extravagance

Sometimes it's tough being a poor grad student. Today I heard about Canucks tickets being scalped for less than a thousand dollars as a *decrease* and I sighed...that's two months of rent. Or several months of groceries. How on earth can someone justify such extravagance?

Then I place my own life up for sale.

My life includes a a roof over my head--a roof that shelters me and many others in an expensive Vancouver neighborhood. It's my own room with a warm bed, donated flowering plant and stupendous view of North Van across the water. It's a shared kitchen where we talk about the day, envy other people's good cooking, and sometimes people leave out cookies on the free board.
My life includes food to eat; professional medical care (physical and psychological); a cheap bus pass and reliable public transportation system; a bike to ride; the advent of summer after an endless rainy spring.
My life includes learning ideas that are not mere abstract concepts, but breathing wisdoms to be inhabited and worn to change the world. It's the classes at Regent, the public lectures, the movies shown, the prayer retreats, the conversations in the atrium. It's chapel and singing songs and taking communion together.
And my life includes people. It's the crowd that assembles for community meals on Wednesday nights and it's Davi serenading the house with hymns and praise songs. It's the folks I'm planning to live with next fall. It's the kindly couple who sit in front of me at church. It's spot prawn dinners and hockey-watching with friends. It's the brilliance and kindness of my peers in class. It's the pastoral care, advice, teaching and lived life of Regent faculty and staff. It's exchanging letters and emails with dear friends from far away; it's being able to go home and spend time with my family. It's the gift of a new but beloved relationship.

How on earth can someone justify such extravagance, indeed.