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24
Dec
2022
Thursday December 1,, 2022
This is the first week of Advent. Advent is the four-week period in which Christian churches traditionally prepare for the birth of Jesus. It’s considered a time of waiting, while we tidy up the dusty corners of our lives to prepare for a special visitor.
I don’t know about you, but I dislike waiting. I feel as if I’ve spent most of my life waiting for something, even if I didn’t clearly know what I was waiting for.
As a child, I waited to be considered an adult.
As a young adult, I waited for my career to find me.
As a father, I waited for my children to grow up. And when they did, I waited for them to come home.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: future, Advent, waiting
2
Mar
2021
Driving to town the other day, I ran into a patch of valley fog.
Suddenly, clear air and bright sky vanished. I was swaddled in translucent cheesecloth. The centreline’s yellow tape scrolled out ahead of me, measuring time and distance to nowhere. The paved road, grey and gritty close up, merged into mist, dissolving into invisibility.
I felt as if I was driving down a metaphor.
Because, only moments before, I had been pondering the process of aging. Another colleague from former years had died.
The road ahead felt uncertain, unsure.
Tags: future, death, fog, rear-view mirror, road
25
Oct
2017
It rained on our drive home from Vancouver. Although “rained” doesn’t adequately describe the downpour. Genesis says that at creation, God “divided the waters above from the waters below.” On that drive home, the waters above and below re-united.
There was so much rain on the road that our car used four extra litres of fuel going home than going out, on exactly the same road, just squishing water out of the way of the tires.
I would have looked for an Ark, if I could have seen it through a windshield streaming with water.
Oddly, my rearview mirrors were still clear. Because the rain wasn’t hitting them at all. I could see clearly, back down the highway.
It reminded me of one of Marshall McLuhan’s aphorisms: "We drive into the future using only our rearview mirror."
It’s a metaphoric way of saying that we can’t see into the future.
Tags: Moses, McLuhan, future, past, rearview mirror, rain