Pied - It's not beyond anyone's understanding if they would just get over being totally literal-minded...or merely interpreting everything they read to suit an already established prejudice.

Billy - I know just how you feel. :-) The easiest way to find Shane, I guess, is to go to Blind River's one and only Tim Horton's any day of the week, and hang around for a few hours. When you see this guy come in who looks like this: ratty old plaid jacket, baseball cap on backwards, longish dirty blonde hair, mustache, 5 O'Clock shadow, torn jeans, old lumberjack boots, it might very well be Shane...or it might be another young fool from Blind River. Yell out, "Hey, bolthole!!!" If it's Shane, he'll probably yell back something like, "Whaddya want, Flipface?" From there, say something like, "How about them Leafs, eh?" and offer to buy him a coffee. I predict that within a short time you will be fast friends. You can then make your way to the Iron Horse or some other handy watering hole and try to pick up some local girls. Good luck! Blind River is in North Ontario, a fair way west of Sudbury. It's a hole. Be warned that Shane will try to bum cigarettes, drinks, and drugs off you...

Blind River is a totally excellent place for destroying brain cells, so you're on the right track. :-)

Now don't get the idea I'm against science. I'm not. Science is great. And while the conventional churches may be 2 millenia behind the times, as you suggest, that is not true of all spiritual seekers by any means. Quite the contrary. If spirituality does not agree with science, then something is seriously wrong. The one should support the other, and they do.

I agree that being a squirrel could be pretty cool. I like squirrels a lot.

- LH