It is 7:30 in the morning. I couldn’t fall asleep and now the next day is officially here. The “next” day is now today. Despite not having slept, I feel excited and alive. It’s a new autumn day, there is coffee, and there are books. I’ve been feeling unwell for the past couple days. Nothing serious, it’s probably just a mild flu. But why wasn’t I able to fall asleep? I felt tired before bed.…
In the winter semester of 2009, I took Philosophy of Mind, an undergraduate course, with the late Prof. Bernard Hodgson (1946-2009) at Trent University. Prof. Hodgson sadly passed away very soon after delivering the final lecture for the course. He was a very pleasant and engaging speaker and after his general outline of the course, which he gave during the first lecture, I was sure I was going to stay in the class until the…
What makes a place familiar? What makes a visit feel like a return? Part of the familiarity is knowing what I can or cannot do in a place—the rights and duties the place affords me. In the place I am now writing about, one of my rights is the right to pray. I have the right to pray despite my uncertainties and despite my faults. Perhaps I have the right and duty to preserve this…
I have been writing and re-writing this post for months. Something that makes writing it difficult is the multiplicity of conflicting starting points. There is no one way to start it. And the decision about how to start will affect what it becomes. I have decided to begin with writing about that multiplicity, the conflicting voices, and the competing destinations for this one piece of writing. Do I begin from a position of faith or…
Having to spend some time in a waiting room yesterday evening, I was happy to remember a small book in my back pocket. The book is a speech by Albert Camus, titled Create Dangerously: The Power and Responsibility of the Artist. The English translation is done Sandra Smith. This is one of those short books that took me a long time to finish. It’s only 46 pages long. But it’s full of ups and downs…