Where to start?

Today was the first cross race of the season, Mudfest, in St. Adolphe. A great time, as always. But what kind of a great time is it when, about halfway through your last lap you're asking yourself why you've paid money and signed up for a whole series of these things. Then you hammer down to the finish, cross the line, gasp for air, find some water, put your feet up and laugh with a friend about it, and it's all clear to you. Of course you'll do it again. For that moment right there you'll do almost anything again.

Then you get home and head out to soccer scrimmage with the boys. You're still hurting from that endo you suffered (because for one second you let your mind wander) just a few minutes before you had that existential moment on the track, but you go anyway. And the boys are there, all energy and happiness to be kickin' the ball around with friends. You start the game. You play terribly, though they play well. You're feeling pretty good about the team and their prospects for the season. From your vantage point as a goalie you, in this small-town in southern Manitoba, watch as a group of five Muslim women fully covered in hijabs walk along the paved path just south of the pitch. You here them laughing and stopping to talk or gathering around one who is showing the others something. You can hardly imagine that this is happening. You think about how they might be feeling. Why they are out walking across a schoolyard on a rather warm Fall night. Are they relaxed and elated that the only danger might be the snickering of some young Canadians? Has life become much better since they've arrived here? 

It is quite simply astonishing that they are here at all. Whatever Merkel or Cameron say about the failure of multiculturalism in their countries, the wonder of it is that when you put diverse people together, the lives of those people are enriched. Will there be tension? Yes. But if they surmount it, because they choose to see the similarities rather than the differences, what could be better? Meanwhile Abdalhadi made his 5th (or was it his 6th) run up field with the ball, only to launch it way over the net.