Walking in Toronto

    Hello, everyone.  Sorry for my long absence.  I've been very busy lately. Due to an unexpected move, I had to get rid of most of my book collection.  I must have given away three thousand books or more.  But I made quite a few people happy. I once thought that I could never get rid of so many books. But, once they were gone, it felt nice to live in a new apartment that was free of clutter. 

     My, how technology has changed things. The theological classics that formed the backbone of my library are now available online for free. Other books I can purchase and download on my computer and my IPad.  So, nothing is really lost. Some people may lament the loss of the printed page, but I actually enjoy reading books on my computer.  Still, it does feel a bit strange sometimes.

     I've been tired lately, but now that I've had some rest, I've returned to one of my favourite pastimes: walking.  Walking is great exercise, and it also is not so strenuous that it prevents me from enjoying the scenery and reflecting on what I see.

    Toronto is such a huge city, but there is so much of interest to see.  From the skyscrapers of the Business District, to the older neighbourhoods with their charming houses and tree-lined streets, to the parks and the museums and art galleries: there is something to enchant even the most jaded.  Toronto is not a world-class metropolis such as London or Paris or New York, but it has a mystique and a romance of its own that never cease to move me.

     When I walk, I often reflect on the inevitable passage of time.  Areas that were run-down in my early youth have now been rebuilt.  Dilapidated houses and buildings have been torn down, to be replaced by towers of gleaming glass and steel.  The skyline has changed dramatically, and now resembles the skyline of some city of futuristic dreams, a city of the science fiction worlds of my boyhood.  But much has remained of the old Toronto.  I can still see the Gothic architecture of Victorian Toronto in some areas, albeit surrounded and dwarfed by the buildings of the twentieth and twenty-first century.  The past, the present and the future are all together, sometimes in one small part of the city.

      There is so much to captivate.  The parks offer a refuge from the buildings and the traffic.  High Park is like a rural oasis, unchanged since it was first created.  I have wandered through the trees, and felt the wonder that forests always give me.  I have stood on the shores of Lake Ontario,  and listened to the lapping of the waves on the pebble-strewn beaches while looking across the vast expanse of water.

      When I walk, it's as if I always find new worlds of wonder. I feel like a traveller to hitherto unexplored lands, while new horizons constantly beckon to me.

       And often I wonder about the people I see.  I see crowds of young people emerging from a bar or a party, laughing together as if none of them had any cares.  I see couples  holding hands, lost in the enchantment of first love.  I see families with children, and go back to my childhood, when my parents took me for walks, and the sights of the city were something new and strange to me.  I see older people, and I wonder how the passage of time has affected them, since it has affected me so much.  And I see people who must have had dreams like mine, but who have had their dreams crushed for various reasons: derelicts wandering with glassy eyes asking for spare change,  and people broken by drugs, drink or depression who wander alone and bereft of hope.

     I then realize that the true wonder and glory of Toronto, and indeed of any city is the people that dwell in it.  Without people Toronto would only be a shell, a beautiful  and intriguing shell, but a shell nonetheless. Everywhere I go there are buildings and places filled with people.  I will never know all their sorrows and joys.  There are people who have just met and are beginning a lifelong friendship,and there are others who are facing the heartbreak of a final separation.  There are people who are happy and contented, others who are consumed by gnawing worries. In each dwelling that I pass, I wonder about the lives of those who live there. Some must be laughing with their friends, others weeping  in inconsolable grief.  There will be scenes of anger and strife, with shouting words and curses, and there will be scenes of tenderness, where one person consoles another.

     "No man is an island, entire of itself,  every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main..." How true  are the words of John Donne , written almost four centuries ago.  I am no solitary wanderer, adrift on an impersonal sea.  I am connected to all who I see around me, and they are to me.  No grief or joy is alien to me,  no one is truly a stranger to me. And I am not a stranger to them.

       Do they know that? I'm sure some of them do.  But how many of them are wondering what is it all about?  How many of them wonder about the meaning of their lives? How many of them know that they are loved, and know who loves them?