My monastic companion is back in the monastery. She wrote in an e-mail: ” We have a ‘quiet night’ so I have just finished a little stroll through your blog. Very nice to know what you are up to now, and to review our trip”.
It is pretty quiet here in Edmonton too! Non of that hootin’ and hollerin’ up on Whyte Avenue. Why? Because Edmonton’s hockey team, The Oilers, lost their game tonight. People said they wouldn’t win and some said if they lost it would be a good thing. “Keep them humble”. By the way, a quiet night in the monastery is when there is no formal meditation or community tea. We just have a quiet night, which is a much appreciated change of pace in an otherwise full schedule. It is kind of nice to have a quiet night here too!
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
John McCrae 1872-1918
The winters of my childhood were
long, long seasons. We lived in
three places – the school, the church
and the skating-rink – but our real life
was on the skating-rink.
Roch Carrier
The Reverend goes on to say, “The five dollar bill is blue, with snowflakes, and sketches of children tobogganing, skating and playing ice hockey”.
“(the poem on the $5.00 bill) poses an interesting question, does it not? Of all the places that we live, where do we live our real life”? Thanks for your thoughts dear sister in the Dharma.
