Human minds and personalities are far more complex and individually distinct than snowflakes.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
As we waited in line for the ferry from Mill Bay to Brentwood Bay this afternoon, we watched as an elderly gentleman from the car in line behind us got out and began to pick wild blackberries from the bushes along the road. \u00a0After he had a cup full of them, he started to walk past us toward his vehicle. \u00a0\u201cAre they sweet?\u201d my wife asked.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those were pretty much the last words that she spoke for the next hour, until the ferry arrived and we needed to board.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
We learned about his escape from his native Hungary shortly after the abortive Hungarian Revolution (against the Soviets) in 1956. \u00a0He managed to sneak singly across the border, and \u2014 this is his account \u2014 was hidden from the border guards in a massive pile of hay that had a door and a secret chamber within it. \u00a0It had apparently been designed for just such use.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
We learned about his various jobs, and about his few brief visits to the United States. \u00a0He marveled that American food was so very similar to Canadian food.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
His stories were actually quite interesting, but it was difficult not to laugh aloud at the sheer, unaided, stream-of-consciousness manner of their delivery. \u00a0Probably four times, maybe five times, he thanked us for the entertaining conversation \u2014 we also offloaded to him some of the fruit and canned drinks that we wouldn\u2019t be able to take with us on the plane \u2014 and then continued talking without so much as taking a pause for a breath .<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Our encounter with him made me think, once again, how much I value people<\/em>. \u00a0They are, without question, the most complicated and interesting objects known to us in the natural universe \u2014 human brains alone are far more complicated than any star or galaxy \u2014 and the permanent loss of any one of them would be an irredeemable tragedy.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s one of the reasons that the question of life after death seems to me so very, very important.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I recently cited a quotation from the late astronomer, astrophysicist, and science popularizer Carl Sagan, but it seems apropos here, as well:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies,\u00a0you will not find another.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In this context, too, I can\u2019t help but think (yet again! you may say) of one of my favorite passages from a wartime essay by (the irreplaceable) C. S. Lewis:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations \u2014 these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit \u2014 immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.\u201d<\/strong> \u00a0(C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory<\/em>)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Seattle, Washington<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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<\/a>