Life is

neighbours is a tough word to spell

2011-03-22T20:50:00.000-07:00

The days have been getting longer. Tonight was noticeably spring-like. Not that imitation spring that sometimes tricks gardeners into sowing their peas in February. Tonight was the real thing. In the spirit of the weather I went for a walk, which took me up through the Dean Park residences. These are the “ritzy” homes that sit up on the mountainside above the street where I live. To be short, the homes are gorgeous and rich.
It was, however, strange to be walking up there. I’ve been back from my short life abroad now for six months, but there are feelings of confusion that haven’t yet departed. Frankly, I hope many of these feelings never leave. They include the feeling of ridiculousness that I encountered upon walking the streets of Victoria again, the feeling of purposelessness in seeing the latest flick for the simple sake of it, and –tonight- the wonder at these mansion homes alone on a mountain side.
Two brand new cars are parked outside a closed garage. I pass nobody on the road and the only sound I hear as I walk by one house is the sound of an automatic garage door closing for the evening. I stop for a moment and realize how uncannily quiet it is. There is a certain appeal in it, but also a strangeness.
Where is everyone?
This scene is incomprehensible for my Filipino friends. I imagine a world where they all inherit these homes. Every room is filled with a body and the food spills out of the kitchen onto back porch barbeques and fire pits in the back yard. Neighbors would visit one another as they transcend the streets. Music would play from windows. Of a sudden all the eligible young ladies would be right down the street at the bbq at address 3483. They wouldn’t hold back from visiting your bbq next when you invite them. There is enough chicken feet and rice for all!
No work would ever get done.
Or would it? What else are people doing on these evenings? I start walking again and am acutely aware of the sound of my feet on the pavement- slightly masking the only other noises: evening bird songs, distant traffic, the subtle whir of a electricity meter. What are people doing? Whatever it is, they are doing it silently. Are they watching TV? Are they eating dinner, reading a book or making love? Are they spending time as a family over a card game or are they preparing work for the next day? Are they surfing the Internet or playing a guitar? Perhaps they aren’t even home. Maybe they are out for dinner or at the tennis court.
Seems a shame to leave a house like this all alone…
I walk back down my own street again. On it, a community gardening unit does not maintain the shrubbery. To each their own- which is usually quite tasteful. In my Dad’s case it is evidenced in the pruned fruit trees and perennials beginning to show their green beginnings: a beautiful blend of practical and colorful culture.
I see my dad walking down the road away from our house as I walk toward it from the other direction. His gait is unmistakable. His stroll is constitutional. I think He knows who lives in every house on our street. He won’t walk by them if they are in their yard or on the street, without saying hello. I see him deviate from his path at the Lee’s. He leans over their fence- no doubt- to greet their dog. Funny thing how some dogs- like this one- will bark at you until you greet it with that inoffensive enthusiasm. Then all the fight drops into a flurry of wags and dog smiles.
Last week my dad saw a neighbor helplessly standing between their fruit tree and her pruning shears. “Do you know how to prune a fruit tree by any chance?” She asked.
Turns out she was asking a orchard hobbyist- by chance. Of course he showed her the basics before he finished his walk, but not without making better one friendship of a neighbor.
Funny that the definition “neighbor” doesn’t change whether you are best friends or complete strangers. When I think of a good neighbor I would like to think of My Dad. 25 years he has lived on this street, traversed its length with his daily walks. He has talked weather, gardens, cars and family with a medley of characters. He has walked straight through race and age restrictions, and effortlessly sidestepped grudges or misgivings. He isn’t the bubbly character who will invite his neighbors over for dinner every week of the year- that isn’t his personality. By his humble walking, walking, walking, however, he has made his way into those crucial parts of several neighbors’ lives. I’ve seen it. This is what I believe a good neighbor is.
Although harder when life in some communities is separated by endless garage doors and television schedules, maybe something can be accomplished by just walking, listening, looking at what makes up our communities, and of course- knowing how to prune fruit trees helps too.

The Rock

2010-12-04T21:27:00.000-08:00

It's a funny thing to hit
Rock bottom alive.
A pin hole of blue
Is all left of the sky

You have nowhere to go but from where you came
To get up again, if you find the strength

You hit bedrock and got stuck in a hole
Long time since you freed the end of your rope

With nowhere but up, and your choice locked in this;
The strength lent your legs by the rock bottomest

Yes, you've fallen through
To your lowest of stages
But your stand at the bottom
Is on the Rock of all Ages

introspection

2010-06-30T01:25:00.000-07:00

July 11

Seven times the waves broke over top of me
I came up cleansed from my infirmity
Froze heart stop beating
Seared soul brought nigh
New and breathing blood beating
Alive
Come through death to the other side
White washed Red sea in
Walked out dry.

July 26

Flung alive to the pitching waves
And they closed over my head
I said "I am lost" unto the flood
Can Leviathan resurrect?

Mercy

2010-06-22T01:33:00.000-07:00

I watched "The Breakfast Club" for the first time recently. I was not quite sure if I liked it or not until I finished it and sat on it for a while, and then decided that i did.
I thought it would make a great group question to ask, "which character would have you been in high school? The basketcase, jock, dweeb, beauty queen or criminal? I immediately jumped for the basketcase. But when i got honest with myself I realized i was closer to the dweeb. Thinking upon it further I realized that the jock wasn't far off the mark either. Even the beauty queen and criminal had elements that i related to. I realized that that was the point of the movie. As it says at the end,

"we realized that we were not really that different. Inside of each one of us there was a Basketcase, a Dweeb, a Jock, a Beauty Queen, and a Criminal."

I don't mind telling you that a month ago I was in a pit of depression and doubting my faith. I felt like the bible and Christian faith were not adding up. God seemed distant and I realized just how invisible He was.
Funny thing about faith; you can't really prove it any more than you can disprove it. If you're getting caught on this statement you are thinking too hard. Forget I said it if it helps. I'm saying that it is not usually logic that makes people accept their faith, and I do not think it is usually logic that makes people walk away either.
When everything felt at the brink of breaking for me it was missing one final ingredient and it was not reason. It was relationship. Like it was probably a relationship that brought you to faith, it was the need for a broken relationship I felt i needed to walk away. God did not need to betray me. The church would do. If a solid christian in my life misunderstood me right now then I would have all the justification I would need to walk away from the faith.

This wasn't going to happen. Despite doubt, disillusionment and depression, I didn't have despair yet. I certainly did not have a church who would betray me. I knew them too well. They are wonderful people, the Christians who support me. The thing that makes them wonderful is not their lofty unshakable convictions either. Nope. Its their honesty, venerability. It makes them approachable. If I tell them that I'm drowning, they won't cut me loose. They will put on a life jacket and jump in with me, letting me hold onto them until i stop hyperventilating. They are not too "holy" to touch me and they are not too high up to reach.

Looking back on this situation, though my clothes are still wet from it, I realize a good thing that came from it. I believe I've grown in mercy and compassion.

As a teenager I led a youth Bible study/discussion group. Because of the informal nature of the meeting, it often attracted the kind of people who had trouble breathing inside a church.
Although I was not a perfect leader, I like to think (and hope) that I got one thing right. I remained approachable and venerable. I was a kid, I did not know all the answers and i did not pretend to. If friends lived their lives in contradiction to my moral set or did not agree with my beliefs, I like to think that i focused on who they were rather than drawing a line between the two of us based on contrasting moral convictions.

I'm glad I didn't make you-me distinctions, especially in hindsight. This difficult time I've gone through has made me grow in empathy, sympathy, compassion, understanding and admiration for the likes of doubters, depressives, intellectuals, artists, spiritual seekers, self-proclaimed agnostics, people of other faiths, addicts and users.

Because I think I was open, and accepting of who people were, I can still look these friends in the eye if i cross them on the street or in a coffee shop to this day. Neither of us drew lines or closed a door. They seem to respect the way I live my life and my faith, maybe partially because I respected who they were. Therefore, the conversation is ongoing.

I remember the scene in John 8 (which I recognize is a contested part of John, but I'm going to pass by that right now. Its not enough to make me write it off.) In the scene Jesus confronts the scene of a woman caught in adultery. Jesus says to the scribes and Pharisees, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." (ESV)
Then, one by one, they leave until it is only Jesus and the woman left. Jesus, who Christians hold to have been the only man without sin, is therefore the only one justified to throw a stone. But He says, "Neither do I condemn you".
You better believe that it was mercy and not condemnation or a high moral code that made her "go, and from now on sin no more."

What is it that those outside the Christian faith see, our convictions or our mercy?

It seems that the people who Jesus had the least tolerance for were the Pharisees. the Pharisees were the ones with a high moral order. In fact, their disciplines were so high that they might be historically argued to have preserved the Judaistic faith, traditions and scriptures.
However, it is the pharisees who Jesus accuses- the ones who were technically the most sinless.
I love that we see Jesus act mercifully toward a Pharisee when he comes to Jesus to check his notes. It is in John 3, which is careful to point out that the Pharisee comes to Jesus "by night".
By Night. I bet you that this Pharisee's "gospel truth" was shaking, and that he was scared. He wasn't sure enough about this Jesus to let people see him going to talk to him maybe. But under the cover of darkness, he could disclose openly his questions. I like that Jesus meets him at this level. He doesn't come down on him for acting stealthily. Instead he goes ahead and explains and answers questions- even if they sometimes only seem to lead to more questions.

I understand why Christians speak above their level of knowledge and grasp for pat answers and rock solid doctrine. I understand. Coming face to face with hard questions and leaving them unanswered at the end of the day is scary and uncomfortable.
Fear is a dangerous motivator though. I read recently that the most repeated command in the Bible is to not be afraid. Do not worry, do not be anxious, do not be afraid, do not be terrified; the Bible is full of such sentiment.

Imagine if the members of "The Breakfast Club" held onto their fear and never opened up to each other. They would never have become venerable, shared, and in the end, liberated. There is something about truth that sets us free. But something about fear that binds us.

I'm not sure what would have happened if we threw a "born and raised Christian" into the mix with the Breakfast Club.

I imagine that He'd be the most afraid of opening up. Especially about his faith, because he wouldn't be able to stand under the fire of questions that would be inevitably thrown at him. He's only a teen. His own confidence might slip! Would he be open about the f***ed up part of his own life? Or would he be afraid that he would "betray his wittiness" by looking as if he were living beneath his own moral standards or faith ideal? If anyone else opens up about their garbage, however, he can't help but think, "sinner". He can't help thinking this because its how he runs his own life. He is a sinner when he sins and better than everyone else when he doesn't. This is how he justifies himself.
Everyone would despise him. Not because he is being the least like Christ, but because he's a closed door. If his disposition doesn't reek of judgement, than it certainly is drawing a line between him and everyone else. "If he's so much better than everyone else then he probably doesn't want to touch us lepers" the criminal would say. So in the end they would put him in the closet and lock the door. Everyone would be glad.
But what if he is better than everyone else! Let his convictions speak!
No. Let mercy speak.

