Hearing God's Voice

I'm too tired to write properly on this right now, but I have been reading a book my grandma gave me written by a former senior pastor of my church called Hearing God's Voice. It's actually seven keys, but so far it is excellent. Vern Heidebrecht is an excellent and wise speaker and writer whom I cannot praise highly enough. When I have more time, I will begin posting on what I am learning in this book, and possibly its application in my life.

De natura domi

In this past while, I have found myself in an awkward position when referring to the place where my permanent address is. It is where I regularly lived for five years until I left for university. It is where my family still lives. However, for the year or two preceding my leaving for university it had distinctly ceased to have that feeling which most people call "home". Instead I felt something like a visitor or a stranger in what was my home.

I am presently living in a flat with a few room-mates, and nothing of this strange city carries a sense of home about it, either. And so when I think about going back to BC, I am stuck as to how I should refer to it. Am I going back home? It really is not my home, per se. But then, it is also the closest thing I have to a physical location that might be called home. It is more than my parents' home, but it is not entirely my home, either, nor could I ever settle in their home again.

So this begs the question of what is the nature of "home"? Are there any inherent qualities which determine what makes a given place home? Or do the properties of home depend on things independent of location?

I know that when I am with certain people, the sense of home is stronger than without those people no matter where we are or what we are doing. However, being with those same people in one place versus another does affect how uniform that sense of home is.

This means that home must be comprised of both those around one and where one presently is with those people. Which leaves me to wonder what that means for my sense of "returning home" to the place that is home no more.

On the Medieval Book Mid-Term

Someone pointed out to me, today, that if I can write a mid-term, which I did not study for save for briefly glancing at one example which might be covered, after having stayed up most of the night working on and stressing over a Latin presentation and still feel like I did well on it, I should pay attention. To be fair, I was fortunate and the example of Insular Half-Uncial I pulled up in a Google search was from the Lindisfarne Gospels, which was one of the facsimiles we were given a sample of to examine on our test. As soon as I saw the question asking us to comment on one of the facsimiles, I just recorded what I remembered from looking online a few minutes earlier, that the Latin is in Insular Half-Uncial and the English glosses are in Insular minascule. That said, it was fun hunting down what was abbreviated and what was not and commenting on that.

A Meditation on this Season of Lent

As of Wednesday we began the season of Lent, the season which heralds Christ's passion and resurrection. And so with him we wander forty days in the desert, praying and fasting, as Israel wandered fort years in the desert awaiting the promised land, and Noah and his family watched the rain come down, obliterating and renewing the Earth for its unveiling as a new creation.

Many people, in this modern age, choose, for the season of Lent, to take up an act of charity (caritas) as opposed to giving something up as a fast. While I applaud those people for their positive piety, I fear we begin to forget the ancient journey that is Lent. For many years we have dwelt upon the desert, and now we choose to dwell on the living water which flows from the rock. But we mustn't forget that we are still in the desert. Christ spent forty days in the desert, both fasting and praying. He did not fast, dwelling only upon the solemn and hardship, as so many among us have been wont to do. Nor did he pray, dwelling only upon the divine and heaven, as so many among us are encouraged to do. Instead did both, praying and fasting, meditating solemnly in hardship upon his Father's heavenly will. Thus experiencing his humanity while being led by his divine nature.

It was not until the forty days had finished that the true temptation began. After the forty days, when he was physically exhausted from his fast, distinctly human, aware of the world through his hunger and thirst, sustained by spiritual bread and wine, he then faced a spiritual desolation. And so it is with us that after we have fasted for forty days, filling our hearts instead with prayer and charity, that we must face the desolation of watching our Lord and Saviour die. And in his dying and by his rising, withstanding the devil's temptation, he imparts to us his Body and Blood which imparts to us his divine nature by consummation of holy union.

This is the journey that is Lent; and this, that is the taking his freely given Body and Blood into ourselves, is the consummation which we celebrate every Sunday, and even every day we attend church. Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday teaches us day by day what it means to be Christian.

Options in Speech Pathology

My mum pointed out to me a further idea regarding my future occupation. For a while, now, my mum has been a fan of me going into speech pathology. Some time ago I looked at the University of Toronto's requirements in that area, and was fair terrified at how strict it was along with how many classes I do not have that I would need to get. Apparently they do not count a Linguistics degree as useful background for speech pathology.

However, fortunately the University of Waterloo does. I would need to e-mail them to be certain that that is indeed the programme I would have to apply to, but it is something to consider. Another school that my mum mentioned was the University of Victoria whom I did e-mail out of curiosity. Their Applied Linguistics degree also accepts a B.A. Hon. in Linguistics as sufficient background. So we shall see. This is one more option, and so far the only one with money in it, for me to consider.

[Edit] Further searching this afternoon brought up the University of British Columbia. However, looking at their prerequisites, it is unlikely I would be accepted. While they do not require 3rd year Syntax or Phonology, I definitely do not plan to take the former beyond 2nd year. I also have no psychology beyond 1st year, nor any research methods classes behind me. These would be obstacles at UBC, and quite possibly everywhere else, too.

The biggest thing that would make me hesitant about this field is that I very likely will not have the prerequisites needed, as I have very little psychology background and zero biology background. All I have is linguistics background.