Calgary Trip
Yesterday the Summit group took a trip down to Calgary to interview people about their worldviews. The bus ride was about 1.5 hours. As expected, I fell asleep. I was sitting next to Brad, who is quiet like me. He was reading most of the time.
When we get there, the bus unloads and we all group up in 3’s. We have to walk across a suspension bridge to get to the park, our destination. I wish would have brought my camera. Across the bridge we step into this amazing park. It is beautiful, with plenty of open space for games, a large playground, and walking trails. Evidently, there was some big Hispanic festival going on, and we saw a lot of Hispanics. Maria wasn’t there 
. Some of the Hispanic kids were playing soccer, and as soon as Nathan notices, he runs over to join them.
I was with Danny and Joel, both of whom are Canadians. Joel is the most talkative of us all, a meloncholy sanguine I would say. Sometimes he does completely random things, but most of the time he is fairly subdued. We interviewed a total of 8 groups of people in the 1.75 hours we spent there. We talked to a Buddhist, Humanist, Post Modernist, and several who weren’t really able to articulate what they believed. We asked 4 main questions:
Do you have a purpose?
What is the really real?
Who am I?
How do I know what is true?
Of course we ended up asking more questions, mainly just to clarify what people said. The Buddhist was the most complete in his answers. It was obvious that he had thought and studied a lot about the subject.
A lot of people answered “To make money” to the question of whether they have a purpose or not. Most people did not believe there was anything beyond what they could see. Most people experience made things true.
One guy Dylan and Kyle talked to claimed to be Jesus. He was spinning around in circles with a bucket of water in one hand, and a toilet cleaner brush in the other making designs on the concrete with the spilled water. Dylan said he kept bringing up the number 666, and variations on it. He quoted scripture, especially Revelation. He said to several questions, “I am not ready to reveal that yet.”
Overall it was an enjoyable time. It really was interesting to listen to what people believed. Some people had never thought about this before.
The bus ride home was interesting. Zach and Rob argued the whole time who had the better military. Rob is ex Canadian military and Rob is America. Finally we decided to decide the issue for ourselves by duking it out at Camp Bighorn. Rob knows some pretty cool war games. Later that day at dinner Dylan called me a “little guy” and “punk”. I told him I could take him anytime. We finished dinner and went outside. He took off his jacket, so I thought he was serious. I took off my pullover and we began to circle. I had mentioned that I knew some jujutsu moves. There were a bunch of girls eating dinner at a picnic table right there.
Unfortunately the jujutsu moves I know are all defense, and depend on the the opponent attacking first. Dylan did not, and instead backed away when I approached. Finally I just for him, tried to pull his legs out from under him. That didn’t work. Dylan’s calves are immense. He tried to put me in a headlock, but I threw him off and was about to attack again when he called it off on account of the gals. “It isn’t proper to fight in front of girls” or something like that.
Today we probably will continue the fight. However, this morning I beat Dylan in chess, so I feel pretty good.