Let compassion speak. Let truth speak. Let the Holy spirit have a clear, unbound, and fearless vessel through which to set free and speak life.

In Luke 6 Jesus says that,
"the Most High... is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful"

And he continues,
"Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you." (ESV)

One of our moral convictions as Christians is mercy itself.

In John 4 Jesus meets a Samaritan woman with a confused belief system and a messed up life. Jesus points out her moral shortcomings, but it is not as to condemn her. He had already passed the social barrier of speaking to a woman, and the social barrier of friendliness to a Samaritan. It was as if he was pointing out that he was willing to jump over the barrier of her sin as well. He shows her mercy.

Fear not only keeps us from our own healing and letting the Holy Spirit use us, but it draws lines between us and others when it means we are not willing to cross the barriers to get to who someone is (and show them Christ's mercy.)
This is exactly what the Pharisees were not doing (exactly what we as "Church-going Christians" have a danger of not doing). Maybe, like the Pharisees, we are afraid of breaking a rule, getting our hands dirty, touching the leper. Afraid. I understand. We need to remember that mercy should be front line in our arsenal of convictions. Remembering also that we have been shown great great mercy. Remembering where we came from. If we aren't motivated by this, then maybe we have to check ourselves. Have we received healing mercy in our own lives? Is our lives about how good we are or about how good God is to us? If we let God's mercy reign, we are justified. Free to be fearless in The Breakfast Club.

Because honestly,in me there is a basketcase, a jock, a dweeb, a beauty queen, a criminal.... and Jesus.

Parola

2010-06-11T18:33:00.000-07:00

Jun 12

This squatter community is near Divisoria. Like Nevotas it is also situated on the water, but more of the houses that I see, in this case, are situated above the shore line. Consequently I found myself sitting on a narrow walkway, trying awkwardly not to get in the way of the residents going by, watching Noli talking to one of the moms that the ministry works with, and looking out at the water.

The beach does not have shells or sand or rocks as its bed. It has garbage. Literally, the ground is composed of garbage, much of which is also to be seen floating out in the ocean. This doesn't stop children from playing on it or swimming, however. No matter how strong their immunity systems must be from living this long in this kind of environment, there is nothing I can think of that justifies swimming in that.

A woman walks up to me and speaks in english that betrays a likely education (suggesting that perhaps she is too, just a visitor)
"What do you think of this place." The question was surely trying to illicit a response to the immediate seen in the slum, and as there was no right answer to it, I play the aloof visitor and speak generally instead.
"Hot!" I say, (which it was) "mainit!" I add, proud that I know the Tagalog word.
Bullet dodged.
"Many children," she comments, gesturing to the kids playing on the beach. "This place is good at producing children!"
It is said with an air of humor, but I could see the underlying statement.

Family management and planning are hot topics in the Philippines. They are the answers, some would say, to, "why do the children swim in waste?" or "why do families have so many children when they can not afford it"
"Overpopulation" is also an inevitable buzz word. I picked up a book recently which seemed to suggest that it was one of, if not the Philippine's primary problem.
I would be slow to call human life a problem, but there is no doubting that there is a correlation with the amount of people and economic disparity etc. The book looked like it was going to start railing against the catholic church's war on contraceptives. This, is another hot topic.
Just yesterday I saw on the news, a catholic protest against sex education. I guess the idea is the one of schools sex ed classes only causing more sexual curiosity and therefore activity and the promotion of condoms and the idea of "safe sex" at the same time.
On Valentines day an authority handed out condoms to a boatload of people. The result was an uproar. As you can imagine, the government saying that it wasn't their idea, a few liberals saying that it should have been their idea and the Catholics in a state. The action of the individual who pulled the stunt would be called by most, "irresponsible" but by a few, also "shrewd." For it threw the country into an debate forum. A conversation in which also STDs can hardly be avoided as subject manner. Timely since the Philippines has just recently come out with the numbers that show AIDS is no longer "Low and Slow" anymore, but a very serious and immediate problem.

The people at Parola were friendly and once asked Noli if I was alright.
"Oh because I wasn't smiling and looked all serious right?" I said to Noli afterward.
"Yes" he chuckles.
"Darn, that's long been a problem with me. I'm not unhappy or anything. That is just the way I look when I'm thinking."

Grace

2010-02-21T22:35:00.000-08:00

I have often thought of the innability to accept grace, love, acceptance etc. as being a different problem from that of selfishness. However, I was reading a bit of a book by Philip Yancey (one of my favorite writers, pick up one of his books and tell me what you think) called "What's so Amazing About Grace?" and from many quotable phrases, i pulled the following one out for you:

"We live in an atmosphere choked with the fumes of ungrace. Grace comes from outside, as a gift and not an achievement. How easily it vanishes from our dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fittest, look-out-for-number-one world."

Consider this. I have been prone to self-serving-ness in this "dog-eat-dog" world. Why? Because i want to do it without God? Because of Pride? Because I think I am the only means to my ideal life? Perhaps also because at the heart i don't want to trust and I can't bear to lean. Truly, I'm afraid. I struggle with accepting his hand, his love, his grace. If I could accept, then maybe this striving would cease to matter. Everything I have could be swallowed with the liberated appetite that accompanies a free meal. Guilt free. Grace.

Hati

2010-01-23T02:58:00.000-08:00

Tonight I was hanging out with some friends who wanted to watch a movie. Angie said that we should watch 7 Pounds because I needed a good cry and probably hadn't had one in a while. I, perhaps taking the comment beyond its humorous intent, retorted that I had watched 7 Pounds and it hadn't made me cry the first time. And that, in addition, I had already had something of a cry earlier that very day. First of all I was told I had to have had a heart of stone to have watched such an emotional movie and not be moved to tears. Secondly, I was questioned as to what would, then, have brought me to the edge that very day. I didn't answer, but I'll try now:

It seems like cynics are easy to foster in our culture. I'm a good example. We become cynical of our governments, cynical of things we don't understand, and cynical of ourselves because we know that our society is the most successful failure we've ever seen.
Recently Canada was accused of covering up a placement of Afghan detainees that knowingly resulted in their torture. All I seemed to hear about it from Ottawa is whose job should be lost as a result and who gets to fill it once they're gone. Nothing about morals. Little about making things right. Never an apology (that i heard). "What has happened to our humanity?" one might be heard to ask. "At what point is this not a game anymore?" See, it's easy to be a cynic.
Over the past decade, those US officials responsible for pushing the war in the middle east have been accused of doing it for the oil rather than for domestic reasons. Amid conspiracy theory a population grows apathetic and stone heartened to the "propaganda" that floods their televisions. Perhaps we all are cynics.

Perhaps my heart has been cold as anyones.

but this is what happened:

I drove to victoria and back for something- i don't remember what. On the way there i saw the sign emploring everyone to donate to Hati relief. I think the dj on the local rock station was talking about it too. Everybody, it seemed, was talking about it- and trying to do something about it. Even one of my employers young daughters had just told me a day or few earlier that she was doing a bake sale.
I decided to listen to CBC 2 on the way home. The entire day on air was dedicated to Hati. There was related music and massive fundraising. It seemed like this was not simply a marketing push, the sound of its voice didn't allow for me to believe in less than genuine compassion. I was touched by the programming, but what really pushed me to the edge was, as i was still listening, i passed under an overpass on which a handful of people were waving signs to give to hati and how to do it. As I drove underneath I knew i wouldn't, for my current situation, go donate right then, but i gave the a thumbs up as i drove underneath. A communication that connected. I knew what they were doing, how important it was, and they knew that i knew and that i was right there with them in spirit. I felt a connection. I felt a belief in humanity, and among the reality that hung over this disaster I begin to cry for the gain that hati seemed to have made in our humanity. As if, even as we were helping her, that she was saving us.

Maybe if Victoria could unite, if Canada could unite. Maybe if all these nations were pouring in millions upon millions to a country that probably did nothing for them, then there was hope. Maybe there's still hope for us as people; as humans.

Church

2010-01-10T14:52:00.001-08:00

I had a beautiful run in with church recently.
The service that I had normally been attending (and loving), The service that might be responsible in part for making me love church (in its institution?) again, was coming to an end. The service took place on saturday nights and was not a thing apart from the congregation that met in the same building on Sunday mornings. The saturday night service had been something of an experiment in expansion and a trial of creativity. It was not a separate church from Sunday morning if you take my meaning. It was, however, a different format that i found myself very engaged in. The sunday morning formats were different, and I hadn't been regularly attending them, for various reasons, for 2 years. I had actually been frustrated with it all about 2 years earlier, and felt at the time that I needed to take a break- not from resentment perhaps as much as from a sense of needing something fresh which i could give and take more to and from. Now, with the saturday night services ending, which i had started attending consistently about a year earlier, I knew my next move.
I had showed up on the occasional Sunday morning here and there, but things were entitled to have changed. Would people even remember who I was? I wanted to make sure they did.
The Saturday night before I would be making a comeback to the sunday morning service, I was driving home with a friend from Victoria. She was going to be staying at my family's place overnight and i was going to drop her off at her church service in the morning before going to mine.
"Won't you be late for your service then?" she asked.
"I don't mind being late actually." I countered. "actually, to tell you the truth, i've shown up late on purpose lots of time to church. No-one seems to mind if I do, and it sometimes just makes it much easier."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't know. I guess i just get closterphobic when i'm sitting in a room full of people for more than an hour. I start getting fidgety and scetching out. Especially if the Pastor decides to speak overtime, as he often does.
"Oh"
"Plus, i guess there's also the fact that sometimes the music just drives me crazy at the beginning. I mean, it depends and it sounds terribly rediculous or selfish i'm sure, but i can't get around it driving me crazy sometimes."
"Oh i see" she says, "So if you're only here for a few weeks more before you leave" (this is a few weeks before my departure to the Philippines, which is supposed to keep me away for about half a year) "...and if you don't like your church that much... why don't you just go somewhere else?"
The question was fair. But my own indignancy suprised me.
"Go somewhere else?! What?! I don't think you understand me at all! This is my church. This has been my church since i was 15! I cant just walk out on that! No, i might not like the pastors speaking sometimes and sometimes i even disagree with points, and i might not like the country ballad versions of songs that proceed it- but the pastor and the music leader are my church. They are guys that love me! I leave in a few weeks and i need to be at church to remind them (for those that haven't been attending saturday night services) that I'm still around, I'm still one of their family and that I need them now as much or more than ever!"

As an aside, this conversation is a paraphrase, and i should apologize to my friend because its probably an unfair depiction of a conversation that this friend really helped me process with... and i hope it didn't seem like i was yelling at you. Anyways, thanks for listening.

