It happens that I sometimes find myself in a dialogue with someone who seems to be utterly — and willingly — ignorant of life’s subtleties. Of its… permutations. Of how a thing is different here than it is there. Of how a word shifts meanings as it shifts contexts.

There are so few things that exist as stone cold fact. Those that are remain precious, peculiar in their rarity: they scream, “Are we not breathtaking?”

The rest are immersed in the muddy process of simply being alive. As if these things can be wrestled into the strictures of a particular set of chains or made to move along a certain track! As if to say, life is my film and must follow my script; or, life is my model train set and must follow my carefully-thought-out tracks.

Have you ever thought about how much there is to think about? Have you? Take a moment and gather as many different areas of thought into the hand of your mind and count them. Go deeper: dissect each area into smaller areas and each smaller area into yet smaller areas. Have you begun to understand the sheer complexity of all the things there are to discover, or to decide, or to dissect, or to differentiate, or to delve into?

If you cannot begin to grasp the immensity of the number of things you could think about if you so wished, what makes you think you can effortlessly boil them down and extract the pith? That you can find the over-riding principles that under-gird all things? If the below is endlessly complex, the product of a dazzling intellect far grander than your own, what makes you think you can begin to bundle together the above, as if that magnificent, ponderous intellect would make it that easy?

There’s no easier way to proclaim oneself God than to act as if you are not simply a mute puppet in the hands of all things, including the True God. Or to put a different way: what comes before determines what comes after. And a man can never truly come before himself, or even fully determine the thing that comes before.

You are not the prime mover, or even a major in the myriad minor movers. You, simply, do not deserve your pride. And when you have finally grown old in the midst of trying to grasp the thread of God in everything, when you have finally shouted out at a baffling world, “Look how much I understand!” might the world not shout back, “But do you understand yourself?”

If it did, would you even hear it?

Last night Nick, Laura, and I started moving stuff into our new place. It’s awesome to finally have enough room to, you know, set up a bedroom and all that sort of stuff. Tonight we go back for the heavy lifting, and hopefully we can get everything moved out.

On the wedding front, almost everything is done. The invites are a little late, but Elyssa is making them and we’re going to hand them out in person instead of mailing them, and people are asked to reply either by phone or via email. I’ll be checking my spam pretty closely over the next while.

We’re going to Cuba on our honeymoon.

We have the location, her dress, my clothes, the minister, the pre/post-marital counselling, the guest list, the honeymoon, the new house, transportation, ushers, bridesmaids and best men, registry at Canadian Tire, and all that sort of thing.

Laura is having something like five showers for her.

Two days back Candice and Peter and Nick took us out to the West Plains Bistro (expensive but excellent food), where even though we had to wait an unacceptably long time to be served, the mean was very enjoyable. And of course me and Peter geek talked. I love geek talking! Laura locked her keys in the car while the car was running and CAA had to come rescue her.

I have just enough money right now to pay rent. I can’t wait for next week’s paycheque and oh boy am I glad that I worked this week instead of lazing around and taking it off.

Me and Karibeth have very different taste in books. This is what she said, and I agree.

This afternoon I go taste-testing with Laura at the caterers. Thank heaven we don’t have to pay for that stuff, or you’d all be having crackers and jam.