a world that cannot wound

I expected university to be a terrible rattling from which I would emerge unscathed. I don't now. When did I stop believing that? Oh, around July. Lemme explain.

In grade nine I carried around a Latin dictionary everywhere. I looked up words in it all the time... both directions. When we were asked to write letters to our future selves, I looked up two words at random and wrote them down without checking the English, and forgot about it for four years.

When we opened our letters, I found the words perterricrepus and imperfossus. Curious as to what they meant, I looked them up. One means "a terrible rattling" and the other "unwounded". Being the superstitious guy I am, I thought, "This was meant to alert me to the experience of university, which I am so fearing! It will be a massive change, but I'll be alright." And that was OK, for then.

In July, I experienced a different sort of terrible rattling--a literal one--and emerged, uh... very much wounded.
"What," I said. "This is not what I expected, life."

But I've been realizing something since then. Of course I haven't gained empathy to the highest degree, I haven't suffered pain like so many have; my pain was excruciating but only in part of me and only for a short time. Still, it's a stepping stone for the beginning of understanding. Believe me, you should never think emotional pain hurts worse than physical pain! They're just two different things. And I've come to see that God protected me even then, in a number of small things that if they had been different, could have been much worse. I was wearing a helmet for the first time in years. The car window was rolled up, so I didn't break my neck by smashing and folding over a moving opening. My physiotherapist spotted on an extremely lucky chance a problem the doctor missed which would have crippled my hand forever if it had been left another week. Small things with great effects. The fact that I was capable of endangering myself so much only strengthens the idea that God is protecting me; even when I throw myself in the fire, He pulls me out!

What I mean is that my spiritual life, my faith, was infinitely strengthened, much like Pascal's after he nearly tumbled to his death when his carriage fell off a bridge. And I realize something. That spiritual world is better.

And though we may suffer a terrible rattling on earth, perhaps our whole life, it is our soul unwounded.
God is watching what matters, regardless of what happens to us down here.

pleasant day in a row #2

Walking home today in t-shirt and shorts, it felt like a summer evening, as the breeze tumbled over me, the smell of barbecue came from someone's backyard, and the few birds left in Canada sang. Heck, few feelings are better in this world.

By which time we had moved on

Never waste a beautiful day so late in the year as November.

Whenever I notice it's mild or even warm out and it's supposed to be winter, I drop everything and go for a good old walk in nature, or the little bit of nature Georgetown has. I just returned from a lovely hike down by the river. I got lost, quite lost in the forest. It was wonderful. Then, at the centre of it, I recognized the smell of wild apples. Looking around for the tree, I quickly realized it had dropped all its fruit. But there on the ground, in the orange late fall sun, lay a million little apples (crabapples?), scattered as by a storm, and there was also a broken flowerpot nearby which gave the strange impression of being a basket. The leaves were infinitely more dead than these apples, which were simply, um... cute. Anyway, I was struck by the scene, and took some pictures for you:

(Click for bigger versions.)
Enjoy this fall season on its way out!