Next day at church was amazing. I felt so at home. I felt so supported. Two or three old ladies whose names i can't even place came up to me and told me how nice it was to see me back around again. It was a great time with a great family with definite quirks (but we're all human?), and i think it might have marked a healing step in coming back to church. I wasn't alienated or resentful, and i was a part of that church (just in a different setting with different people) but I might have been a little lost. A conversation solidified in me what was important. The important part as i see it now is the fact that the people who make up My Church are the people who have been there the whole time; loving people, as faithful as the ocean when you return to it for peace.

post concieved Jan 10. written mar 1

Alice Vs. Captain Hardy

2010-01-07T23:39:00.000-08:00

Sunday

Mike wants to know if I'm still willing and wanting to go to Port Hardy to Visit Ried
"lets shoot for four o clock tomorrow."
It is decided.

Monday

"Want Coffee?"
"Yea, that'd be sweet"
"Snacks"
"For sure"
Werther Originals and Twizzlers accompany bad tasting gas station coffee as we pull out from filling up in mill bay. Five hours to go.

We are warned of Elk before we get to Cambell river. We discuss the immensity of Moose and I imagine how awful it would be to hit one- and how much the moose would notice if you did.

We call Reid when we get cell service. This is about 10 km out of Port Hardy. Mike has neglected to tell him that we were coming so he sounds confused when we tell him that we're just outside of town. Ried has the ability to shake his head with his voice. He's a cop. But he lived by practical street sence long before that. He wouldn't be one to drop in unanounced to a friend who may be working one of any uninteruptible shifts at the time when he expected homage. Fortunately we expected nonesuch, and fortunately Ried knows us. He'll shake his head with his voice and be glad to see us at the same time.
"we just figured we'd light a garbage can on fire or something if you were working."
"Yea that'd be great" Ried returns unconvincingly.
Conveniently, Ried has the next couple days off.
"So what do you want to do?" Ried offers, "We could go see Sharon."

Fortunately Sharon does not live far away. We hop into Ried's car and drive to her place. Partially thanking the fact that Port Hardy is a large abandoned parking lot, we can still see my Toyota from her place. She greets us with the kind of enthusiasm reserved for kids on the last day of school, turned up a few notches.

We decide to Visit Caleb. He lives in Port Alice. Port Alice is a stones throw by thrown stone and 40 minutes of windy narrow road by car. Caleb doesn't expect us either.

We sit at his place and chat untill its considered late enough to trek back to Hardy. When i hit the floor I stay there until late the next morning.

Tuesday

Breakfast, shooting range, Salmon burger, Hockey Juniors for the gold, Canada Juniors take silver, Pie, Game Cube, twenty minutes of M*A*S*H*, Loosing to sleep, Lost.

Wednesday

Nobody serves breakfast after eleven. However, there are cinnamon buns left at the diner, and they are big ones.

Ried wishes me well, I said goodbye to Caleb and Sharon last night. More gas, more coffee, more junk food. We make the trip in five and a half hours. Its beautiful how much ground you can cover when you don't have to take a ferry. Its a beautiful drive.
Mike is home and I am home; tired but unready for sleep. I take my time and begin to plan my next trip. A target from a tactical set at the firing range reminds me of this one.
It was good. It was very good.

December 24-26

2009-12-28T17:09:00.000-08:00

Started out waking up and wrapping presents, but not presents of mine. Every year at the mall a group of friends wrap presents on Christmas eve as a fundraiser for the Mustard Seed food bank. Its a great event to be sure.
The time flew by. I had a good time and wrapped presents with a fury.
Afterward we went to visit my Grandpa. When i say we i mean my immediate family save one. He has been moved into one of those homes where they tell you not to let anyone with a walker out the front door. I don't blame them for trying to escape.
My Grandpa was lost behind a sea of alshimers, drugs, and the decaying body and mind that i guess would come naturally with too much time with no change and too much change all at once. I'm convinced some part of him knew what was going on, that his heirs were there to see him at christmas. A warm-souled Jamaican set the musical backdrop to the scene where he was playing christmas carols and hymns fused in a medley of smiles and eye contact to the immobile and mostly unresponsive group of elderly.
My Grandpa shed tears when i left.
Its something that you don't appreciate a life while its there the same way you do when its gone.
I hiked up a mountain and camped overnight on boxing day so it wasn't 'till I got back that I found out he was gone.

Every Christmas seems to etch its own identity on the sketchbook of my memory with a distinct experience or reflection. I didn't really know what was unusual about this Christmas until it happened all at once.

I think this Christmas I saw life as more than a day, more than a moment, more than an objective. I literally only gave 1 and 1/3 presents this year. And happily i didn't get any dvds. instead, a camping sack, a toque, a book. Things that somehow said life was more than 1.5 hours of escape on an evening after work.
A Life of work will be tied off in a 1.5 hour ceremony on saturday that will say only a outline of what it really was. Maybe if were lucky we'll all leave wondering how to live a legacy as well. To leave gifts that really say something.

Risk Factor

2009-12-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about love.
The way i see History in relation to our lives is as a playing field of epic proportions.

I think God has called us to play a role in our own redemptive destiny. He shows us love and lets us dispense it. He lets us become sacrifices to him, playing out the lives he designed us to thrive in.
this is more or less my belief and my view.

I was thinking about love, how it seems to take one more element than sacrifice and action- and i wonder if it has something to do with the tree in the garden of Eden.

If you tell someone that you love them, and I mean with all the depth of a classical wedding vow, how are you not entering a risky zone? (Call me mistrusting if you want. Call me cold and embittered and tell me i have a fear of intimacy if you must but do hear me out.) You may trust them to always love you back like you love them, but what if they don't? What if they change? What if they Leave? What if they die?

Does love take an element of having to gain something to loose?

I have a friend who is about thirty and has traveled all over the world. His way spells experience. His job is jumping out of planes to fight fires and his hobbies are surfing, hiking and kayaking. My kind of guy. He has clearly got nothing to tie him down. He has nothing to lose.
As cool as this is, I can't help but wonder if, with nothing to loose, if he has anything truly great to gain. I wonder if you can make a really really deep impact on someone else's life unless they become something to loose to you. I don't know. I'm hypothisising.
As an aside, maybe what people mean when they say to have the heart of Christ is to realize the love That Christ had for the world and that each one is something of great value to him. I don't think i can love the world on my own. Maybe one or two or ten tops. Maybe we need to remember that it is Christ's love that fills us and to shake off your shoes when you leave?

This last paragraph was off topic meanderings, but i'm sure if there's one place where this kind of "gaining to lose" love is meant to exist- if only to help us understand God- is in marriage and family.

I was reading this book by my friend Don. Well, i guess he isn't really my friend, in that we've never spoke- but his name is Don. He pointed out in his book that the most epic movies involve a character who has to be self sacrificial- probably having his life on the line- to help the many or several significant people whose lives depend on him.
I think I'd like to live an epic movie- so to speak. Does it make a good story having gone to the moon and back if i've never put my life on the line for somebody else? I don't think so.
The Bible says that "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13 (NIV)

This quote brings me back to the macroepic. God is trying to get us back with the accumulation of history Being Jesus and his salvation. His salvation that has been avaliable to all but rejected by so many. That's loss! That's risk! If anyone deserves rejection issues I guess it's Christ- but He knows what He wants. I want that too.
His world crawls with somebody's to lose in this ultimate love epic.
Maybe if i adopt the heart of Christ I can work for him.
Maybe if I mimic Him I will live an epic.

Maybe love takes gaining something to loose.
Maybe love takes the risk factor.

People say they fall in love. I think that I'll have to jump first.

Good Article II

2009-11-20T19:59:00.001-08:00

Ok, so what happens is i read any newspaper i can get my hands on at lunch or coffee break and sometimes find good articles. This one should be of interest. I found it so. I'm sure its a step in the right direction. Do you think it can work?

Click to link.

Good Article

2009-11-20T19:18:00.000-08:00

This guy might get smeared for speaking his mind but i guess he gets diplomatic immunity as a writer. What if I agree with him then. I'll say as much. I think he's very right. He talks about Britain, but you can certainly put Canada in its place.

I like immigration and I like immigrants. I think we have a lot we can learn and experience with peoples of other religions and cultures and countries. I have nothing to say against other races because thats not what i'm talking about. I'm talking about cultural toleration and the fact that there are still moral lines in this country. These are human right issues that i believe we've been fighting for in Afghanistan and other places. If we can't enforce them in Closed Cults, cultural centres or land reserves, then it feels a little confusing to be fighting for them in other countries. Not that i think we shouldn't be in those situations, but you see my point? These morals apply whether you are chinese or indian, muslim or Mormon, Aboriginal or fifth generation canadian dutch. This writer says there is a universal morality. I must agree. If you think i sound offensive (and believe me, it feels like it too) maybe we need to realize that our sensitivity to offend is what can breed ignorance and set us up for a serious fall.

Your thoughts?

Click to link to the article

Remember

2009-11-11T20:47:00.000-08:00

I thought that today I might not go to the cenotaph. I was working and figured that from the field i'd be in at 11:00am I would take a minute to remember the veterans to the pastoral scene of ocean, hills and surmising Canadian Geese.
However, as i began to think on the nature of the day (and also listened to some BBC World Service Podcasts and one with Stuart McLean from CBC- all themed in some way around freedom and rememberance day) I changed my mind.

I came inside the farm house for a coffee and asked my employer where the assembly was held on their island- because i wanted to go. She, who wouldn't have minded if i took the whole day off, offered the Jeep to my use for the rest of the day.

The blue jeep had actually belonged to her late father who had, himself, been a WWII Vet. The Jeep sped and cornered with a spirit that makes one joke that it has a bit of the old Dr. (known for his frenzied driving- perhaps adapted in the war) embedded in it's engine's soul.

The pipers, the RCMP, The Veterans.
The heartstirring anthem and the buglers.

The horn sounded from the fire hall. I think it might have been an air raid signal- although i don't know if such small towns in far-removed Canada were outfitted with them. Whether or not, it was the most stirring moment for me as the incredibly loud signal ripped through me. it was reminiscent of movies that i'd seen with that sound, except this was the real thing. I suddenly felt a reminiscence and empathy for the people who lived through such times.

As the names of the fallen were called I looked into the crowd to see a woman with her daughter's arm holding her- reddened eyes holding back tears. To her this was no mere list of names.

If you were never raised going to your local cenotaph on Nov 11th, i encourage you to not let your habits stop you from getting out of your way next year. The WWI vetrans passed on, it won't be long before the WWII Vetrans are gone before you can stand to salute them.

I hope that Nov 11th is as important to you as it is to me. I feel it is the only day of the year (excepting perhaps Canada day) that all residents of this far and wide should observe.

If you are a vocal pacifict then you are a hipocrite to not lead the way.
If you are an immigrant then these vetrans sacrificed for you as well.
If you are an idealist then learn from those who took self-sacrificing action in the face of the less than ideal, so that you could have ideals.

Other holidays are mostly of cultural or religious affiliation- and therefore you have your freedoms not to be involved (although i wish we'd all share our own cultures and religious affiliations with each other more) but Rememberance day is for every one who calls themselves a free Canadian. It is a moral obligation.

