I sit in my garden on one of the white plastic chairs, laptop balanced on my knee, large mug of peppermint tea steeping on a large inverted clay flowerpot at my left side.

It is glorious out here. Cool, sunny, fresh. The only drawback is that some little insects the size of fruit flies are forming a little cloud around me. They aren’t biting though, something to be thankful for. They are distracting, however.

I did evening and morning prayer this morning in truncated mode, focusing on the readings rather than the whole office. I was beat last night after going to the club and having a fitness assessment and learning how to use the weight machines. Not that we had to do anything. I think I was tired thinking about what an investment of time and energy is needed to reduce my horrifying fat percentage.

I did get some real exercise though. I had gone for a walk yesterday afternoon, and after trying out the weight machines Cheryl and I did some hardly taxing aquafit exercises in “our pool” while the setting sun’s reflection blazed on the windows of the golf club “mansion” across the greens from the club, then the moon rose huge and almost full in the twilight while we marveled at the beauty from the hot tub by the windows, a hot tub big enough to tread water in.

This morning, I woke up feeling sore and uncomfortable. I debated about delaying the readings until after I got back from downtown, but did them quickly this morning. Even without lingering over the readings I could feel them feeding me and giving me an inward sense of peace that even the heavier traffic than usual--stop and go in several places--didn’t ruffle it. I was about 45 minutes later than I'd hoped to the breakfast I was going to, but it worked out okay.

What strikes me now as I sit down to meditate on the readings after the fact is what Paul writes about in 2 Cor. 12 about his “thorn in the flesh”.

I know that theologians have disagreed about what exactly Paul’s thorn was, whether it was some form of eye disease or blindness, or whether the thorn was more of a metaphor for some kind of besetting temptation.

I think of it today because of how hard it is to pray when my flesh or physical body isn’t feeling one hundred percent. And then, I think of all the people with chronic pain or fatigue due to chronic illness. How important it is for those of us who can pray to lift them up so that they might experience God’s peace, even if they find they don’t have the energy to press through.

Of course there’s nothing like suffering, or fear to make one press through and persist until we feel God’s touch because the alternative, the present circumstances, are so terrifying and unbearable. And what sweetness we discover. What joy in the midst of that suffering. It seems that most of us don’t discover God’s love and faithfulness until we face a huge trial that breaks us, that forces us to turn to him because we can’t handle it on our own.

“And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
For this thing, I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Cor. 12:7-9)

Have you ever noticed how people who face death can sometimes gain a childlike, saintly glow about them? They seem holy? I remember my friend Mabel, who, after bouts with chemo and radiation, was skin and bones and had no hair, but she was beautiful physically. She shone with love, was fully present to her children and sisters and grandchildren and other friends who came by to visit her. She was weak, tired, often uncomfortable, but the power of Christ rested upon her.

I have a neighbor who I only know to say hello to. He and his wife are both very tall, over six feet. He was a handyman with a van that had a ladder on top. He came over to fix some windows years ago and seemed sort of a sad sack, with hunched shoulders, a slightly curled lip, someone who seemed to have an attitude of a “yes, but” defeatism about him.

Last year, while at the cancer clinic with a friend, I noticed him and his wife there. He was thinner. He seemed ashamed to be spotted there. The few times after that that I saw him, or asked how he was, were awkward. It was as if he wanted to say, “How do you think I am?”

Every time I pass by their condo, I pray for him, hoping God will let me know if there is some meaningful thing I can do. Then, a couple of days ago, as I rode my bike by there, I saw him sitting in his open garage. I said hello. He said hello and for the first time ever I think he really saw me. He had that child like presentness that Mabel had. He was thin, gaunt almost, but smiling and, it seems, at peace with himself and able to love being alive.

“Do you want to see what I’m doing?” he asked.

“Sure.” I got off my bike and wandered towards a little table where he had a little electric pot melting lead.

“I’m making bullets,” he said as he snapped a bullet from a tool that molded the molten lead, and tossed it in a pile of bullets. “They’re for a historical musket. The kind they used to use during the Crimean war.”

He told me he planned to shoot the bullets at a nearby range over the winter. “Would you like one?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Don’t let any children have it,” he said.

I held the heavy lead bullet in my hand, and placed it in my garage near where I park my bike so I’ll see it and remember to pray for him whenever I see it.

But there was something more going on in that exchange. There was a sense of both of us being at the same place and time and connecting, being present. What a gift that is. Some of us are starved for that kind of connection.

This morning, I went downtown to the gathering of Augustine College professors and friends who have a reading fellowship in a pub near Ottawa University. It was a small gathering, but the discussion ranged from the relationship of church and state, to the nature of the human being and of reality. One of the men present noted that one could, in theory, be an “ethical abortionist” if, in believing that human life is absurd, the abortionist believed he was doing that preborn human life a favor by preventing it from coming into the world. He used this illustration to show that two totally different world views are clashing and we need to determine what the outcome of our world view is. If human life is absurd, then what other horrible consequences can flow from that belief? If we really thought about them, would we want to go there?

After that, I went to take a photograph at the local radio station where someone I’m doing a profile of for the local Christian paper was taping a radio program. Then I wandered in the Byward Market and bought some braided garlic, since I tired of buying garlic imported from China or Argentina when it’s grown locally.

It's interesting that while I was going into a little mall to get some money at a banking machine, a younger man looked me right in the eye. Eye contact. I had my sunglasses on though they are not dark ones, and pretended there hadn't been that one second little exchange.I recalled thinking about how, when I was younger, because I was so hungry for connection, for eye-contact, I was drawn to predatory men who understand that and who brazenly lock eyes, then take advantage of that hunger for connection, or assume that your look back is assent of some kind to their lust.

Now, it is after noon and I don’t feel like doing any work.

When I took my walk yesterday I saw chipmunks darting into the woods, a turtle the size of my hand plunge under the algae near the shore of the Beaver Pond where a solitary Canada goose swam.

Then I noticed the turtles little green-striped head poking up from among the spongy yellow green goo. He was watching me, and if I made a step forward his head would pffffft into the water. Blue gills swam in the water beyond the algae, and they seemed to be aware of me too, their blue fins picking up the light in the dim depths.

And a few days ago, I saw something that tugged at my heart. A man and a boy rode a tandem bicycle through a big four lane intersection at rush hour. The tandem’s second half was a much smaller wheel to accommodate the boy who must have been about seven years old. Both of them wore helmets, and the father was a little stout.
The boy gaped at the traffic as they rode by, probably amazed that his dad could navigate through such danger, because he was probably not allowed to cross a street like this by himself. Then, his helmeted head faced straight ahead and he pedaled hard to help dad get across. It was so sweet.

My tea is gone and so are those annoying little bugs. The sun has moved so I am no longer sitting entirely in the shade. I’m hungry so I’ll send this off.

My prayer for you today is that you find this blessed gift of being fully present in your life, not only for others but for yourself. That you be able to appreciate the little things, that you might press through to experience God’s presence right now, and not wait until something forces you to your knees. God wants us to have abundant life, and our eternal life starts when we believe in Jesus.

The wind lifts my hair and smells fragrant with dry grass. An enterprising spider has tried to link the huge spruce with the brown fence, a good six foot span. The strand glistens in the light.