Monday, December 9th, 2013

Meeting in the Snow

Burnaby, British Columbia

It’s becoming rather routine, every time I take to the trail here to a section of what is Canada’s largest allotment of urban gardening, I meet this guy standing by the bus stop.  While waiting for his bus en route to his workplace, he’ll often light up a cigarette.  It’s interesting, he’s waiting there, and I’m walking near him.  It happens every time I come here.  And of course we “shoot the breeze” just long enough that it puts my walking on pause.  Each time we contact each other like this, I feel a friendship is building up.  Each time I’m able to give him an installment of neighbourliness which I hope will lead to words of a greater spiritual significance.   The fellow is younger than me and taller than me and he is Caucasian.  He greets with a smile.  I believe we shook hands for the first time this morning as snowflakes were a twirl making their descent to the ground we were standing on.

My second encounter with someone today on a second walk was Doug.  I felt the need to loosen up the limbs after many hours of mainly listening to people, indoors.  I took the same route, that quite urban gardening place, which I had learned had been a Japanese internment camp decades ago.  It was Doug who resembles Santa somehow, but with a beard blonder than the snow around us, and who told me about the internment.  After the bombing of Pearl Harbour, Canada became highly suspicious of Japanese settlers in the country, so they were confined to these special supervised camps.

Doug and I didn’t dwell on this too long, we conversed more about other things such as Krishna.  At my mention of the word, he said, “Oh yeah, the movie ‘Airplane’, that’s how I know you guys.  Have you seen it?”

“No, I only heard about it.”

Doug, who was brushing the snow off his car’s windshield outside his tiny bungalow, proceeded to tell me the scene where the devotees of Krishna have their moment on the silver screen.  This popular film apparently gets rerun on television quite often, and for many people, it’s their reference to Hare Krishna.

“Doug, please come to visit our temple sometime.”  He’s going to try.  I hope that my encounter with Doug will also become routine.  I’m not set out to change his life, but I’m there to give him an opportunity.

May the Source be with you!

8 KM