Starting a landslide in my ego... A Day without me

I'm not entirely even sure how to start writing this one... I think I've been thinking a bit on archetypes: Love, death, self, sacrifice, etc. I don't have anything cohesive to say yet, but I think with the soul shrinking and other effects over the past couple of weeks may yet dredge up something potentially useful. Or it may bring up something more dark, terrifying and mystifying yet...

With literary and imagination regards to Brian...

So there was this contest in Ottawa to win tickets to the U2 concert, which, despite my many entries, I didn't win. So I'm going to post some of the better ones for ppl to peruse and see if maybe they would've picked mine... basically, you were supposed to write a very short answer to the question (very paraphrased) of how faith mingles with art and politics in U2's music.
Thanks of course to Brian who has helped my lack of arts-brain to think theologically about culture over the years too....

“Grace, she takes the blame, she covers the shame, removes the stain… a thought that changed the world… [and] makes beauty out of ugly things.”. “Touch me, take me to that other place, teach me, I know I’m not a hopeless case.”. A life touched by grace cannot help but offer hope and redemption to a hurting world. This is where Bono’s art and politics reach out to offer beauty and healing. He writes to “open up to the Lamb of God, to the love of He who made the blind to see… He’s coming back, oh believe Him.” (Very incomplete, but that was the word limit)

Hope amidst despair, resurrection amidst death: the dominant themes used in Bono's lyrics for decades now. Whether "claiming the victory Jesus won" on "Sunday Bloody Sunday", to declaring that "You broke the bonds, loosed the chains, carried the cross of my shame", Bono has consistently written about the only One who is able to offer hope. He realizes this when he declares that he "was born, a child of grace... all because of You, 'I AM' [YHWH]". The natural outflow of receiving of grace is helping heal Earth's wounds; for Bono, this is by his arts and his politics.

Anyways, the other ones kind of followed along those lines. Obviously not enough to score tickets though; apparently the winner talked about how Bono and Ali have been married for 25+ years now, though how that answers the original question, I'm not really sure... I'm suspecting a conspiracy about homogenized Christian radio that values 'family values' more than actual Christian thought...

Mr. Puffy

This morning, the weather forecaster says it feels like -15 with the windchill right now. Also, snow's supposed to be coming tonight, and I'm on call at the hospital overnight... all this leads to: It is time. Time for Mr. Puffy to come on out! Yeah!

Death and it's trappings

While I've been up here in Chesley, I've had to go to various nursing homes to declare some deaths. This isn't a particularly new experience for me. However, I've always felt a little bit silly when I've gotten the call. What on earth do you say, as a complete stranger, to a family who has just lost a loved one, especially as a stranger who's there to "make sure" their loved one is really dead? How silly do I look when I call their name, expecting them not to answer? Or when I shine a light into their eyes, not expecting a squint or a response? Or when I listen to their chests, not expecting to hear a heartbeat?

That, I think, is the one thing that always still profoundly affects me every single time. When you listen to a living, breathing chest, you can hear the air circulating amongst the millions of alveoli, can hear the litres of blood pumping through the heart, every murmur, every bruit, every crackle, every wheeze. It sounds -alive- and vibrantly so.....

But the deadness of the silence of a heart that is stilled.... it's an echo that reverberates through your stethoscope that just goes on and on in the deepness of silence.... I think I get a small chill every time I hear that... I think it's the finality of that silence that always jars me for a bit.... For a small moment, it reminds me again of how small and narrow the line between life and death truly is...

The moment passes... I put back on my professional veneer and express my condolences to the family, and leave them to grieve and mourn their loved one's mortality, while I go to ponder my own...

