Woke up this morning with Nen & Ry in the house. It was fun to all sit down to breakfast that Dad was making and bicker and laugh and eat sausages with maple syrup on them. The day was really beautiful. It was overcast but the air was clear. A young eagle came and landed right in the tree between the house and the dock. He was almost full size, but his feathers were still coming in so he wasn't a crisp black and white but more mottled. His head had puffs of brown between the white feathers. We were worried about the cat who was out on the lawn and Mum said that she didn't really want to have proof to give to Aunt Shirley that an eagle could fly off with a cat, so I went down to stand guard and watch him. He moved to another tree and sat there before flying off to dive at some of the smaller birds sitting on the lake. As I was walking back up the stairs, I was struck by how clear things seem here: laughing with my family, watching an eagle get his feathers, the fresh crisp air that speaks of either impending or passing rain, eating sausages with maple syrup (I think I mentioned that already but it bears repeating), and being in a beautiful house that my Dad has pretty much totally remade with his own hands.
After rummaging around in the basement with my Mum for some lost antique table legs of Nen & Ryan's, us kids headed into town. I caught I ride with them to the mall where we parted ways and I took the bus into Heidi's and they drove out to the Peninsula for a family birthdays dinner with the Nen's family. I met up with Heids at her place and we sat in the kitchen talking for several hours. I made tapioca for desert and she was making homemade (not store bought and then cooked) ravioli. Brooklyn came a little later and we got the wine open, finished cooking and then sat in the front window watching the rain and the people passing by on the street as we eat our fab, giant meal of ravioli and salad. We talked the whole evening. It's so cool to have people around who agree so much with your own life philosophy. We talked about the ridiculousness of much of organized religion as a programme enriched entity void of much of the grace and variety that encompasses the people of Christ. We all grew up in the church and we've all been pretty sick of seeing how it is a creation of man as opposed to the thing of God that it's supposed to be. We talked a lot about the "us" versus "them" mentality of many religious people and how our own views have changed since leaving high school and the plethora of "youth programmes" that we were involved in. "Ooo, look at that person! He's smoking. He's a SINNER!" It's interesting to see what aspects of life are normalized in which cultures. Brooklyn was telling us about a roommate of hers in YWAM from, I think, Sweden. Sleeping with someone before you're married is nothing to them because it's natural, but smoking! Putting something toxic and foreign in your body! That makes you a sinner in the Christian world. Here, drinking 5 cups of coffee in a day is okay, but having a glass of wine with dinner and it's "I'll pray for your soul, brother". Both are addictive and bad for your body in high quantities. Both are foreign substances to put in your body. In North America, one is socially acceptable, the other isn't. And I don't mean in a general view, but as something that within the tightly woven Christian community is viewed as a moral sin that separates you from God. In my view, both do. In others views, neither do. In still others, one does, the other doesn't. The main premise that we came to is that it shouldn't be a value judgment on a person if they decide to have a glass of wine, or a cup of coffee. What are the things that truly matter and what doesn't, well, that all becomes an arbitrary point of opinion.
It was a nice night. We went to bed at a reasonable time. Actually, it was kind of early, but we were all pretty tired.
