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Mornings, Evenings or in Betweens?

I always thought I was very much a morning person. In the summer, waking up early for my 6:30 start suited me fine. I managed to get up every morning with time to read my Bible and still have the morning ahead of me. At school I still try to get up early, even if I don’t have class until later in the morning, as I enjoy the quiet of the morning and I feel I can concentrate better. And yet these days concentration and motivation are ghosts, apparitions here a moment and then gone. With only a couple weeks left of school, doing my little bit of work is like pulling teeth.

Yet somehow I do better in the evenings – with the sky black outside, the clock having long since seen ten, then eleven. My eyes are tired and strained, my bed looks like heaven and each thought of waking up in the morning fills me with dread. Go to bed now. Yet everything is clearer. I read through long scholarly articles for class and suddenly I understand what the authors are saying. Ideas flow from thought to thought and I have the patience to plow slowly through a page, and the drive to move on to the next. Why does this happen after eleven-o-clock at night? Why does my body taunt my mind with this turbo-charged diligence?

When I was younger my brain seemed to switch on at night. Just as my mum would tuck me in to bed, my heart would decide it wanted to pour out all my thoughts, fears hopes and curious questions. Philosophy and existential discourse have no respect for bed times, perhaps more so in the mind of a young child. Reluctantly my mum would sit, listen to me start, and then stop me to tell me to wait until morning – to talk then. Of course, my thoughts, dreams and fears would vanish with the stars, fading into the brightening morning sky, not to be found by day. Now I play the double role myself – both the dreaming boy and the tired mother – the buzzing mind and the weary body.

Mornings or evenings? Some days I feel like I am trying for the best of both worlds, waking early for the industry of the morning and then working late into the dark of night as well. Perhaps its time for me to give up the idea of being a morning person. But I love my mornings. I love my evenings too. Naps. I should perfect the art. This childhood nightmare and adulthood euphoria might just hold the key to my body’s strange ideas about when it wants to think.

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God is Dead

A while ago I was talking to a philosophy professor here at my college. I had been discussing ‘rights’, what they really mean and their origins with a friend, and he decided we should take our discussion to the philosophy professor’s office and see what he thought. We had a good talk, which turned fairly quickly to the existence of God and the validity of the Bible, where all philosophical questions seem to end up. We were briefly discussing the debate between creationist scientists and atheist scientists — as that’s really where the clashes arise. The professor pointed out to us that while creationist scientists are extremely invested in their research, evolutionists are not. What he meant was that creationist scientists are essentially looking for facts to prove an position they have already decided upon – that God exists, while atheist scientist have nothing to prove. However, nothing could be farther from the truth.

In 1883, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche penned the famous words: “God is dead.” I remember reading a poster at my Bible school last year that had Nietzsche’s quote written with the date, 1883, only below it was written “‘Nietzche is dead.’ -God, 1900.” I found this quite amusing, and certainly a good reminder of the mortality of man. In many ways, arguments in the scientific world often revolve around this statement – either by way of acceptance of it, or rejection.

Science is, and has almost always been, far from objective. Honest reachers will attest to the fact that although people try very hard to be objective, research always carries biases and presuppositions in it. This is the nature of study. For the scientist who already believes in God, all science should match up to the facts that they already believe and should point towards the God they already believe in. And for the atheist scientist it is very much the same, all studies should ultimately support the idea that there is no God, and any evidence that points to a possible God can not remain within their existing beliefs.

An atheist scientist must only find evidence that points to a world without God. Any other evidence would suggest that there is a God and, as a result, they would then be subject to the fact that there is an all-knowing, all-powerful God who demands something of them. Both parties in the scientific debate have a horse in the race. Both are invested, and both stand on presupposed ideas. Because if God is not dead, then there are a lot of people who will have to stand before Him at the end of time and explain why they lived as if He was.

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Tea

Tea is such a mysteriously amazing thing. I’m not quite sure what life would be like without it. There’s never a time when a hot cup of tea can’t make life that little bit better. On days when everything seems to overwhelm, when the air outside is cool and chilly, or when your brain is full of questions and heavy with worries, tea is comforting solace from the mess outside and inside.

