The very pleasant feeling this afternoon of awaking from a dream. As I awoke the quote from the last book MacDonald wrote came into mind:

“Our life is no dream, but may perhaps one day become one.”

I had been going through some old writings from Costa Rica and had been thinking very hard about my life there and the journey I have been on and where it is that I am going. There seem to be two givens now in my life: Scotland and a just life. Are names of no consequence? Alexandra Ross. I have inherited the Scottish name and my first name means “defender of humans.” Who knows, but the name Smith my yet denote a third aspect of creativity? As the consciousness of these thoughts slipped away I began to dream about a house and those people that I know from Providence, until I again awoke to the colours in my window having changed to late afternoon.

Do we really know that this life will end, like a dream? But we will not wake to something less real, but something more real. Just as waking from the second dimension of dreams into the third of consciousness. As I looked out the window I had a faint sensation of loving the trees outside it. I was caught off guard because I have not consciously developed any special love for trees since Costa Rica. There are trees in Manitoba, but they are largely practical lines of wind block or they are untamed in the forest. These are tended as the ones were in Costa Rica. As soon as I found myself loving them I was checked by my mind thinking that I was only here for a short time and never long enough for the love to be constructive.

I don’t know where such a silly notion has come from.

When was love ever not constructive? Even those people that I will only meet for one week, and I am thinking in particular of L’Abri, should I withhold a deep appreciation (as deep as a week can give) because I can count the limited time to the relationship? Should the knowledge of this world’s end produce an arms length engagement with it?

I am still thinking about the idea that death was and is a very natural part of life, and not an evil thing. Are all ends a good thing, but our grasping the distortion? When people see me as advantaged for all the different places I have lived all I can think of is all the ends I have had. But in the many ends perhaps that is actually the many re-births. And for those who do not know the many, perhaps a profound life, death and rebirth.