I just came back from a few errands, all accomplished within a block of where we live, and was reminded again of how this ("the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood) really is an idyllic/Disneyland/Sesame Street kind of an area.

There in front of the St. Lawrence Market, north building, Vendors From Many Nations were selling miscellaneous wares while inside (and outside) members of the White Tribe sold fruits and vegetables, baked goods, cheese, honey, etcetera, at the weekly farmer's market.

Passing by, I entered the tiny, new TD Canada Trust branch to get eight loonies and eight quarters for laundry, then moved on to Front Street Market for a few things (but, of course, ended up coming out laden with bags). On the way home I did pick up a few items at the farmer's market, including a cauliflower twice or three times the size of normal ones. (It cost a buck!)

Now, home again, I'm planning my day as messages such as "Make it count" and "Don't waste time" play in the back of my mind. (Other messages: Life is serious and Time is precious.) Yes, which is why even pausing to do this can seem like I'm stealing time from something else I really ought to be doing. (So there, you've gotten some small glimpse into a few of my semi-neurotic musings, but trust me, essentially I'm a rather happy guys these days, I think.)

In other news, did you see that story linked from Yahoo about the new biography by someone named David Michaelis of Peanuts creator Charles Shultz saying Shultz was not a happy camper ? Friends and family, according to the author, by the way, said Shultz was also "a humble man, a shy man, a warm man, and a sweet man."

That's interesting. Shultz had some sort of Christian connection--he taught Sunday School and some guy wrote a book years ago called The Gospel According to Peanuts (remember that, Boomers?). That "gospel" book, I assume, Shultz's family didn't have a problem with, but this new one by Michaelis, they hate.

Yes, the worst thing you can say about a man these days is not that he was a scoundrel, a cheat, and a womanizer, but rather, that "he was not happy." ("How dare you imply our father was depressed?!")

There's Someone Else I suppose would be marked down as a Loser these days--you know, the One who was described in Isaiah 53 as being "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." That old dude writer/preacher from the 50's and 60's, A. W. Tozer, once summed up the countercultural, Christian position this way: "We can afford to suffer now; we'll have all eternity to enjoy ourselves." (And yes, I know, as Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out, Christians typically should be the most joyful people around, but the Bible also contains that other side of truth which sounds so strange in today's self-indulgent, happiness-crazed world.)

Anyhow, that's all I'm going to scribe for now. Hope you're all having just the most refreshing and useful and rejuvenating weekend imaginable....