Tea calms the nerves. I think an important part of drinking tea is the way in which you drink it. Here, in a culture where people are always busy, with no time for anything or anyone, tea can be that break. You stop and boil water. You watch the dark plumes stain the clear water of the cup in a slow and swirling dance. You sip, cautiously at first, letting the vapours reach your nose.

Tea is a chance to sit, to stop and to gaze outside the window at the much anticipated sunshine pouring onto the cold ground. It’s that break, to catch your breath and smell the roses. Forced to slow down, relax and think about things, the mind has a chance to settle. Sometimes people simply go to fast. They don’t take time to think. There is a girl who has come to the coffee shop downtown a couple times while I have been there. She asks for two tea bags and for the hot water to be mixed with cold. “Perfect guzzling temperature,” she says. This way she can drain the cup quickly without having to wait for the water to cool or the leaves to take their time and seep. To me, that’s a waste – a waste of a good tea and a good time.

Tea is a great facilitator. Often the best conversations are held over a couple cups of tea. If you want to have a good talk with someone, have it over a cup of tea. I wonder if there have been wars that could have been avoided with tea ? decisions made by grumpy politicians who would have thought more clearly with a tea cup in hand. We’ll never know. Tea makes people happy, and happy people are friendly people. Have a cup of tea.

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Canada is Bipolar

I can’t believe the weather here. Only yesterday we had glorious sunshine with temperatures over zero. In fact, on my very short walk between buildings, the sun felt so warm on my skin I could almost imagine what summer would feel like. I reminisced over the blast of heat that assaults you, stepping off the plane in Hyderabad. The thought was almost comforting. Spring must be here, I thought.

Then, today the snow falls. Wind drives the small flakes down towards the windows and the ground like rain. The sky is white, and the cold air beats at the flapping flags outside the college. With weather like this you would think that spring is months away. I’ve heard some Canadians argue that it is. I think it’s terrible. With the weather cold and dreary as it is, work and assignments seem as forbidding as the thought of going for a long walk outside. Why can’t Canada just make up its mind with its weather? I love the sun. I wish it would stay all day, all month, maybe even all year. But I wish it didn’t show it to me for a day, only to hide it again for another month or two.

If anyone has extra sunshine and wouldn’t mind, please do stuff as much of it as you can into an envelope and mail it to me. Then I can sit in my room, snow falling outside, and open those little envelopes of warmth. If only.

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Naked I Shall Return

I never want to quite grow attached to any one place. Is that even possible? To be a migrant in this world, in this day and age? I’m not sure that I ever want to own a house. Perhaps that will help ? help keep the clutter of possessions at a minimal, the roots shallow and the feet moving. Yet I feel that I will always have an attachment to places. Root’s seem to grow fast and stay, even when the rest of the plant is ripped off and moved elsewhere. I just want to overcome that innate desire to own places ? to possess them and keep them.

I want to wander this earth like a wind, sweeping, swirling, rising and falling. Only someday to blow away and be gone, without a trace. I don’t think that’s possible. But no one can stay forever, so why keep things as if I could? We all seem to have a desire to leave something that will last and be remembered, and many have tried, fruitlessly. Why build an empire to be left to decay, crumbling to pieces like that of the great Khan, imperial Rome or the derelict Ozymandias? The only thing that will last is the people, the love and warmth given to them, or the lack thereof. We need to focus on the things that last.

Christ himself said,

“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”(Matt. 8:20).

Why should we live so different from that of our example? Why do we have such a rampant desire to hold, to keep and to collect? The earth is ours, but we are all just strangers passing through. Some will build their mansions, but like castles on the beach, it isn’t long before the lapping waves eat these walls to sand, washing them away with the tide of time. Leaving at best, a dimple in the sand the following morning, and this too soon is gone as well.

I don’t mean to argue that everyone should sell their homes, or never own anything. However, I do think that we need to seriously consider the choices we make in our day to day lives and think critically about the importance we place on things and places, not just following the norms of our society, but living a life with purpose. I want to make this a reality in my life, and it will be a daily struggle to do so.

Job says it so well when he writes,

“Naked I came from my mothers womb, and naked I shall return”(1:21).

If only we always kept this in mind. My fear is that in time, as pressures and worries flood in, I will forget this. I will find myself surrounded by things I swore I would never have, and treasuring these useless objects. I pray it won’t be so. I just have to remember to keep my eyes focused on the example.