Apparently the silence on Rememberance day was suggested by an Austrailian visiting Britian and seeing the young people dancing and boys kissing the girls in the streets and thought that a silent rememberance would be more appropriate. I certainly agree with him. we don't want the day lost in a party.
However, i must also immagine what it might have felt like to have the war over. The war was reason for solemness. Its end was reason for dancing.

Two days ago was the 20th aniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. I don't want to over-romanticise this event, but there is no getting around its incredible symbolic and physical significance when it was breached and crossed and torn down. Freedom employed. Wow.

I watched Swing Kids recently and was influenced by the way that the freedom to dance like Americans was threatened to the utmost in youth culture in Germany. I started swing dancing this year, and am pretty glad that i can do so without fear of being shut down or locked up.
I think along with remembering those who sacrificed for our freedom comes a sort of inner obligation to celebrate the aspects of that freedom. Speak freely of religion and culture and art. Get a great education, research history and literature and reach for the sky. Today we remember and we do not forget. For tomorrow we will dance (and maybe even kiss some girls).

Join with me, become aware of our fighting men both past and present. Our boys are supposed to be back from Afganistan in 2011. Let's remeber them too.

and get dead

2009-11-10T19:30:00.000-08:00

The lone ranger is I
I ride alone despised
Shotgun if anyone should get too close
Rifle for a pot shot at a crow on a post

I ride alone I fight alone
My dying cause is mine alone
I've two handguns with six rounds each
But I'm down to one last shot

I stand alone
I plan alone
I hide alone
I'll die alone

It was here in the wilderness i turned loneliness to strength.

I kept crowds at arms length doing good. doing good.
I can make it on my own. I ride alone
I ride alone.

I've been playing this card game for years now
playing mine close to the chest
every play a poker face
So you can never guess

The stakes are high
They are too high
But I can't let the raise go by
It's hope versus pride
And I'm on the wrong side

The dealer catches fear in my eye
And I'm gambling my life

The stakes are High they are too high
First my saddle then my arms and my spurs
on this line that i walk alone

The game is set it is too set
and I'm fearing that everyone knows how it ends
I've no defence.

I gambled and lost and at the break of dawn
To meet you in a draw
I lost my hand and all my pride
its love versus fear
and I'm on the wrong side

You looked for me high and dry
Wanted posters saying dead and alive

So before my fingers are on the trigger
I'm shot dead in the street
I couldn't have expected any different
Thought I had a licking speed

My career livelihood reputation and shame
is my opponents in a moment by an earth shattering pain
and takes me off my high horse.

Then he ripped out my heart and he put his
in stead
I came up a new man
while Jesus was dead

It's truth versus fear
the stakes are high
I'm walking in here
But I'm on the wrong side

Drop my Iron

2009-11-01T17:41:00.001-08:00

You know what stinks about being a Christian in our society?
Sometimes its the best thing ever. It means we can have freedom of speech and expression and hold congregational meetings reaching into the thousands without overt persecution. It allows for us to share our faith in a country that often as not encourages morality and where we can build our empires without having a governmental system tear them down to equality.
Sometimes it sucks. I find that i become so comfortable in my self-indulgence and convenience that i start thinking that somehow i built the wash machine that cleans my clothes. My race is self sufficient and powerful and democratic which makes us all gods. Praying for the meal sometimes makes me feel ridiculous because i think, "what am i thanking God for. I paid for this meal. I cooked it. Why are we giving the credit to God?" On the flip side, when something goes wrong we have ourselves to blame.

I know. Stupid right? I don't need to explain why... According to James every good and perfect gift comes from God. More elementally- he created me, this world, and the plot of land that i was born on. Its just dangerously easy to fall into this self-worshiping mentality.

In a few months I'll be getting on a plane (according to plans) so as to live for 6 or more months in a impoverished society. For 6 months i will have the opportunity to change my world view and maybe keep it for a while upon re-immersion to a 1st world state. When I'm there i will be praying for the food- that it doesn't make me sick. I will be thanking for the food- because i will see others who have to fight for it. I will be grateful for my health- for i will see others who's health keep them from their full potential and yet they tarry on. I will be conscious of my upbringing- that handed me everything from education to opportunity on a silver platter. But will I truly, here or there, learn to give up and Die to myself.

This is the crux, I believe. Jesus doesn't want half of us or most of us. We are better off giving all of us. I won't pretend that its not like loosing everything you've ever learned to lean on, but I'm starting to think that that was all a crutch anyways.
We live in a society that worships security. If we have enough money, asset and investments; If we have enough friends, debtors and dependents; If we have military and freedom and capitalism; If we have a self sufficient homestead with enough stores built up for Armageddon and enough television to help us forget that we're all gonna die someday anyways; then we are OK.

I'm not saying its a bad idea to plan ahead, but depending on your plans is a little different. There is always the element of unpredictability that proves that we are in fact not in control. If those things spin in our favor- we call it our luck. if they spin from our favor we blame God. If we're smarter than that we realize that we are but mortals.

I guess what I'm getting at is that its time to give up- to surrender- my rights to a new system. Dying to the mortality in the hand of divinity. Its not all about me here.

When i give up

2009-11-01T13:40:00.000-08:00

You know what stinks about being single?
Sometimes its the best thing ever. It opens up avenues that never could otherwise be opened. It allows for flexibility and mobility and living life a little more dangerously. ( But sometimes you wonder if what you do falls to no accountability that can tell you if it really matters. )
Sometimes it sucks. Being a guy puts several meanings to this, but it can make some days so lonely and meaningless that you feel like if you don't have so much as a life to mean something to or so much as a hand to hold that you'll go crazy.

Theres a lot of pack where this punch comes from, but i think at some point you need to realize that having nothing to loose doesn't cut it once you live up to your own fear and gain everything to loose. Do you really have anything worth saving if you have nothing worth loosing? Or anything worth living for if you have nothing besides yourself to die for? I don't know... i just wonder if all my adventures as self-rightious as they might seem still fall flat if i still can't handle love. ref. 1Cor13. And I mean Love.

Problem is i don't know what i fully mean when i'm beginning to think that love is something you do more than something you feel and something you prove more than a dotted line you sign. But thats another issue altogether i suppose.

I guess what i'm getting at is that its all about self sacrifice isn't it? Its all about risking it all to gain it all; about surrendering to get on the right side; about giving up your own security and ideal that you can rule your own life and realize the incredible truth. It's not all about me here.

Roadtripping with Girls

2009-07-22T20:17:00.000-07:00

I went surfing on the weekend with a couple rad-core girls. Really they were just that... but I'm going to make fun of them a little bit regardless because, despite getting along rediculously well, girls and guys are always going to have their differences. Fortunately this time there were only three.

1.) They get hungry at different times.
Whenever i was hungry I felt bad gorging myself on snacks while they politely declined. Later, however, when i was not feeling hardly a tinge of hunger, they would say they were starved and b-line to the best restraunt in site. No obligations to that, i can be hungry any time required. I'm just noting that its wierd. Girls and guys are different.

2.) They aren't as decisive?
I don't know if this is actually a girl thing or not... but it seemed like decision making was done with a lot more deliberation and uncertainty. With guys, decisions are often made as follows:
Guy 1 "Hey, let's go light a bunch of big logs on fire"
Guys 3-5 "We're in"
Guy 2 "Ok fine"
Decision made.

Decision making with the girls:
Guy 1 "wanna eat food"
Girl 1 "ummmm... no not really"
Girl 2 "maybe"
Guy 1 "so later?"
Girl 1 "ummm maybe"
Girl 2 "umm... probably?"
Guy 1 "What does 'Probably?' mean?
Girl 2 "maybe?"
Guy 1 "I'm going to go light some logs on fire"

Girls and guys are different

3.) Girls don't think lighting giant logs on fire in the middle of the beach is cool.
A small fire is cool, but why not a big one? Trust us, if we wanted to flex our muscles by lifting large things infront of you we would have lifted things that looked more impressive than logs; like rocks or cars. Guys just like big fires, is that so wrong?

Girls and guys are different.

Wounds

2009-03-01T14:33:00.000-08:00

The theme of love, of believing that God is truly a good God in a world suspended in greys and twilights is not one that has escaped my life experience, and perhaps its important that it hasn't. It is a human theme. We need love but people let us down. How can anyone truly love without fail? I know i can't, so it becomes as hard to fall in love as it becomes to accept love. Falling has always required trust and has never been safe. If you are left without arms to fall into too many times it becomes nearly impossible to trust again. But faith makes or breaks us. Unfortunately I think that a cold and embittered heart has become the preference for all too many people. Even though I should understand love more than most people from my life experiences alone, i still struggle on this point. This is why it is important to be honest on this point. no one needs me telling them something that i have difficulty believing myself. I have to wonder about those people who seem to have blind faith. Seems terribly dangerous to me. Maybe stupid. Definitely weird. Although if thats you, then cool. Sit me down for coffee and tell me how its done. Meanwhile I fall in with the broken and hurt and imperfect and ungodly. Maybe more like the samaritan woman at the well than anyone else. I want to know. I want to believe. I need to believe, but we know that sometimes its hard. I can't see the sun for the daylight: can't see His breath for the wind. But this is what faith is. And if there's anyway for the devil himself to stop my service is for him to convince me of the absence of grace and love. If only for this reason we need each other to help us see the light in the darkness...

But I only meant this as an introduction to a few songs that I've crossed recently that I thought were quite beautiful and spoke on this -very human- topic.

I've really come to enjoy "You Found Me" by The Fray. Isaac Slade, the lead singer expressed the song meaning in the following words from two different interviews:

"You Found Me" is a tough song for me. Its about the disappointment, the heart ache, the let down that comes with life. Sometimes you're let down, sometimes you're the one who lets someone else down. It gets hard to know who you can trust, who you can count on. This song came out of a tough time... It takes so much of my faith to keep believing, keep hoping in the unseen. Sometimes the tunnel has a light at the end, but usually they just look black as night. This song is about that feeling, and the hope that i still have, buried deep in my chest.

I kept getting these phone calls from home - tragedy after tragedy. If there is some kind of person in charge of this planet - are they sleeping? Smoking? Where are they? I just imagined running into God standing on a street corner like Bruce Springsteen, smoking a cigarette, and I'd have it out with him."

I found God on the corner of 1st and Amistad

Where the West was all but won

All alone, smoking his last cigarette

I said, "where've you been?" He said, "Ask anything."

Where were you, when everything was falling apart.

All my days were spent by the tephone that never rang

And all i needed was a call that never came

To the corner of 1st and Amistad

Lost and insecure, You found me, you found me

Why'd you have to wait? Where were you? Where were you?

Just a little late, you found me, you found me.

Another record I've been enjoying recently is one called "the Heat" by Need To Breathe.

Their song "Again" painfully and beautifully paints the fear of falling in love.

I won't leave you roses to watch them die.

You won't be the heartache that keeps me sleepless

You won't be the songs that I could never write

I don't want to stay, I don't want to fall

I don't want to have to see you leave me.

