4 - Sunday, January 18, 1987 - North Shore News i Bob Hunter @ strictly personal @ WE’RE WAITING for my oldest son to win the louery. | don’t know which one, since I don’t pay any attention to lotteries and couldn’: tell you any of their names or how they work, The paint is, he had a dream the other night wherein God spoke to him and gave him the numbers for some lottery or other. This is straight goods. When he told me the dream, | laughed. Wasn't that funny? But, being good parents, the next thing | ask- ed was: ‘‘No chance you remember the numbers, ch?" “Yeh,” he said. ‘1 did." Pause. “You did go out and bet, didn’t you?’ He said: ‘Are you kidding? Of course!’ His wife went out straightaway the next morning. Call ” Ster REALTY OF CANADA LTD. ormneeer oad 9:00-5:30 10:00-1:00 * Weekdays ¢ Saturdays BIKE FOR LIFE aS RECHE 4, & ‘ < This could be your Retirement Plan Fourplex, sixpiex and twelveplex clusters available on the lower maintand to investors at discount prices. Buy now at 15% below ap praise¢o market value for rental investment. LYNN VALLEY CENTRE GARY BALDWIN MMI 8®* BALD WILLIAM GRIFFIN COMMUNITY CENTRE 851 West Queens Rd., North Vancouver 986-2255 YOUTH SAFETY PROGRAMS This Red Cross certificate safety course teaches defensive riding, bike maintenance, and first aid. Tuesdays 3:30-4:30pm January 20-February 17 Wednesdays 3:30-4:30pm January 21-February 18 FEE: $15.00 BABYSITTING TRAINING 70yrs & up A Red Cross certified course which provides instruction in child care, safety procedures, and activities. Mondays 3:30-5:00pm January 19-February 16 Tuesdays 5:30-7:00 January 20-February 17 FEE: $15.00 BASIC FIRST AID 11yrs & up A Red Cross certificate program that teaches how to deal with emergencies efficiently and safely. Fridays 3:30-5:00pm January 23-February 27 FEE: $25.00 plus $4.00 (workbook) REGISTER NOW! ENROLLMENT IS LIMITED We chuckled some more. My oldest son, you see, is an ultra- rationalist. That is, he picked up ona dictum that imprinted on his head when he was a kid, which was simply: Be skeptical about everything! } didn't say cynical, 1 said skep- ticud. So, while he concludes thar the universe is some sort of amazing thing and life itself is a bottomless mystery, he doesn’t bay any par- ticular school of thought as to haw and why and whither. And I'm proud of him for that. Yet, the moment God spoke to Evening Appointments 984-3366 thtual conmuitatian without tees LAWYER him in a dream with some lottery numbers, even he decided to run with it. Like he said: ‘How bloody often does that happen?” At bottom, | think, we are all superstitious or mystical or religious or however you want to put it. What did Vander Zalm say the other day? Everybody believes in the Lord above. Or within. Or under. Or everywhere. Or around the bend of time and space. Somewhere. Somehow. In some form, Same people protest louder than others that they don't: believe in anvthing. But even pure atheism is a belief system. It requires, in fact, even more of an act of faith to believe that there definitely is no God, since there is no particular evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, is there? That life is cruel proves nothing. God probably doesn’t give a hoot one way or the other, and besides, if you live many Umes, surely you can’t expect your existences to always be upscale. My wife announced a while ago that she didn’t believe in God. That was interesting, because she had never argued with my metaphysical musings. And cer- titinly she has never objected to my endless conversations with my kids about God, metaphyplisies, Jesus, Buddha, Seth, the Tao, and | Ching, astrology or any of the other stuff which | think is impor- lant to expose them to. So-l was shocked. Big deal. But wait. Scarcely a week passed and we learned that the daughter of some very close friends of ours had leukemia. We cried, of course. And felt bitter about the unfairness of life, since these particular people were quite selfless and had done much to deserve karmic rewards, not punishment. The next morning, my wile told me simply: “1 praved last night. P couldn't resist saying to her, the lady whe didn't believe in Goud: “There are no atheists im the tren ches, eh?" In the crunch, believes in something. A small example: [ fave a tiny bit of cloth left that was given to me many years ago by a chap call- ed the Gywala Karmapa SV1, after the Dali Lama the highest-ranking Tibetan Buddhist. In a ceremony of blessing, he fied a strip of red prayer cloth from a Tibetan monestary around my neck and told me that as long asd wore it, no harm would come to me. Over the years, T have torn off bits of it to give to various friends Tthought could use alf the magical protection they could get. So far, so good. To this day, if | find myself everybady climbing on a plane without the litue pouch containing the rem- nants of the prayer cloth, my stomach goes cald and hard. J have survived, needless to say, without it. Yet, however irrational it may be, 1 feel a helluva lot better with it than without, Last summer, Toran with the bulls in Pamplona, You can be sure To had my pouch with its magical contents securely strapped tomy belt. [was doing the run along with a tnend who prides himself on not believing in any cobblegook what soerer. He dismisses Buddhists, for instance, as a bloated brotherhood of Jamas who ripped off the Tibetan peasant class for millennia before being kicked out by the Commies. Yet when f offered him a frag- ment from my bit of prayer cloth, he “humored™ me and stuffed it in his pocket. F don't think there are too many atheists in the streets of Pamplona when the bulls are let loose, either. Certainly not the Spaniards, who pray their brains out before running. 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