What if the scientologists are the un-scientologists? What if Renee is not a real person? Being cynical is all very well, but it can lead to uncomfortable thought-loops.

On the other hand, potting plants is a very calming pastime. It takes a particular kind of concentration, and it is an exercise in hope. If my camera was working, I’d show you my newly re-homed Thyme and Basil. Thyme is going to try living outdoors for a while. Hopefully the weather won’t be too wet for it. Basil is much too juicy, and would likely go the way of poor Coriander. Death by aphid. Mint is flowering! Have you ever seen mint flowers? They smell minty, but when you think about it, that’s probably the mint rather than the flowers.

You should read At Swim-Two-Birds. Then explain all the jokes I’m missing to me. Favourite line so far: “It was the late summer, a humid breathless season that is inimical to comfort and personal freshness.”

Tg – minty fresh

Last night C&I deleted our World of Warcraft accounts. I wouldn’t be surprised if this, this, and this had some influence on my decision. The final straw, though, was when C compared how we spend our time now with when we first arrived back from Inja. Finding ourselves without a broadband connection seemed like a pain at the time, but we ate better, we played music, we hung out together more.

The only regret I have is that it’ll be hard to keep in touch with all the nice people I met there, but I have email addresses for most of my particular friends. In fact, once we finally managed to delete our characters (the lag last night made it difficult to pass on all our “worldy possessions”) and uninstall, we both felt sort of invigorated by the decision. I guess maybe it’s the hardest thing I’ve done in a while (which, in itself, speaks volumes).

Maybe now I’ll get some more work done? Haha hahaha, I’m so funny.

Tg

I don’t know whether or not Mr Murphy is a Christian, but for the sake of this post it doesn’t matter. I want to talk about his character in the Wind that Shakes the Barley. For those who haven’t seen it yet, there are spoilers below, so you might prefer to see the film before you read this.

In John chapter 6, Jesus tells a synagogue: “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.”

Some disciples found this teaching so repugnant that they left and “no longer followed him.” If they had understood what He meant, would they have found it any less disturbing? Jesus didn’t use the imagery lightly. The idea of eating His flesh is repugnant. Gaining sustenance from His death is disturbing! But that’s what we Christians do. We gain eternal life by accepting Jesus’ death. That is no small thing.

So where does Cillian Murphy come in? His character in the Wind that Shakes the Barley is called Damien. At one point in the film Damien is ordered to kill a young man who informed on his column. Damien turns to a friend and says: “this Ireland we’re fighting for … I hope it’s worth it”, and then he shoots the young man he’s known from childhood.

This event becomes extremely important for Damien’s later decisions. Referring to it, he tells his girlfriend “I’ve really crossed the line”. Towards the end, when Damien is explaining why he can’t accept the treaty, he makes it clear that the shooting is an important part of his reasoning. Once he had gone so far as to kill that young man he couldn’t settle for anything less than he’d started out fighting for. One way to look at it is that he had crossed a line, but it doesn’t quite capture what I’m trying to get at. Think of it this way: in order to justify that act to himself at the time, and now, he must know that what he is fighting for is worth it. He couldn’t say that this treaty was worth it.

I need to be careful here, and point out that I am not saying, by any means, that we must make ourselves worthy of Jesus’ sacrifice. What I am saying is this: I, by becoming a Christian, accepted something repugnant, radical, and shocking – Jesus’ death for my sake. I cannot now accept anything in my life which is inconsistant with that, or I make a mockery of it.

Tg

Flash … whizz … pop

Fireworks are great, especially the ones at Butchart Gardens, Victoria. The gardens themselves are magical. I don’t use that word lightly; there was an amazing calming effect from the beautiful, loving arrangments of the flower beds, despite the fact that the place was swarming with other people.

We’re having a good time in Canadianana, the sister, the folks and I. It’s amazing how quickly you fall back into childhood habits: the same silly arguments, the same old jokes. It’s really nice to spend so much time together again. I’m missing C a lot of course, but it’s even nice to miss your spouse once in a while. Know what I mean?

We saw some whales yesterday. It’s quite a thing to sea such an enormous animal slide up to the surface and slap its tail on the water. They just wouldn’t jump for us though, no matter how nicely I asked. We also saw some rock sausages (aka sea lions), but they don’t really compare to Hugo the Orca.

Some tips for Victoria:

• The Howard Johnson is not city centre, it’s a ten minute cab-ride from the centre.
• Nautical Nelly’s doesn’t have a website, but they do have great food and service to match.
• The Pacific Coach Lines bus worked out well for us, but if we’d known how far out the afore-mentioned hotel was, we would probably have hired a car for the trip.

Vancouver itself is a really great city. The whole place has a nice atmosphere; even the dodgy druggy place that we accidentally stumbled on today wasn’t nerve-wracking so much as sad (there does seem to be quite a lot of homelessness). I’m not much of a skyscraper person, but the buildings here work really well. We’ve concluded that the terrain helps. It’s not quite, but almost, as hilly as San Francisco. And you can see the Rockies through the gaps between buildings.

One of the first things we did when we got here was a trip up Grouse Mountain. I highly recommend the “World Famous” Lumberjack show. It’s silly, but fun, and the lumberjacks are pretty impressive.

They have an art project going on here at the moment like the cow thing that came to Dublin, but with bears. Check out the totem bear, and darth bear. Also, this is one of my favourite sculptures ever:

It’s called “Device to Root out Evil”.

My presentation is tomorrow (the original reason for coming over). I’ll be glad to get that over with. For now, I should go. We’re having an easy-going evening playing settlers, and it sounds like the board is ready.

Remind me to tell you about the swing dancing.

Tg