There\u2019s no sense of urgency in Charlottetown late on a Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

A kind of stillness presides, an unhurried ease and absence of pretence. Nobody we saw was lost into the world of their iPhone like so many people in Toronto appear to be, all of them attempting to project a narrative of velocity and importance to the strangers passing by. No, the conversations here came slow and easy– almost humidly– as if each encounter were expected to last weeks rather than seconds.<\/p>\n

While in a somewhat matronly dress shop I overheard the two middle-aged women who worked there talking.<\/p>\n

\u201c John keeps crashing the truck into the barn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLordy!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know! He hasn\u2019t done any damage yet, but geez, it\u2019s only a matter of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou gotta paint a big, red stop sign on that barn, I tell you. You have to stop that man!\u201d<\/p>\n

On the street a woman of about 25, pretty but wounded, approached us and asked for some change. She gestured to her loose fitting denim shirt, \u201cI\u2019m pregnant and hungry.\u201d Seeing her moving toward us I had already decided that if I had change in my pocket I would give some to her, but if I had to dig into my laptop bag, I would not. This was the calculus I had made, the line I had arbitrarily drawn in the sand. After checking my pockets I apologized to her, telling her I didn\u2019t have any change and she trembled, about to cry. \u00a0Rachelle then dug into her purse and gave her a couple of dollars, as regardless of this woman\u2019s articulated circumstance, her need, for whatever reason, was more immediate and real than our own.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Cutting through a park near a church we passed a group of about a dozen people seated in a circle on the shaded grass. One man, probably around 35, sat elevated from the rest in a lawn chair that might have been bought at a Canadian Tire in the 1980s. He looked a bit like Jesus, this man, and the resemblance didn\u2019t seem accidental. Leaning back in his chair, he nodded beatifically as the people around him brought him their troubles. A 50 year-old, a round and pale dad wearing a floppy Tilley hat, frustrated, was speaking with his hands, \u201cIt seems that the kids today are so remote from both their parents and God, all they ever do is play video games and I worry about this disconnect.\u201d Canadian Tire Jesus put his finger to his lips, composing a thought, while the young girls sitting in this circle of faith watched him so closely, their eyes shining with something they couldn\u2019t quite put into words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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