebrate Chanukkah and not Christmas, and left wingers who very much do the "deck the halls with boughs of Holly" thing?

I don't get why this would be a fuss. It is kind of stupid that governments would use the term "Holiday tree" to avoid offending people who are not Christian. They must think awfully little of non-Christians, to think that they are so intolerant as to be offended by the term "Christmas tree." I know I would be offended if somebody renamed a menorah just for me, because they thought I might take offense at the word "menorah." What kind of bigot would they think I am?

On the other hand, who cares if a clerk says, "Happy Holidays"? Gift giving is part of North American Channukah customs, even to the point that Santa Claus has a counterpart in Channukah Harry. Stores know there's a very good chance someone buying a gift may be buying it for Channukah, Yule, Winter Solstice, or for none of the above and somebody's birthday. Boycotts intended to force store clerks to utter the words "Merry Christmas" is an oppressive use of majority buying power that has nothing to do with the gentle arrival of a baby in a manger.

What I'd really like for is for the controversy to go away. Most of the celebrations we are having this year are about how, in the darkest times, light triumphed over the dark. Stuff about "peace on Earth, goodwill to all men." And anyone who wields "Merry Christmas" or "Happy holidays" as a weapon has totally missed, as some call it, "the reason for the season."

Owning Albert Einstein

There are a few figures of history everyone likes to claim for their own - a very few. Albert Einstein was certainly one of them.

Einstein was of course a physicist/mathematician of incomparable genius. Although his greatest accomplishments, the theory of general relativity and the theory of special relativity, were done by 1916, he remained a figure of great importance simply because of his eloquence. How many thousands of debates were won using the logical error of appeal to authority simply because the authority was Einstein?

One area where Einstein was a mess of contradictions was religion. Einstein (who was Jewish) has said so many different things on the topic, from "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind", to "I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos." He also said, "The idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I am unable to take seriously."

Sadly, the great thinker did not leave us the "universal theory of everything" he spent half his life looking for. Many with a theological (or atheological) point of view tend to interpret his statements on religion as though they represented the same kind of consistent thinking he sought to develop in physics. Some atheists point to his comments about the anthropomorphic God as evidence that Einstein was in their camp (as if it mattered.) Similarly, many proponents of ideas like Intelligent Design take Einstein's enthusiasm for a spiritual outlook on science as proof that his comments endorse their view.

In reality, Einstein's expressed views come closest to what might be called pantheism - the idea that creation itself is the divinity, so to speak, one that might even be aware and sentient, if the divinity of his famous "dice" comment was more than a convenient construct such as Hawking's "imaginary time." But whatever his views, which seemed to blow with the wind, they weren't the mathematical insights of a physicist. They were the awe and wonder of a man who learned so much about the nature of the universe, that he could not help but be impressed with its grandeur and the sheer beauty of its design. Spirituality was Einstein's poetry - nothing he offered on the topic is a proof for anyone's specific point of view; just an eloquent testament to the beauty he bore witness to.

All I Want for Christmas....

...is in my PowerPoint file.

PowerPoint Slides: the New Puppy-Dog Eyes

Busy, busy

So it is a very busy time of year. Very busy.

Yesterday I composed music for the Agnus Dei (the Midnight Mass I did decide to do.) The one I have done is in Latin, the "Agnes Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi, miserere nobis" ordinary that is in the liturgy for the Pax.

The Gloria, I am thinking of doing as a plainsong chant. However, the Mass needs to be singable, too, and people don't tend to sing along for chant. So the other ordinaries and propers will be the most obvious things I can think of, the Celtic Alleluia, the "Mass of Creation" Sanctus, etc.

I have yet to do all my Christmas shopping. The worry is wearing on me a little. It is not my favourite thing to do, but I'm at least a little ahead. The one big gift for my wife is done, and the other, I know what it is.

Open for Christmas

You may have heard about this controversy - a number of large churches will not be opening on Christmas Sunday.

We certainly don’t have to worry about that in mine. I’ve agreed to do the music at the Midnight Mass, and I can’t really extract myself from the 8 PM Christmas Eve Mass either - our leader does not want to do it without me.

In the Time article a number of these churches will not be opening for reasons that sound…well… logistical and financial. The article notes, “Leaders at Willow Creek Community Church, a congregation in the affluent Chicago suburbs where about 15,000 people worship each weekend, said that attendance wasn't great…Across the country, hundreds of congregations… have decided that it's not worth it to marshal the resources to hold services on Christmas Sunday.”

