Here we are in the twenties of the first month already and working our way to its end at 31! ‘Time goes fast, use her well’ is a transliterated saying from my mother tongue; Dutch that is. It rhymes in Dutch because ‘fast’ is ‘snel’.

Yesterday I met with old colleagues again for breakfast at the Best Western in Motel Village, NW. Our crew is getting smaller, as some pass to the other side, while others find it more difficult to come. Our conversations about cruises and trips South are now about trips to the hospital and about health. But like I said, to common agreement yesterday: “At least we are still talking!”

My Diary title for today reminds me of the Alberta hamlet called 'Many Berries’,…

In the evening Shirley called, which I was kind of expecting as I’d sent her an email last Sunday. She sounded upbeat, and we chatted for about an hour, planning to call again coming Sunday for a coffee meet. I’d called Don earlier and we will meet a week from today, while John and I will have lunch at Chinook tomorrow. This before I meet with Pastor Anthony later on and then on Thursday I have my weekly visit with Juliet. Lots of visits and socialising, but today and Friday are my own except for the need to do laundry soon!

My Diary title for today reminds me of the Alberta hamlet called Many Berries’, which we as a family had planned to visit on our way in to Calgary from Ottawa back in 1973. We did not, as we were warned at the Cypress Hills campground gas station about the slick roads and hills requiring truck tires and power. So, it is still on my list now forty three years later and being without a car as well. But cars you can rent, though I probably should not go alone.

This morning I was awake just after six, letting my mind wander as I am want to do before focussing on my daily get up routine. And doing so an unexpected awareness arose in me which I describe as follows.

‘There are greater powers in your life than you are’ … then followed by: ‘in the interaction within Existence Divine, which need to be creatively expressed into the Human Realm.’

This fits with my conviction that we live interactively within the ’knowable mystery of Existence Divine’. This in turn forms a part of my belief and value framework as I have come to understand and formulate that for myself. All this relates also to the essay ’My Message’, which I am in the process of formulating.

There are greater powers in your life than you are’ … then followed by: ‘in the interaction within Existence Divine, which need to be creatively expressed into the Human Realm.

In relation to this formulation process, I recall using a ’loop technique’ of building a narrative, which I used in my talk on Buddhism under Talks on my website back on June 15, 2007. I start with a topic relating situation in our world of today, then go back into time to a significant event relating to the subject at hand. I then move forward again in the narrative closing the loop returning to the present.

This technique also gives me what I call ‘stages’ like on a stage coach route. This stage method I used in my essay ‘Jesus The Man’ under Topicals on my website deploying the stages of life as a boy growing up, becoming a teener and then an adult in the setting of the time.

Both techniques work well separately or combined and I plan to use the combination for my present essay. Last night I succeeded in sketching out a loop for it, which took on the shape of an egg, which relates to the theme of emergence from the protection of the egg shell that I plan to use in the essay!
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