Tag: death
-
Roger Ebert ~ Discovering Kindness
Roger Ebert died, yesterday, ‘after an extended battle with cancer’ as they say. Except, as with many who find grace along the journey to life’s end, Ebert appears to have instead taken cancer’s hand and walked with it into the darkness of oblivion he did not fear. That grace is evident in I Do Not…
-
Love? The New Season of Bah! Humbug!
OK. So. We set aside one day a year to celebrate that most beautiful of human experiences, that most exquisite gift, that sweetest of emotions: love. I gotta tell ya, people, this year I’m a bit disappointed. Not because I’m once again single on the biggest romantic event of the year. No. It’s the Bah!…
-
The Way ~ when Nature plays its lovely hand
I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in. ~ George Washington Carver When Lao Tse speaks of The Dao, he is referring literally to “The Way”. There’s no simple way to tell you what “The Way” is. Lao…
-
War Prayers ~ Mark Twain and Lao Tse on the artlessness of war
—
by
in Books, God, Insight, Non-Fiction, Perfection, Philosophy, Political, Social, Spirituality, SynonymsYesterday the people of The United States of America marked Memorial Day. It’s a day of baseball, hot dogs and apple pie, of families and communities gathering to celebrate the arrival of summer. It’s a day of flags and bunting and red, white & blue and national pride, and a day to memorialise the millions…
-
Grace on my mind, and in my heart ~ Dave Matthews
Dave Matthews, prodigiously talented and prolific, a true minstrel of our times writing soulful, often doleful songs of our everyday experiences. Transcendent, luminescent, playful. His live performances bring together extraordinary musicians with nary a glorious note misplayed or misplaced. And at the center mic, leaving no doubt as to the driving force of the band’s…
-
Blade Runner ~ do androids weep electric tears?
Blade Runner is among my favourite films. In a veritable symphony of cinematic elements — cinematography, script, production design, soundtrack, direction, acting — it doesn’t miss a note. The film touches on all the major themes of the human condition: love, death, good and evil, redemption, justice, ethics, greed, passion. It’s philosophically spiritual and passionately…
-
Cloudbusting a rainy day in Vancouver: Kate Bush is in my subconscious
Maybe it’s due to the thick layer of clouds busting down with rain overnight and today. Maybe it’s about getting caught up in a rearward look last night. Maybe it’s about the upbeat glee of a gift and a moment shared with a friend across the miles. I’m not sure what put Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting…
-
Peter Gabriel’s “So” — change is coming down like red rain
The text below (with some new edits) was posted as a link on my Facebook profile a week shy of three months ago. I’d just returned from a nearly 3 month-long road trip through the western US, preceded by 2 months in Australia. The story it tells begins to describe the unusual relationship I have…
-
Courage is…: Joannie Rochette & Petra Majdič
The greatest achievement of this 2010 Winter Olympic games wasn’t Canada’s first Gold medal, or its last, or any other Gold or Silver medal awarded in the Olympics. The two most courageous performances in the Olympics netted Bronze. One was a battle as much with emotional trauma as with any other competitor. The other was…
-
The Butterfly
A passage from one of my favourite books… I remember one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the back of a tree just as a butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited awhile, but it was too long appearing and I was impatient. I bent over…