Postcards from the Edge Episode XI Part XV

You know what's really scary about driving down country roads? Last night was really really rainy, and tonight was really really snowy. Not so bad if you're just staying in, but I've been driving around the area having dinner with various friends who live in other towns around here.... SCARY driving in my little car.... No lights, unless you're driving through a town, or you pass a farmhouse, or another car comes at you.... no street signs, so you pretty much have to know where you're going, or if you don't, at least know several different routes to your destination in case you miss Sideroad 10 or something (which is what I did last night)... but at least the ditches on the sides of the road are small, so you can't do toooo much damage... Tonight was pretty scary, as winds were gusting up to about 60-70 km/hr, and I couldn't see anything except the three or four feet in front of me and most of it was blowing snow; nothing out the back windows, nothing out the sides... One of the main things I was thinking about was: "If I get blown over into a ditch, and I break my arms or lose consciousness so I can't get to my phone, I certainly hope the OPP can call most ppl on my cell phone list to tell them that I'm dead or something".... However, I made it back from both destinations just fine (though driving much less quickly than I usually do).... aaahhh! The snow's sticking to the ground!
On the other hand, I really really like the way ladies in small towns call you "Hon" all the time, like "Oh, hon, that's just 'round the corner and down the street. You think you'll be OK getting there, hon?" or "That'll be $7.62, hon". I like it, it's sweet. At least I'm not being called "ma'am"... :)

Motivations and caveats

So, I'm back in the little town of Chesley, and, being given the grace of having leisure time again, I've decided to try to consolidate all the still-in-existence PFTEs (which, unfortunately, the first few Episodes are missing, and, I realize, many of the older ones are in storage somewhere, so it may take a while to transcribe them online)... someone had suggested to start a blog, as that might make my life a bit easier....
So here I am, running a blog, possibly one of the bigger neo-Luddites that there are around... I do, however, see the increased flexibility (hmmm, seems to be one of the running themes this year) of having the blog... at least now when I go off on some rampage (like the previous post), it can be from the perspective of the blog, rather than, strictly speaking, a 'postcard'....
I think it may also be useful in that I can finally get a real sense as to who is actually reading these things, and who just junks them when they land in the mailbox too...
At any rate, hopefully, you guys might get a bit more of a kick out of this, hopefully, I'll be a little bit broader in what I write about (ie PFTEs will still clearly be from abroad and away, and other extraneous stuff can end up here too), and hopefully, I'll write a little more frequently as well... (maybe)...

Postcards from the Edge Episode XI Part XIV

I know it's rather unusual that I would write a PFTE from the confines of Toronto or Ottawa, but I think I've been struck enough by being in Toronto that perhaps I should write. Certainly the culture-shock of being back here has been more striking this time around than even when going overseas to Africa. I can't quite put my finger on -why- that is, per se, as I've lived in this city for most of my lifetime. I've been working on this PFTE for a few weeks now (which is also not typical; usually I just type 'em up and send 'em off), as I'm not sure how this will come across since this is an observation 'from home', and not 'away'.... it's not meant as an indictment of anyone particularly in Toronto... it's just what I've observed/felt, like I do anywhere that I go....
The hustle-bustle, hurdy-gurdy, rush rush rush cacaphony that is the reality of a city this size is starting to grate on my very soul. In other parts of the country, I've heard repeatedly about the dislike that most of the rest of Canada harbours towards Toronto, but, now that I am here, I can -feel- why this is so. It is not all terribly bad; certainly, walking through Kensington regularly heartens me, and I am currently on the hunt for the perfect pad thai. Most of my patients are quite nice, and most of the people that I work with are as well. However, I have always contended that work is not, and should not, be the all-encompassing part of life, engulfing most of the precious hours that we live (this is not to say that I'm completely hating my job; to the contrary, I think my job is one of the more interesting ones going, but that doesn't mean it should gobble up my time like a big piece of tiramisu...)... I am not sure if it is the contrast between the isolation of the north, where, geographically speaking, you are alone (which is not bad at all) to the isolation of the city, where, emotionally speaking, you are alone (which, when living shoulder-to-shoulder with millions of others, strikes you as bad). The wide open spaces, the trees, the stars and the skies speak to something (well, really, Someone) much larger than yourself, whereas the hurriedness and busy-ness of people in the city speak more to the small-mindedness that we develop when we are so minutely engaged in the details of our own little lives..... I am not so sure if it is the small-ness of the soul in the big city that I feel weighing down or if it is something other....
Some ponderings...
julia