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Merci Canada!


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This plaque is on the wall of the American Consulate in Quebec City.


“With our thanks and remembrance:


As the United States marks the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, in the name of all Americans, the Consulate General thanks the people of Canada for your support and generosity on this tragic day.


Among the nearly 3,000 innocent victims that day were 24 of our Canadian friends.

The people of Canada were with us in our darkest moments, as you have always been.


Neither terrorism nor adversity can conquer free people. We are happy to have the best neighbors in the world.


We commemorate the past together while looking to the future.


We are eternally grateful.”



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Canadians are a gracious and gentle neighbor and friend. I am grateful for the summer weeks among them.



Vive le Canada!




 
 
 

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© 2023 by Marie Laure

​Six Stages of Pilgrimage:

  • The Call:

  • The opening clarion of any spiritual journey. Often in the form of a feeling or some vague yearning, a fundamental human desire: finding meaning in an overscheduled world somehow requires leaving behind our daily obligations. Sameness is the enemy of spirituality.

  • The Separation:

  • Pilgrimage, by its very nature, undoes certainty. It rejects the safe and familiar. It asserts that one is freer when one frees oneself from daily obligations of family, work, and community, but also the obligations of science, reason, and technology.

  • The Journey:

  • The backbone of a sacred journey is the pain and sacrifice of the journey itself.  This personal sacrifice enhances the experience; it also elevates the sense of community one develops along the way.

  • The Contemplation:

  • Some pilgrimages go the direct route, right to the center of the holy of holies, directly to the heart of the matter. Others take a more indirect route, circling around the outside of the sacred place, transforming the physical journey into a spiritual path of contemplation like walking a labyrinth.

  • The Encounter:

  • After all the toil and trouble, after all the sunburn and swelling and blisters, after all the anticipation and expectation comes the approach, the sighting. The encounter is the climax of the journey, the moment when the traveler attempts to slide through a thin veil where humans live in concert with the Creator.

  • The Completion and Return:

  • At the culmination of the journey, the pilgrim returns home only to discover that meaning they sought lies in the familiar of one's own world. "Seeing the place for the first time . . ."

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