almost randomly....

Fireworks, Victoria, British Columbia. July 1, 2013.

On Canada Day this year my daughter and I travelled to Victoria, British Columbia to take part in the festivities. I booked us a hotel room with a great view of the fireworks, and where we could hear all of the fabulous live music including the headline band, Hey Ocean. I wanted to be right in the thick of things. We stayed on the ground until about 10:00, mixing with the thousands of revellers who had come out to celebrate, and then we went to our room to watch the fireworks over the heads of the massive crowd.

It was a fabulous moment, one of those moments in which you're totally there, totally caught up in it.

About a week later, I found out that there had been two pressure cooker bombs built with the intention of being detonated at the site. Explosions of a whole different order.

Bill Reid's raven sculpture still on my mind, I am reflecting on how god is present in both creation and destruction; there at both the moment of birth and the moment of death. In light and in darkness. That both are the same to him. That both exist in every moment. That death and life are interchangeable, almost randomly.

Bill Reid. Raven and the First Men. 1980. Cedar.

Here, the sculpture is seen reflected in a glass, darkly. Reversed.

Thank you to the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service and to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for preventing what could have been a tragedy for so many, including me.