Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Good to Meet You

Last Saturday, I was standing at one end  of "The Barns," the repurposed streetcar repair sheds that in winter months house  my favourite farmer's market. I'd bought three jars of homemade jam from the reserved Mennonite woman down the row and wished her and her daughter a Merry Christmas--unsure of how strict Mennonites even feel about such greetings. The handsome son of one of the organic farmers had sold me my winter vegetables for Sunday's dinner. I'd finished my cinnamon roll and coffee listening to two women in their sixties play some wicked duets on mandolin and guitar, and joked with them about the meter still running as I chucked more change into their open instrument case. I was putting on my hat and bike helmet when a total stranger came up to me and thanked me for zeroing out my carbon footprint for the day. And we exchanged names.

"It's good to meet you."

"It's good to meet you, too."

It's a banal phrase, until it isn't. Until it's filled with the joy of a genuine connection though you share nothing more with a stranger than the miracle of being alive on a planet in desperate crisis. Until it's about genuine meeting, the "I-Thou" moment in a wider web of "all our relations" that's as close to the heart of the Mystery of our lives as we ever get.


It can happen in a market. Or a church. Or with a hookup you connected with on Grindr an hour ago. Or with someone you've lived with for twenty years. Hell, it can happen with your cat on the couch. Or a dying whale on the beach. Or in a stable at the edge of Bethlehem. None of those settings makes it any more sacred, or any less.

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