Dried Glue in the Mouth

If you sleep the entire night with your mouth open, then when you wake up it feels like your mouth is filled with dried white glue. I found that out this morning.

Quote of the Week

(Yes, I know two in one day. Chesterton. Enough said.)
The simplest truth about man is that he is a very strange being; almost in the sense of being a stranger on the earth. In all sobriety, he has much more of the external appearance of one bringing alien habits from another land than of a mere growth of this one. He has an unfair advantage and an unfair disadvantage. he cannot sleep in his own skin; he cannot trust his own instincts. He is at once a creator moving miraculous hands and fingers and a kind of cripple. He is wrapped in artificial bandages called clothes; he is propped on artificial crutches called furniture. His mind has the same doubtful liberties and the same wild limitations. Alone among the animals, he is shaken with the beautiful madness called laughter; as if he had caught sight of some secret in the very shape of the universe hidden from the universe itself. Alone among the animals he feels the need of averting his thought from the root realities of his own bodily being; of hiding them as in the presence of some higher possibility which creates the mystery of shame. Whether we praise these things as natural to man or abuse them as artificial in nature, they remain in the same sense unique. This is realised by the whole popular instinct called religion.

G. K. Chesterton
from The Everlasting Man

Quote of the Week

There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place.

G. K. Chesterton
the opening line of The Everlasting Man

CRC

Yesterday for the first time since I moved to Vancouver I attended a CRC church. My buddy Brian and his wife Candice invited me. Its way on the other side of the city. We got there late. But the way that people looked at us when we marched down the aisle escorted by an usher to the seat usually occupied by some old matriarch of the church who happened to be away made me feel at home. There is just something about the CRC--the way the worship team leads, the way people modestly put their offering envelopes into the plate, the way that the kid who read Scripture read Scripture, the way that everyone exited the sanctuary afterwards and, after shaking hands with the domine, filed into the fellowship hall--which is just like a good pair of socks on a cold damp morning. I felt refreshingly at home and comfortable.

Quote of the Week

I turned to Alypius and cried out: 'What is wrong with us? What is this that you have heard? Uneducated people are rising up and capturing heaven, and we with our high culture without any heart--see where we roll in the mud of flesh and blood. Is it because they are ahead of us that we are ashamed to follow? Do we feel no shame at making not even an attempt to follow?'

- Augustine of Hippo
from Confessions (where else?)

Elevators

The other night I got stuck in an elevator.
Why was I in the elevator when I was only going down 4 floors? Should have taken the stairs.
Stuck for half an hour. Along with KC, Arthur, Julie, Richard, Jan, Lesslie-Ann, some lady from the UK, and Johnny, the 125 pound Great Perenese dog--the hugest dog I've ever met.
We glided to a stop a foot and a half below the second floor.
Pushed that little telephone button. Figured we would get put through to the elevator technician who should have lived on the second floor. Instead we get this call centre who knows where. Toronto probably. Hope the elevator didn't get charged the long distance.
Tried my best MacGyver resourcefulness. Couldn't unstuck. I honestly don't think MacGyver would have been able to bust out of that elevator. It was shut solid. There wasn't even that panel on the ceiling which is always so easy to punch out. No secret lever anywhere.
Annoying how impossible it was to get out of that thing. Seems to be symptomatic of Western society, can't fix anything yourself, can't trust anyone with potentially useful things.
We were in there for a long time. Got so stuffy. The four halogen lights in the impenetrable ceiling didn't help things.
In the meantime Richard told us a story of how he got hit by a 3/4 tonne pickup and walked away with only a concussion.
In the end we tricked the elevator into letting us out. Afterwards we ate dessert and talked theology.