I don't want stay, I don't want to fall in love...

"Looks like love" resolves the conflict later on the album

Our hearts can only shake when there's risk that they could break.

Yea its a risk that I will take.

Raise your head. Its time to say those words that I have left unsaid.

I've slept through the sunrise and I turned away every time it got bright.

I won't run when it looks like love.

I recently turned up a poem i wrote about a year ago and forgot about.

We Think we're mortified

Or that we're petrified

We know we're lost inside

But what's we got to find?

Something deep within missed

That some say never did exist

We're all accidents down here

Explaining pain. Causing fear.

All that's left of fallen gods

Of some lost kingdom long forgotten

And when the beauty of the light

Comes contrasting to turn our heads

We'll close our eyes, The cut's too deep

To risk infection by a dirty sheet

Drawing the life that's left of me

Hanging it for the world to see

What have I become?

We'll stick to our own gun turret

Here that always kept us safe

It's like four walls closing in

But I'll hold my own, this blood soaked place

If "Help me now" escape my lips

Then my religion is lost

The only way to keep me safe

Is keeping this room locked

If hope should be found in me

If I could believe that light

Could ever shine unto me

Then show me now

You're in my sights.

I just really wanted to share some song and verse but i guess if there was a point to this it might be this: that nobody wants to hear you say that they're a bad person or that you're better than them. But if you believe you are worth loving then you should believe that others are worth loving. If you know that you need love then wake up and realize that everybody feels the same thing. Show a little love eh?

So this is the new Year

2009-01-03T22:47:00.000-08:00

I was talking to a friend recently about how, when we both were younger, we thought we'd have done so much and come so far in life by the time we came to where we are now. But of course looking at our lives presently, we easily deducted that our lives and accomplishments have resembled nothing similar. Are there regrets to accompany this observation? No. Life is not what i thought it'd be by now when i was in high school, but I am glad that I have ended up where i am with the experiences i have nonetheless. Who thought things could be better than i imagined?

It may sound either pie-in-the-sky philosophy or freethinking foolishness to say this but i will say it because i think it is something more: life has more to do with who you are than what you do. Certainly one effects the other, but I tend to think its the former which takes it effect on the latter rather than the contrary.

This summer I met someone who asked me a question almost immediately upon our meeting. "Are you living the dream? Are you where you want to be- doing what you want to be doing- in life?"

That question might have come across as an awkward conversation opener in most settings, but in this case the friend who i've since learned is a career counselor, pastor and father was too well meaning and good humored for me to answer glibly.

"you know what..." I answered, "I am. "

How good it felt to say that.

There had been many times, especially in that previous year when i would have thought twice before answering a round-about no. This time I answered yes... and I think there's something significant there.

I believe that God has made us. I believe that we are his creations whom he has chosen to extend unbelievable love to. And i think that if we see that and function as he designed us to in relationship to him that we will find ourselves "living the dream". This is what i mean when I say that who you are might president what you do.

Simply, I think that seeing yourself as a child of God changes a lot of things.

I don't know exactly where I'm headed in this journey... but I wouldn't ask to be elsewhere. Lately when people ask me what I'm up to, I answer, "I'm living the dream."

Life may not always be as comfortable as it is right now, but I hope that i can, regardless of circumstances, always say that I am...

In Christ,

"living the dream."

We are the Dead

2008-11-11T12:24:00.000-08:00

I decided to go to the Cenotaph for this Rememberance Day, but first I had to find out where it was. I searched online couldn't find an address or order of ceremony, but there was a map that pointed to its general location, so I used that as a start. After cruising around the area I decided that the map could have been wrong and started looking in another part of town. Giving up on that, I decided to pull into a coffee shop and look at one of their newspapers. Surely a local newspaper from the day before would provide information on where and when events would be held.

Nope. So I decided to ask the Barista if she knew where the cenotaph was.

"The...?"

"The cenotaph"

This is awkward and she looks confused, she probably thinks the Cenotaph is some pagan temple or something... Let's try again,

"The memorial? The place where they have rememberance day stuff?"

"um... Kyla probably knows, I'll ask her..."

I wait while she gets her co-worker's attention

"This guy is looking for the..."

"The cenotaph"

"The ceno... ?"

"The place where they have the Rememberance day festivities. Well not festivities, more like a events or assembly or whatever, you know?"

"Rememberance day...?"

This is going no-where

Then a lady who looked like she was over 25, overhearing gave me directions. I thanked her (for the fact that she knew what I was talking about as well as for that she was able to help me be on my way).

Half way there I pulled in behind the distinctive ford scored with firefighting logos that I knew belonged to the biggest war buff in school and the one person I would trust to be heading one place 10:30am on Nov 11. I followed him the rest of the way and found He was glad that I came. He was there with his wife, brother and sister-in-law, so I wasn't suddenly so alone in my venture.

Did you know that today was the 90th anniversary of the end of WWI? 90 years! A lifetime, that's it. Much less time spans us and WWII. The local roll call of those fallen was perhaps a dozen for WWI and some 30 or 40 for WWII. How many people lived in this cow town at the time? Not many... of which a dozen during WWI, 30 or 40 during WWII would have been a considerable percentage! There was also one fallen in Afghanistan, a silent reminder that war is far from extinction.

The turn out wasn't much bigger than my home town which is a much smaller town, but that might be accountable to the fact that my home town has a far older populace.

The cadets marched into the square. Usually I'm not a big fan of cadets, but today they looked in good form. The Mounties came next followed by the military. Mounties, as ridiculous as any non-Canadian may say they look are sure to always convey a sense of true Canadianism in me. These, with the military appear disciplined to a tee. They can't afford to fake it. The veterans walk in, amongst respectful clapping, bearing Flags that represent Canada, British Columbia, the United Nations, and some others I'd be slower to name: probably The RCAF and divisions like that.

There's the anthem, the silence, the gun salute and the long recognitions as family members show their respects at the wreaths.

"Why is it that i feel a need to go?" I asked myself as I was on my way there. It wasn't likely that many if any of my school associates would be attending. I guess its because I've been raised to believe that it is important. And I do. I think its very important, and the day when I forget the 11th of November will be a bitter bitter irony indeed.

LEST

Forget

thoughts (H:11:1)

2008-11-08T12:47:00.000-08:00

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Never been easy to understand. But neither is our Creator who is worthy of all trust and faith. Closed eyes open to the providence in the dark that surrounds like a blanket all lost. And a pinhold of light breathes like hope through the canvas of our closed tight eyelides. Hope rises on horizon like endlessday forboding. And I, I with squint eyes now open break day with a grin. Love has come. Love has come. Love has come. And I'm ready to go home now.

A walk in the woods

2008-10-18T19:28:00.000-07:00

I make it a habit to go for a walk most mornings. With much thankfulness I can say that I most always have somewhere enjoyable to walk. In my current estate it is a short trail that finds its way up the side of a small mountain as it bends away from a quiet road and a surging stream (in which, today, I saw my first salmon this year. Two of them, each some 20 inches long.)

It was a beautiful morning today. Accented by the fact that it had been raining with opression the day before, the sun cutting colors through the golden autumn leaves left an impression that only being there could render. I stopped at a point where I could still see the road bending away below and still hear the rushing of the stream behind the birds and the forest's hum. My feet have stopped crunching leaves beneath them and in the thick stillness I see the trees growing up the decline below set as silhouettes against the relentless morning sun- whose beams lay stripes on the path and make my shadow dance quietly in the underbrush when I walk. The air is misty and dense. For the first time I notice that steam is rising off the moss growing on the trees below me, which had accumulated much moisture the day before and was now giving it back to the demand of a new day rising.

Amazed with the lot of it I look upward and wonder at the golden yellow leaves that pattern the sky from their limbs and motherly trunks that set themselves far below on the ground beside me.

"Like a crown." I think to myself.

"But not a spoiled and pompous crown that we think of ( so unfortunately) when we think of kingly. No. This crown is one that is too earthy in tone to assume more than it is. This maple dons a humble crown. Up there, existing in all its splendor, this maple knows that to think of itself more than a maple would only destroy the true glory that its simple existence allowed it. Such is humanity! So creation - so our lives."

And for a moment again I realize that being quiet and enjoying the Creators work is no less than he might have me do in this moment. Enjoy, breathe, learn.

Why not?

I continue to walk again, only in time for another traveller on the trail to mostly miss seeing me gazing off into the air. As his dog approaches the owner makes a joke.

"There ya go Fellah!"

Talking to his dog,

"You can have him for breakfast!"

Talking about me.

I laugh and give the canine a rub on the head before carrying on to greet his owner and pass by. Walking away I think to myself how much I liked the dog.

Later I see a small bird that land and skirts around my near peripheral- enough to show his colors that would have been a blur in flight. Then he flies away.

The morning sun is burning on into day and I am almost back to the place I currently call home.

Hope, Love, Truth hold ground in me today.

I know God loves me. But I don't need to know. I need love.

2008-10-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

I was just sitting here on my couch listening to Jars' new recording of "Love song for a Savior" when a simple and profound thought struck me.

Here i am, having been raised by an incredibly loving family in a relitavely supportive social structure. I've accepted God's love in my life, at least so I say. I'm at Bible college, have a bible, and have discovered that page after page spells love, and yet...

Yet I have such a hard time accepting God's love. I know it I know it I know it.... than why don't I receive it? Ephesians 3:19 says that the love of Christ "surpasses knowledge" (niv).... well then why can't I believe it. Its so important I know. my emotional, physical and spiritual self all scream for it.

The message in church today was more or less about taking the love into the world. It was about showing God to a world who is caught in a great separation from God- from Truth.

I have every reason to do this don't I? What is the thing that would hold me back?

If the enemy wants to hold off the attack, what is an easier way to do it, to fight back, or to make his enemies question their cause?

This was my thought: No wonder I have a problem receiving and believing God's love! What better place for the Enemy to target all of his arrows?

In addition, what better way to infuriate God?

Where did i put that shield of faith?

So How do we combat the lies? I'm sure there are many ways, but on a practical note I know God's love most presently and practically and real when another of the body of Christ shows Christlike love to me. There's nothing like it. Maybe there is more to be said for encouragement and love among comrades than I thought about before.

Simple, but in my mind, profound.

I put off lunch to write this.

Love ya later,

What would a smart person do?

2008-10-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get to thinking about the stupid things i did when i was younger, sometimes these things are laughable, and on a bad day depressing. But in any case, I was thinking recently about how it seems every year I think I've got it together-like "now I've arrived".

Having realized that i seem to think this all the time and i still look back on my mistakes and groan at my ignorance leads me to ask one question (which i hope proves some increase in wisdom). The question is this: What stupid thing am i doing right now?!

Ok, so I'm sortof joking... because if i thought that way all the time I'd probably hide in my closet afraid to do anythings for risk that i will fail. But I think it is worth having friends around who can check you and kick you in the rear when you need it, 'cause sometimes it takes another party to see your stupidity just as it might take another party to see your success.

