Fall’s First Sunday

Yesterday morning, I put away dishes and finished making beds after a large group had been in to use the Spirituality Centre on Friday and Saturday.  This was followed by Mass and friendly banter with the regulars who come.

Next, a visit with a friend who is in rehab after a fall where she broke both hip and elbow. Both of us seem to enjoy the “shoes and ships” conversations we have each time I come.  (The time has come, said the Walrus, to speak of many things...of shoes and ships and ceiling wax and cabbages and kings...and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings...Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland).  We might talk of literacy, books, politics, the environment, the Church, science and religion... and no matter the topic, it is a delight.  We each tell stories and speak our minds, enjoying each other’s easy company.  I leave the visits we have with a smile and a chuckle at the feeling that I might well be seeing something of a version of my older self when I stop by.

I was making my way to the library after that and discovered a street festival happening on Spring Garden Road.  What a simple joy to stroll down the centre of the closed off principle shopping street of downtown!  Kids were playing games, artists were covering the sidewalk in chalk masterpieces, and there was ‘fair food’ for the having if you needed a bite or wanted a quick snack.  

Live at the library, I watched a woman dance Flamenco as though she was made of both liquid and steel.  Her look opened doors into the possibility of other dimensions here on Earth.  Smokey dimensions that vibrated with a complex lacing of guitar music and rang with the dense authoritative pound of feet that knew the magnetic glory of gravity’s force.   

My entire mid-section was set aglow when walking home and chancing upon a pipe and drum performance at the Robert Burns statue in Victoria Park.  Had I stayed longer, I’m certain that I’d have acquired the ability to both levitate and walk extraordinary distances without much need for sustenance beyond fresh water and poetry—and with time, I think perhaps I could have accomplished the both simultaneously.

In the evening, I went to Evensong at the Anglican Cathedral and sat before stained glass back-lit by the close of the day and the design of which was created anew by birds that ignored its known lines in favour of free-winging and letting their shadows solder patterns freshly imagined.   The choir illuminated the sanctuary through the coming together of their lofted notes and reaching wavelengths whereby a clearer vision within could be had by those who prayed in its company.

At the end of the day, I couldn’t help but feel an extraordinary gratitude for the mix of all things that allowed for such a Sunday.  Sabbath indeed...