To make Comments write directly to Jim at jimt@quixotic.ca
5
Mar
2020
She came walking down the lane past my window, tall, straight, shoulders squared, moving with confident strides, the picture of health and confidence.
She couldn’t possibly imagine what it feels like to be unable to straighten her shoulders. Where moving one leg out of bed requires a conscious effort. As does chewing every mouthful of food.
I don’t in any way censure that young woman. She’s kind, personable, empathetic. But we – generally speaking -- cannot imagine what we haven’t experienced, even indirectly.
Even if we experience disability as a result of an injury or illness, we tend to see it as temporary.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: immortality, Souls, experience
30
Jan
’m not sure what I believe about life after death. I’m quite sure that I don’t believe in life before life.
When I was about ten, my mother told me that my father had proposed to another woman, before he met my mother.
He had finished his Master’s degree. He had signed up to go to India as a missionary with the United Church of Canada. He invited this other woman to go with him.
She said no.
By a fortunate coincidence for me, my mother went to India about the same time, as a Presbyterian missionary from Northern Ireland. My parents met at language school. Six years later they had me.
Even at the age of ten, it occurred to me that if that other woman had said “Yes,” I wouldn’t be who I was. I would be someone else. Maybe even –horrors – a girl!
Tags: birth, death, Souls, conception, predestination