Just a thought

from yours truly

Breakfast

2008-02-26T23:34:00.000-08:00

As I ate my pancakes this morning,

I thought

In the nineteen eighties there was a big scare about

Bombs

That maybe

One would set the world ablaze with an apocalypse

(I lived in Canada

On a farm

And i think i remember the tv being on

And having military on screen

We didn't watch much tv

It might have been cuba

As my mother folded laundry

In the farmhouse)

I had Maple syrup on my pancakes today

I remember the scares

Terror

Death

Kids stay inside

I remember the turn of the century

Bunker down

They said

Even though nothing happened

Not to say that nothing has

They say that our society is consumeristic

It's probably more so than the history of mankind put together

But then again

We have technology

Improving moving

Plastics and oil. Computers and landfills.

I don't begrudge

It's just

I had maple syrup on my pancakes.

There are men that we are told to be afraid of

Or men that we're supposed to hate

Or races that we're supposed to dissengage with

Or sects who we disregard.

I'm not proposing much

Its just,

I had maple syrup this morning

Be careful or your frail body will fall victim to danger

Stay under the shelter of your knowledge

I hear the president has an "end the world now" button

In his office

And that the Pope has a direct phone line to God

I hear that DNA has been mapped by supercomputers

and that someone cloned a sheep

But I sit back

And have to laugh

Because i have maple syrup on my pancakes.

Here

2008-01-21T21:24:00.000-08:00

Well, one way to make a change in the, sometimes horrific, world could be this. It seems to have worked before. Its something. Oh, and if you can't go to Washington D.C. you can digitally sign what i think to be an pretty darn good petition.
Easier on paper I'm sure, but i guess that not for us to complain... right?

hmmm... it seems like if injustice isn't staring you in the face, it's easier to disagree with but harder to punch out cold...

Thought i'd throw these out to those who potentially read here.

"Peace"

Rain Falling on a Battle Field

2008-01-16T22:13:00.000-08:00

The Blood on my brow is washed to the ground
And the blood on my spear is forgotten
By a million tears

Pools on the ground reflect our image
And no one in time can explain the scrimmage
Emotions are washed as the thunderheads roll
And lightning flash lights all our faces exposed

The heavy warm rain weighs battle gear down
And one by one, pieces all fall to the ground
And bare chested men, exposed for their worth
Care not for their colors, which lay mingled with earth

Instead all washing their nakedness clean
Are united as one. No difference seen.

And as water quenches a dry tongue
Its invigoration gives life to breath
And one lifts his arms t'ward heaven
In the thundrous quietness

And everyone, they see
That they've all become the same
And that theres only now one army
In the rain

mc Jan/08

Hope Love Life...

2008-01-11T02:11:00.000-08:00

The fact of the matter is that I should have crashed and burned a thousand times.

It was only the Grace of God that kept me on me feet and only the knowledge of which that gave me the will to keep standing.

I remember my mom saying that rebellion was a sin. I never really understood that. I thought of the punk rockers with their antiestablishment agendas and something in me desperately related with them. I remember one of the presidents of the United States being quoted as saying that a little bit of rebellion was a good thing once in a while. Stick it to the man! Don't conform. Don't be a pawn.

I think I might finally see what was really meant by the one who said that rebellion is a sin. I don't know, but I realize now in having being saved from myself a thousand times that I don't have anything to stand against. What is there left of me? That is, the me that was defined by myself. We call it pride.

I fall and I fall again and become subject to grace and slowly become by humility- that sweet revelation of seeing myself as I really am.

God said I was worth saving.

I'm worth something. I have to throw off everything I was caught up in about myself to see what that really is because surely this self-motivated pride stuff isn't it. That becomes humility and I begin to see myself as God sees me and I begin to realize that I'm worth more than I ever knew. I stop fighting as a rebel that feels helplessly disvalued by the world. I stop acting defensively knowing my own failures and realize that to continue- knowing what I know now- is pointless, prideful and rebellious. God has called me to something more. He has valued me higher than that! To disvalue what he has called valuable (even worth dying for) - what blasphemy is that!?

So I don't stop acting. No. For surely now it's time to be pro-active.
Knowing what i know now i act out of a new entity and agenda and no-one said it would be easy (when a sinful nature, evil, and -it seems sometimes- the whole world is going the other way down the stream.)

I have a theory that a man goes crazy without something to live for. He'll get depressed, feel devalued, and may end up off the deep end. Probably most of us have experienced that feeling to some extent. Maybe you've lived alone, ate Kraft-dinner, worked at a dead-end job and watched TV in the evenings a little too long for a state of pace. We begin to lose touch of that part of us that wants to live. That's what it seems like to me. I think you might be alive if you know you could die tomorrow and know that something you did today would count.

Maybe you've seen the way a friend's demeanor changes when he gets into a job that is fulfilling to him, or when he starts back at college and feels like his life is going somewhere, or when he enters a relationship with a significant other. Suddenly there’s something real to live for!

Jesus showed me that i was worth something. I respond and accept it. I love him for it and respond accordingly (Something most definitely real to live for!)I find myself living -ideally every part of my life and being- for HIM. Purpose. Hope. Life. Love.

Alright...

I Found Profound

2008-01-11T01:48:00.000-08:00

From a book of clever and heartwarming short stories and antidotes about life that my mom recommended, called "Front Porch Tales"( by Phillip Gulley.)
I was apprehended by the end of one of the stories called "The Kitchen Table" By the moral which I found considerably profound. Maybe you won't; maybe you will. The following is the summary from that chapter:

"A friend came for dinner not long ago. He asked me where I had bought my table, and I told him I had made it. He wanted me to make him one, but I told him no. A man has to be careful not to let his hobby become his business. He was talking about how his kitchen ta ble is forever falling apart and lamenting the shoddy nature of today's craftmanship. People slapping things together in five minutes expecting them to last a lifetime.
We got to talking about how that isn't only true about furniture, it's true about life. Folks get discouraged because God doesn't make them saints overnight. They don't understand all the years of God-work that go into making one's life a thing of beauty- a lot of shaping, a lot of smoothing, a lot of finishing. And if we rush the process, the flaws will surely show.
Once a week I rub a coat of lemon oil into my table. It reminds me that my table is never really finished. Kind of like me. "

What can I do?

2008-01-11T01:18:00.000-08:00

I regularly read World Vision Bulletins.
World Vision is an organization which I have come to trust for relatively accurate international statistics and news. It has also proved itself to be nothing less than a respectable and effective Christian Humanitarian Organization.
So when I read their most recent Bulletin with the heading, "Sudan Crisis Continues. Dozens Die from Hunger Daily." I have reason to believe that it is more than an attention grabbing header. Its probably also nothing less than the truth.
Same goes for the other bulletins I've pulled out of the archives. One reads, "Action now will save lives! Silently, starvation stalks millions in Africa". Another "emergency bulletin" appeals that "Starvation Threatens Millions in Zimbabwe". This one includes a picture of a mere toddler sitting sadly, stomach enlarged from sickness, on the ground.

Of course these Bulletins appeal for financial support for these situations and as I read the details of the specific catastrophe I will probably be moved to give up a bit of what I suddenly realize is worth so little to me and so much to them. My heart begins to break as i begin to comprehend what I'm reading.
I've come to wonder, however, if money is really all I can give...

I know that there is desperate need left right and center. I need not look far and I need not look for the physically malnourished or sick. However, the physical need in countries like Sudan, Zimbambwe, Kenya, Ethiopia and Darfur is what I'm looking at imparticular at the moment.

In our typical western mindset we seem to assume that money will make everything all right. Everybody needs money and everything can be done through the all sufficient currency.
Can it really?
I want to know.

If money is all it would take to stop dozens from dying in Sudan daily then why does starvation continue? What is money? We've got lots of it don't we? If that's all it takes and they're not getting it then I fear that something is not right at all. Surely that can't be all there is to it... can it?

Is it a lack of educated people helping those in impoverished countries to survive, heal and rebuild? I never see much of a recruit section on the World Vision website for this. Are more people needed? If so, what kind of people? What kind of training is needed? These are things I actually want to know! Nurses? Agriculturalists? School Teachers? Economists? Engineers?

And my third question is, if it's not money and if it's not people then why do people still die?
I know that this question is very ignorant and that the answer is very involved, but If you have a possible partial answer, I'd like to hear.

mc

To die, Truly to Live

2007-10-28T21:18:00.000-07:00

There comes points when the things we have to fight for or at least stand in objection on their behalf become pointed and concise. I probably will not say all that has been on my mind on such matters for the last while except that some of these causes have come to a starker battleline in my mind.
I have begun to lose confidence in instititions that I once took as acceptable in the imperfection that institution have to a biased individual. In true Canadian form I figured we have it pretty good and I can leave things mostly up to the government to decide. However, I say it to say that that bell inside me has gone off. This is the bell that just knows that something is not right. Something can not be tolerated. There is injustice and it must be stood against.

What is a truly Christ-like approach to injustice? That is one very loaded question.
But it is a sort of beautiful thing to believe that you are fighting for righteousness.

Closer on Sundays

2007-10-05T23:01:00.000-07:00

Do our sunday morning church services promote the idea of a impersonal God. Of a God who is only in the presence of the clergy, in the 2 hours, on a sunday morning? And that is why we go?

Do we expect God to be more "present" there than anywhere else?

Do we want God to be as "present" all the time anyways?

(Is Omnipresence biblical? Is Omnipotent biblical? Do those questions matter?)

"Is that why we go?"

If not, then is that place to be more revered than the bible study, or more holy than the coffee shop, or more a place to meet with God than your local bar, your getaway, your hiding place, or East Hastings? More than your friend's broken home, the sufferer's broken hope, or your own broken soul?

(Let's ask Him now)

departure: on a personal note

2007-04-25T14:39:00.000-07:00

They say that old habits die hard. The same could be said of old friends.
I wonder, however, if new friends don't die hardest.
It's been a crazy year, certainly. I would be dishonest to say that there hasn't been times when I considered dropping my current expenditure all together in the pursuit of something else. For better or worse, my outlook on Bible college has improved this semester. Not only am I coming to realize it's practicality and what it has actually done already to improve my skills but I have also begun to meld with a community. I have come to find some level of human syncronicity which I believe is about as valuable and biblically a part of the Christian and human experience as it is comfortable and wonderful and painfully difficult to consider leaving.
I have built friends. Friends die hard. The old ones can pass from direct correlation with less pain perhaps because of the unbreakable tie which already exists and which we both know will not break. New friends, no matter how much my personality connects with them or the intense experiences we've shared or conversations we've delved into, don't perhaps have that same unbreakable tie. Though I may not think much of it later, right now it is difficult.

My room right now is in slight disarray. Things are in boxes or general piles in preparation for eventually moving out. It is another reminder that the end will probably come upon me quickly, and before I could ever have thought to have tied up loose ends and said adequate goodbyes.