The Didache, a catechism written around the same time as the New Testament, provides one of the earliest indications that church communities had begun, in the very age of the apostles themselves, to gather for liturgy and communion every Sunday, as a matter of obligation.

I’m as big a fan of Christmas morning as anyone. But I’m glad my family will start Christmas with the baby Jesus - at midnight Christmas morning, singing the ancient hymns of praise - the Great Gloria, the Kyrie - for a saviour who has given me every Sunday I shall ever have.

When the clouds cross the moon

In the city, the onset of winter is not particularly fun. Winter heralds bad driving conditions, salt ruined clothing, shopping mall congestion, the perpetual red glow caused by city lights reflecting up onto the low lying clouds - it is never bright and it is never quite dark.

Winter at the cottage is a delight. When I got up this morning, the sun was rising over the pines. An orange glow was casting out onto the snow, and the wind was blowing snow across the lake. Later, when I was barbequeuing dinner, I watched the clouds weave in front of the moon, as the wind sang on the lake.

Something to freak out about...

I went to the doctor for a physical on Thursday, along with my wife and my youngest daughter. She is now over five two. The nurse said, "I know where she gets her height from."

I'm not so sure. When they measured me, I am now only six feet one! How did that happen?! I've lost more than an inch in height!! I think I find this the most distressing part of growing older... let the hair fall out or turn grey, or sprout from nose and ears. But don't take my height away! :-)

Warrants for Torture

This is a bit of a followup to my last post. I really have wanted to do a more in-depth post of the kind I used to do, but I can't easily find the time for it anymore.

Shortly after 9/11, the reknowned human rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz began talking about "torture warrants." Many people thought that his thoughts on this matter meant that he was advocating torture, but he was always clear to point out that he did not. His remarks were very controversial, and I was almost offended when I saw him speaking in a similar way to that editorial on CBC Newsworld one night. But the events of the last few years have led me to believe there was a much greater wisdom to his proposition than I originally believed.

Dershowitz has argued that in "ticking time bomb" scenarios, law enforcement officials will torture - they just will, whether we like it or not - if many lives can be saved. As we've seen in the last few years, torture seems to be inevitable in the pressure cooker environment, even if lives are not immediately at stake. There've been the official interrogation techniques used by intelligence agencies, such as the simulated drowning effect caused by water-boarding. Then there are the "grey areas" - things like "rendition" where nobody publicly admits a detainee is being deported in order to be tortured in a jurisdiction that allows it, but where that is the tacit benefit. And then, of course, are the total system breakdowns, things like Abu Ghraib. In such cases, torture is the result of a "Lord of the Flies" breakdown of social order among troops, more than an official operation designed to accomplish specific goals.

Here, the Dershowitz argument begins to derive more force. What if torture was a part of the law agency toolkit, but only via a court ordered warrant? If it were operated out in the open and not concealed grey areas that are out of sight, public officials would then be subject to the normal public pressures of democracy. The actions could have consquences in terms of re-election hopes, etc.

I am opposed enough to torture that I could not support such a measure, not yet, at any rate. But at least I understand a lot better what it was Mr. Dershowitz was talking about. Contrary to the popular saying, democracy always does its best when it airs its laundry in public.

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | AP Poll: Most Say Torture OK in Rare Cases

They don't show how Canadians polled on this - 'divided' does not really explain anything. I must say I am not heartened to hear this. I really believe that if our societies are to truly be worthy of saving from terrorists, it has to be because our morality is clearly superior to that of terrorists. This is one of those areas that, for me, does not have shades of grey. Torture is a place you just don't go as a society.

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | AP Poll: Most Say Torture OK in Rare Cases

Signposts of Advent

Yesterday, at the end of Mass the group was standing quietly awaiting the benediction and dismissal. During the announcements, Father mentioned that if people wanted to attend the earlier evening masses, they would need tickets , “And for Midnight Mass, well I was going to ask [evolver] here about that.”

I sort of stammered and gulped. Later, I was saying, “well I am kind of honoured, but...”

Our deepest tenor interrupted and said, “Honoured? No. They're desperate,” and grinned. We all laughed.

