so real

today i got to uni about half an hour before eu was to start, so i went down to the park and sat in the dappled sunlight. many a lunchtime at high school amelia and i discussed the wonders of dappled sunlight as opposed to straight sun or straight shade. the decision we came to time and time again--that dappled sunlight was the brilliantest--was certainly true. i was sitting in this dappled sunlight, reading arundhati roy's the god of small things...i know roy doesn't mean the god i love, but as i was sitting there i meditated a bit on that title. certainly he is the god of small things--of each beautiful petal of a flower, of high distinctions or even just passes, of trains arriving at the station just as you do, of voices swelling up in church, of wiping away every individual tear, of moments like those in that park before eu. the sky was the clearest blue--you know the effect you get when you are in 'paint' and you select a section of your crappy little scribble to fill with colour? say you picked the light blue colour. that's the kind of sky god let me look up at in the park today. the awkward blocks of grey protruding from beyond the park--the city buildings--looked absurd, such was that awesome vast blue mass. like god had grabbed a god-sized brush and painted it in one smooth, god-like stroke. if i looked directly up (which obviously, i did, otherwise i wouldn't be able to write this sentence) the leafy tree, which sprouted up like one of those fab afros on brooding arty uni boys, was punctured by a dot of brilliant light. the sun. so bright my oversize sunglasses couldn't compete. but not nearly as bright at the light jesus embodies. the tree was punctured by the sunlight, offering a tiny glimpse at the penetration of god's light in this world of darkness. sitting there, i felt utterly calm. i felt silent. i felt content. i wasn't bored or anxious or stressed. i didn't have to make sure i looked sufficiently pretty and confident to fool those around me that i wasn't 'making sure' and that it was effortless and natural to be pretty and confident. the two boys kicking a soccer ball around, the couple chatting, the young guy reading and highlighting ferociously: all insignificant to me. just--that feeling of being alone, and happily so. at least at that moment i was content with being alone and being with god and knowing jesus. which should be enough at every instance, of course. 'i have learned the secret of contentment,' wrote paul. that is a secret i know and just need to cling to and grasp at with the fervour of all those action heroes dangling off a precipice in the climatic scene at the end of those dirge-like films.

as i was settling in, i realised there was weird sticky stuff on the ground where i was sitting. and as i got up to brush myself off the 'no vsu' rally march bore itself down past the library and next to the park. a seething, yelling, colourful mass of people, sweaty with protestation and passion, brows furrowed with the effort of prepared slogans and rallying calls led by the most enthusiastic of their kind, who chanted into their megaphones with pride. i agree vsu should be stopped; i understand it's implications for university life. but in truth, the juxtaposition of the tranquility of that park and the spectacle those marchers as they wound their way down was more than a little comical. everything took on humorous undertones: a red-hot university protester, running across the park to catch up to the march, with his curly mop of hair flopping rythmically up and down against his back, the fact that the two guys playing soccer seemed to get worse with practice. etc etc. it was a nice, private, inward-looking feeling; like i was privy to a joke made by and for myself. or maybe that god revealed the funniness, the quirkiness, of those little gestures of the few people scattered across the park. 'oh that was so real' wails jeff in his lovely tortured tenor on windows media player, right this second. indeed it was. so real, and so god's, and so me being privileged and blessed.