It seems I've never been that good at goodbyes. I'm not sure if it's because I'm afraid of vulnerability and so decide to be senseless and overly-practical on the matter or if I simply see no worth in too much emotional expulsion when all things come to an end, its the future and the present we strive for (not things past), and after all- most of my worthy friends I'll see again one day in this life or the next. Why get worked up over a few years? Does that sound cold? Life is a battle, casualties are regular and those closest friends to me have often been friends expendable as myself to the cause at hand. Hmmm... Perhaps that's what makes it so difficult and confusing. It's not pure sadness regret or even anger. It's a confusion coming from a deep connection; and though the will is keen and the mind decided, the emotions are hard to express and the heart hard to read.

My thoughts and feelings bear a resemblance of a kind to my room. They are messy and being put aside to be dealt with later. I wonder, however, if I won't be able to just throw every thought into the back of my head like stuff into the truck box, but rather loose conclusions and work projects into loose ends and unconfirmities as I walk along the road of tying down the bird cage while the pheasant flies away with my heart. Ya, unsorted thoughts indeed. Don't mind me.

On a different note, I drove to Ashcroft last weekend (just before Cash Creek)- a little interesting update for you. It was a fun time. For a good story: we ( my traveling companions and I) prayed that my truck would make it and that it would have enough gas to get us there (as we began to think she was hitting rock bottom with no stops left on the route.)
I think God might have had some good humor in response to that prayer- or maybe He just knew I needed a close call to learn to rely on Him - yet again.
The truck coasted down the last bit of the highway, across the Thompson river, into Ashcroft, down the road, and brought us practically to the doorstep of our destination (with minimal pushing). Now that was rad! (Although next time I'd better fill up the tank).

Culture Thief

2007-03-31T19:51:00.000-07:00

This is something I have thought about and pondered for quite some time, the item of Christian mission stealing ethnic culture. Although this has been put on the table even more in my recent Cross Cultural Studies class, I'd like to look at it in a more localized light as well.

Having grown up going to Church "functions" and services I have seen the church communities successes and failures to be relevant (if I may use such a use thrashed word). Living in what I will call the "buckle of the bible belt" (Audio Adrenaline coined that one) (and in a secluded Bible college setting no less) has made the failures and attempts to "relevancy" (lets call it relatability- I think that works better) quite bold.

Think about your city, Do you appreciate it for its diversity? Do you enjoy its spectra of talent, ability, creativity and ingenuity- even its open-mindness?

Now think about if your whole city were to become converted Christians in the manner that the institutionalized church appears to generally intend. That is, to bring them all to church, integrate them into church culture and then let them out again.
Maybe you yourself are getting a little bored of "church" as you know it- not because theres no truth and community there but because otherwise it is very unrelatable.
(I don't want to sound complacent, but try to spur envisioning and thoughts for a crazier tomorrow. )

I don't want to go knocking on my local church body either, because I think they rock! However, trying to find a place for open and constructive and thought provoking criticism I say this: If your city was to become all like the general "church-goers" how much of the culture and soul of your city would be left?
I am not saying that "church goers" are not inwardly diverse, but they often outwardly seem quite similar, general, limited and open to stereotypes.

That leads to another question, and on this one I am still working in my own life.
Could it be that a lie has been planted in our life that we should be less than we have been created to be because a sort of cultural theology that constantly restricts our potential?

I don't know. It's a hard question to ask.

Adrenaline Days

2007-03-14T21:40:00.000-07:00

Possibly one of the most influential movies on my life (although I suppose there has been many) is "Dead Poets Society". If you have ever seen the movie, you know that it can be summed up in three English words or two Latin words. Carpe Diem: Seize the Day.
Some will say to look before you leap. Others will say that he who hesitates is lost. Where is the balance of foolishness and recklessness when it comes to risks? I don't know. But I hear that when old people were surveyed (for those who believe surveys), one of the biggest things they regretted not doing more in their lives was taking risks.

What might taking risks do for me?
- it might quench a stale and boring lifestyle
- it would probably break me outside of my comfort zone into realms of new possibilities
- It might help me make mistakes that I learn more from than I would have anyways otherwise.
- It could help me recognize the vitality and realness that life can be as I push limits.
- It might result in a Bill Gates Maneuver some day. Ha Ha, Caching!

How does this fit with God's intent for my life?
- will I shy from taking risks for fear that they are not in God's will?
- or will I embrace them, knowing that God is my strength in everything and, like a father to child, will pick me up if I fall down while trying to learn how to walk.

Again, I think there is a balance.. But I can say that I'd love to live a little more on the edge? I'd like to have a more child-like trust sometimes and perhaps even incorporate an adrenaline rush moment into each day. These are just thoughts right now but just for fun, what if my calendar looked like the following:

Mon: Jump off something so high it scares me
Tues: Call up an old friend who I haven't talked to in at least two years
Wed: Take my skateboard down the hill that no-one has ever not bailed on.
Thurs: Tell someone how much I appreciate them
Fri: Burn out in a parking lot and/or go skydiving- you only live once.
Sat: Vent my problems on a good friend
Sun: Just ask her out already (hypothetical)
Mon: Jump off something higher than last week

to "Get it!"

2007-03-07T13:48:00.000-08:00

You know those times when you just "Get it"?

A decline to a half baked lifestyle can happen so subtly. I might call it "a removal to religion".
I think this has happened to me quite a bit over the last year- which I suppose is somewhat easy when one is in an environment that can appear so subsurface that you can forget that the big stuff is underneath the skin.

I guess I just want to say "GET IT!"
There's a big picture- I've got to grasp for it. Theres a lot I don't understand- I've want to admit it and grow through it. There is a life that is beyond - I've got to live it.
I'm not about throwing fundamental truths and wisdom out the window. I believe, however, that the big picture of What God is all about is so beyond our common idea of Religion.
I seem to have embarked on another adventure that is beyond what I can do. It is therefore rooted so much more in reliance, trust and love than in me trying to do something independently. It is an intense 2-way relationship and I love it!

So that's where I'm at. It's cool.
Where' you at?

Why the title was: "for sale: everything I own" and generally why it's not anymore.

2007-02-08T01:45:00.000-08:00

So, the original post here basically said that I was giving away or putting up everything I own for sale. The Idea of the title was that, if I claim to own anything myself, then it better be for sale so it isn't mine for much longer.
The move blossomed out of a conversation and decision I made based, not exclusively but, largely on Acts 2:45, which tells about the early church, "Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need." (NIV)
As to get in on a step of Faith, I agreed upon putting up all my stuff for sale or free. Largely, this initial attempt was made as an act of growing my reliance on God and showing my devotion to Him. I think it was a good risk to take. However...
I don't fully know that I should go into full reasoning for all this now, except to say that I haven't sold everything I have in my possession and I am not sure that I should or not. Being a good steward would probably be easier with less stuff, but there are surely some things which God wants to use in my hands if I am willing.
If I am willing.
I want to say that I hold nothing as my own, but what if I do?

The story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, frankly put me on my guard about saying I would do something, and then, perhaps not doing it.

So while I can not guarantee my own faithfulness to sticking to my own agendas - even when perhaps done as an act of Faith in God, I am trying to work out how I work into God's agenda. He is more faithful than I.

2007-02-08T01:02:00.000-08:00

Do I really trust God?
Is trusting God letting go of the steering wheel and closing your eyes on the highway ?
Or is trusting God believing in him but sticking to a "God helps those who help themselves" motif?

I've found myself not wanting to tithe 10 percent of my income recently because I've been in need of funds. God knows I need it. He won't demand it of me right? But He is loaded, why should I presume that I'll ever be in need? Why shouldn't I honor God with my money in the hard times and then trust him for something a little extraordinary? Probably because I like to keep myself as a fall back. I like to control myself. Very practical and socially acceptable.
Pretty stupid.

A certain teacher at school recently went out on a limb to suggest that the Bible does not support lying for good motives. God wants the truth. Why shouldn't we trust Him to work the rest out.
I'll be quite honest. I tripped over this one. Corrie Ten Boom's "The Hiding Place" always comes to mind on this topic: if I were hiding Jews in my house and their lives as well as my life and the lives of my family depended on me telling a few German Milita that we had nothing going on, would I tell that lie? Yes that is an extreme example, but nonetheless... Do we trust that God can provide? No, because we're fools to say something like that, or Yes because we need to honor him and accept the power and provision that he will accordingly provide to us as His children?

I like to fly by the seat of my pants. I'll tell you that. Many great times have come from falling off the end of my rope. But I do like to have some insurance. I like to have a fall back, an asset or a plan B.
However, once in a while I'll come up against someone who dared to throw themselves into the military of God- letting him worry about the bankbook and just doing what he commands.
The testimonies of Brother Andrew are among my favorites. But then there are the guys I actually know who live like this. They are frequently looked on sceptically and sometimes are left few or alone in their convictions. But maybe for these few God rubs his hands together and starts spinning his potters wheel saying, "oh yes, this is going to be a good one."
Can I be like that?
"Oh sure, it was easy when i was young and the meals were coming off the parents bill, but now I've got to look out for myself- even Paul made tents."
"He who fails to plan, plans to fail"
"Easier said than done, recourses have to come out of someone's pocket."
"um... I'll think of an excuse after watching some more commercial TV"

But this is speaking on finance matters.

At Bible college we have "ministries" that most everyone is involved in. One of the things I do is work with a youth group. Sure, I can go and be all I can be to demonstrate the given Life of Christ through whatever I do at that youth group. However, what if God wants something different. What if He wanted, say, prayer and music all night with none of the games or media I was working on?
"But God... It won't work without me!"
"Kids don't want to pray!"
"I don't think you even belong here. Go away and I'll continue on my stupid little social club. "

Do we dream too small?
Is our God too safe?

2007-01-31T22:38:00.000-08:00

So, I was sitting here, and decided that it was about due time for a new blog. (Question: if I make it sound just that sporadic does it loose it's merit of genuinity?) The truth is, I haven't posted in a while. Actually, I had planned to post up the wazzoo over the winter holidays (no Wazzoo is not a word, whether it should be or not, and yes this will easily rate as my most unstructured blog yet. Fortunately my panel of advisors isn't too big- after all, zero out of zero is still 100% right? [Don't answer that.]) But being the holidays and all, one gets busy and neglects things.
In a matter of fact, the holidays were very vigorously jammed packed indeed with various doings.
On the topic of keeping busy, if I felt i needed to make an excuse for too infrequent blogging (which i don't really) I could use the "school has kept me busy" line, which would be somewhat true. I could also use the, "It snowed, and you can't do anything when it snowed" line, but that one doesn't really work when it comes to the internet. I also could try the, "I've been busy taking care of an old blue metal thing."
Besides being busy, I think a viable excuse is that less of my thoughts have been coming out in the shape of a blog and less so of blogs that I think are worth sharing.
This might all sound beside the point, but I thought it'd be cool to write a blog all about excuses.