Still, I spent half the night up about it. My wife liked the idea, because that would give us the whole day on the 24th to concern ourselves with our daughter, who turns twenty, and my brother, whose birthday it is as well. Still, I had a certain anxiety about not being part of my own music group (doing the Midnight Mass would mean leaving my group for the night, who are doing 8:00 PM.)

I kind of feel badly that this came up. Our group leader was not happy about the idea of me not being part of the regular group (my lead guitar and alto descanting are part of the group's sound.) So I think I've kind of folded on the idea of doing Midnight Mass for the benefit of the group, though I really would have enjoyed the opportunity.

Yesterday was a big church day. I spent the afternoon working as part of a Cursillo group (mandolin this time), and then headed in the snow over to my regular group. The young seminarian who preached last night preached on the theme of imagination, in a way that touched upon my Nouwen musings of the other day – eerily so – about how we fill our lives with expectations in a way that takes away from the possibilities of imagination, the possibilities inherent in the unexpected.

In the second week of Advent, the theme - “He's coming” accelerates. We begin to see that he is coming, not just in the sense of observing history, but that he's coming again. History is always in motion – pointing towards the Messianic age in the sense that we expect the culmination of history, in one respect, yes. But our history is in motion on a personal level, too. Is it a motion towards God coming into our lives, or does a Christian adherent simply repeat the same pattern, Christmas after Christmas?

Nouwen almost pessimistically suggests that we vary between poles in life – never fully getting there, often backsliding back to near the start. In a sense he is right – I struggle with things I had hoped to put behind me years ago. But I have to believe that the struggle is more than the struggle. It offers the potential for real victory: small triumphs in our lives that, if not making us saints, nonetheless represent signposts of real achievement that we can stop and admire for a moment... and then I hope pass, like Lot, without looking back.

Signs you've mattered

The warmth of your own blood, coursing with a hundred generations who have knowingly or unknowingly had you as their aim; The scar on your belly, where you were once attached to another; the lines on your eyes, the sign of a thousand smiles shared with others; the wear on your shoes, the fruit of walking a long road.

My own world

Last night, as I went to bed, I pulled out Henri Nouwen's "Reaching Out" again. The page I struck the book open to had him describing something that sounded very much like my reality. He says rather than living in things the way they are, we invent a world of abstractions, of preooccupations to fill in the spaces that are unoccupied in our minds. He says we prefer a bad certainty to a good uncertainty.

I have to admit that he is at least describing me. I think of Dr. Temple Grandin, the autistic woman who became a specialist in animal behaviour after realizing that autism's unabstracted pictoral thinking is comparable to how animals see the world. My cat does not see the world through a haze of overthinking it - he just sees the world, which is why his head turns for every movement in the room.

How do you free yourself from this? Nouwen asserts that in some ways filling the empty space with preoccupations limits our creativity. As I lay staring at the plaster on the ceiling, the tree branch outside the window, the light cast by the lamps outside, I tried to empty my mind of conclusions, of words, and lie there in wordless observation. I was able to do it, for a while. But I could not fall asleep that way - I had to retreat into my abstractions, the scenarios that rattle about my head, before I could fall asleep.

Firewater

I went to my wife's Christmas party last night. Now I don't do too well at parties, since I am painfully shy. So a certain amount of alcohol comes in handy.

It is really the only time I drink. I do not like to be any less than completely sharp mentally. But the phrase "social lubricant" is not without a certain accuracy. Thinking of this yesterday, I saw how easily a dependence on alcohol could form.

Not that I danced with lampshades on my head or anything. One beer provides only enough social lubricant to avoid hiding in the corner. :-)

Canada goes to the polls

As you may have heard, Canada's Federal government fell on Monday, and we are going to have an election in January. I do not plan on spending much time thinking of this. It is the holy season of Advent, and to be distracted by the unholy world of politics would not be good for me. There are already enough distractions, like Christmas shopping and arranging complicated "what relatives to visit when" plans.

I did see something that made me laugh, however - someone wrote somewhere that the contest in Canada is deeply depressing. Our choice - we can vote for the crooks, the commies, the traitors, or Stephen Dubya Bush! :-)

Teens-B-Gone

This is too funny. I wonder if I still hear those frequencies?

Buzz off! ‘Mosquito’ aims to drive away teens - Peculiar Postings - MSNBC.com