From a Recognized Street

2007-01-15T12:46:00.000-08:00

Click here for an recent article concerning funding for AIDS and poverty. You might find it to be some good stuff to think over. I did.

Consider the situation.
What do you figure?

Thanks for checking in!

-MC

Fire and Ice

2007-01-15T12:18:00.000-08:00

So I was sitting in my room a few days ago when suddenly a ridiculously loud noise came exploding from everywhere. It took me only a moment to realize it was the fire alarm. It took me only another moment to realize that, "no... no I'm not burning anything- it's not me. Good." From there I decided to grab a coat and then make my way outside, where many had already gathered.
Apparently it was not a drill. An iron had been left on and caused the smoke which set off the alarm. The downside of this was that there were few to no faculty around to conduct what would have otherwise been a drill. We had to, rather, wait outside while quietly freezing in the sub-zero temperature while the appropriate staff and/or fire dept showed up.
Shortly, someone told us that we could go and wait in the gym. By this time, however, I was already imagining how a news headline might look:
"Fire brigade rush to Abbotsford College too late: Students found frozen to death." or if given more thought:
"College commended for fire response time - 70% of students treated for frost bite."
I shared such thoughts with a friend,
"That would be ironic eh?"
"IRON-ic, yes"
"Oh that was a good one."

Somthing I wrote on Dec 24th

2006-12-28T23:30:00.000-08:00

At The Edge Of Time

I was dreaming last night and in my dream I was drawn through a tunnel of space and time and blackness and light to a place where two angels stood in converse at the edge of time. One's name was Sadrel and he was the angel of the past and the present. The other was called Michel and he was a visionary. They existed in a place outside the frame of time and there they discussed in present tense that which was seen on the grid of elapsed mortal time from the awakening of the stars to the awakening of the dead.

"The one is entered today" quoth Michel out of the silence of space.

"quiet down!" answered Sadrel. "Lest the one who is alike to us in nature but unalike in purpose have strayed to this place to hear us!"

"Ai," answered Michel "No force of he's going to yet become the outcome. And the one you speak of is quite the same as us as to purpose. It is his nature that is fallen."

"Alas you fall over words which befall us both with their mortal riddles" Sadrel replied- a slight chuckle in his voice. "and the destinies and provinces of both men and angels is not ours to discuss- nay to play."

He paused.

"Ai," Michel said, as if to finish an oft quoted verse of Sadrel, "All we have is our own purpose, and our time, course and function to transcend"

"E'en to the end -dear brother on wings; and an adventure it is to have. Yea, such as the mortals play at."

"Hmm" Michel sighed thoughtfully.

They stared for several moments more to stare into what in my dream I could not see. Then they conversed further.

"Look now!" it was Sadrel this time. "How his followers and devotees have taken after him with such love! Look at how now they face death... imprisonment....torture." Sadrel's eyes maintained an intense fix on the space as he paused between words- as if waiting for a new slide on a camera slide reel.

"Some of these have a better idea of what it is to live than do we." Michel added carefully.

"Oh death" he quoth on,

"should I know thee

would I know life more full.

Oh Mortality- to understand

Conceive of His Foreverness?"

He paused for a moment in timelessness.

"But now these ones cling so loosely to his identity. Their devotion is mingled as a cocktail of juices- pleasing at a sip but spiteful in result. "

"Don't judge them yet," Sadrel answered, "I see their reaching for the law and even their principles of his own, but this convergence of the world isn't enough to throw them out yet."

"I wonder if He agrees"

"hmm"

As they stood there, standing still with particles of timelessness quivering as paused in precision I saw as if they both reached out their hands- or their minds toward what I could not see. Sadrel seemed to do so carefully and willfully while I thought I caught a glimpse of joy and a tinge of eagerness in Michel's eye and breadth of reach.

In that moment a blueish - though dreams be hard to describe- significant light flashed as if to light up every microbe or particle which held the essence of nothing and blackness in submission and acknowledgment to the one who reigned over even their domain. The light flashed omnidirectional around the angelic beings as bits of their white garments sometimes caught the light and flashed and lit up thier features. And when their eyes were hit by this light I could see deeply into thier expression- beyond opinion, duty and will into a deeper resolve which I would name Hope.

Is it possible for angels to doubt?

Sadrels eyes glanced down and then up, and then across again to his comrade and broke that element of serenity.

"I can't help calling this the end of the beginning, brother."

"Forgive me, but I hardly play," Michel continued, "at that this is but the beginning of the end..."

But in that moment, thought these words seemed good to me I saw in the meeting of these two pairs of eyes that they understood that also to be somewhere unsatisfactory- at least to them. I held on to hear their resolve.

"So it begins,"

"The ultimate finale."

And in that moment, these two beings- having stored and worked side by side for a period we can not measure in mortal years- spoke in unison;

"It is the beginning of the beginning."

I woke in as peaceful a start as is possible. And morning light was coming through the blinds.

Peace on earth eh?

2006-12-13T21:28:00.000-08:00

An interesting note:
In Luke 2:14 the heavenly host says the following,

"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
(NIV)
We like to think of Christmas as a time of peace and peaceful ideals. However, I think that this verse doesn't imply that Christmas will bring about peace in all our idealistic terms.

in Matthew 10:34-36 Jesus says the following:

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her motherinlaw—
36a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'"^(NIV)(note: The word "peace" in both passages come from the same word)

In addition- i think there are some Christ- imposed principles that uphold the family, but why should we think that Christmas -and EMANUEL- means a time when we all get along. I realize that these are hard words that even I don't fully know the measure of. But the point stands doesn't it? Christ doesn't make everyone get along.
I've been hearing of a new movie this season that seems to be a very real rendering of the nativity story. I'm excited to go see this movie, but I don't expect it to bring everyone together to agree that there is something special about Jesus. If anything, I expect (and even desire, dare I say it) that it will draw the lines clearer. Jesus brought division. Jesus was an object of controversy and/or trouble from the beginning. By bearing his identity were (and are) martyrs killed. In an attempt to destroy him were babies/tots murdered (Matthew 2:16.) And yet he came for a great purpose.
He is reality. He is Truth. He is the life giver, the Redeemer, the Savior of the world and indeed the devine and worthy and incomprehensible Son of God Almighty - to whom be glory forever and ever.
Amen.

Are we Atroctisizing Christmas?

2006-12-13T20:33:00.000-08:00

It seems that when Christmas rolls around it means something new. A couple years back it was recognizing the contrasting meaning of Christ behind the intoxication of marketing. This year is somewhat similar thus far. I'm finding myself asking if calling this whole thing "Christmas" is really an atrocity to the name of "Christ". I know that Christmas, like probably half of the other holidays on our "Christian" calendars, is pagan in orgin and -though redeemed for Christian celebration-is still fused with various other cultural elements. I have no problem with many of these elements being there. I am a faller for culture and I think that there are many backgrounds that can contribute to the cultural richness of the season. I also recognize that to the business world (again, like most any other such holiday) the Holiday Season is an opportunity to market it up. It could be partially for this adaptation and partially for the cultural diversity that we tend to stick the name "Christmas" to all of it generally. Some people object to creating a substitute for the name (i.e. "Happy Hollidays!") but note this: if people don't celebrate my reason for the season then why should I put my name upon it. Is it out of a desperate sense that I am loosing what I once claimed as my own?

Back to the essence part 3

2006-12-05T23:28:00.000-08:00

It really comes comes back down to Love. That incredible force that gives paupers hope and brings kings to kneel in humility.
It seems that in the whelm of doctrine and progression or life and passiveness I have a strange tenancy to loose sight of this central point of love.

What is the most important commandment?
(Mark 12:29-30)
"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God,
the Lord is one.^[e] Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind and with all your strength.'^{[f]- (NIV)}
And what does love look like?
(1 Corinthians 13:6-7, 13)
It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through
every circumstance...

13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of
these is love."
(NLT)

Hardcore.

Bible College?

2006-12-04T11:10:00.000-08:00

So, why might it be that when we see potential in a young person to be a firey alive Christian in a dark world (where their demographic of young adults is varied in their belief systems and aparthided from the church) that we say, "You should go to Bible college?" Bible college? The place where you will spend 4 years apart from those who will have by that time likely made up thier mind on issues of ehtics and the worthwhileness of Christ? Bible college? The place where you can settle down nicely and simmer in passivity?
Does this make sence to you? Comment and be retaliatory if you want; it's ok.

Back to the Essence Part 2

2006-11-23T19:16:00.000-08:00

So, If we are going to throw our lives headlong into God's hands, it might be suggested that we had better know what we're doing.
I had been thinking what an ultimate risk it is to do it. When you come down to the crunch, It's you giving your life up for somone you really havn't completely figured out yet. But I think now that it would be better defined as the "Ultimate Trust".
It is this reason that I believe discipleship or some knowledge of God is reasonably proper for somone before they take this leap. (Lest, dare I say it, their relationship be shallow or rediculous.) Yet, there is most certainly a feeling of risk within trust.
This Jumping in Ultimate trust is a thrill I've experienced 100% unfailable thus far. Plus, it's one crazy ride.

Back to the essence Part 2.2
I guess that last part is unnecessary reason again, since I feel that part of trust is letting go of what I know to be shurefire in a physical sense. The difference is not acting on account of what I know about life, but what I know about God. Life could be any mixture of wonderful and horrific occurances, but the point is that this reality shouldn't really matter. The focus needs to come off of me and on to him. I can't be the receiver in a one way love relationship! I like what Paul says as a statement of response to Jesus' act of love in Philippians 3. Paul presses "on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me."(NIV)

In Matthew 10:39 Jesus says the following:
"Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. "(NIV)
(It's this emptying of myself that I've found myself facing. I must find my life by losing it. I must trust in God and face his definition of "life".)

a short interlude in memory

2006-11-17T17:10:00.000-08:00

Up 'till even now I've had a sense of pride in my old Panasonic Discman. It's had it's stories of when it should have up and died and the headphones I got with it originally are now worn and beaten and just recently began to break down more considerably. This diskman has been to Britan, Ukraine, The Philippines if not Mexico as well. It had served many purposes, most recently as a study aid to me at college. When everyone else have been walking around with thier MP3 players and ear buds they sometimes stop to chuckle at my tenancy toward an older unit. But I have endured their false scorn to the force that this diskman that had brought me this far would continue to bear my use. It has been thrashed and bashed and used and abused for a number of years and even as i went out the door tonight I took the chance to speak on such once again.
I had just brutally dropped my Diskman (Perhaps I should name him something at this point, like Brutalis or Ol' Faithful) on the floor again. Checking it for damage it appeared to be working fine and I took the opportunity to share with my room mate the fortitude of my unit. And as I walked out the door I stated something to the effect of "It'll be used 'till the day it dies." Final last words.

Yes, as much as a sorrowful and ironic twist this is, I must share that no sooner had I begun to walk away that I realized that the old standby was not functioning and that a small piece in it's spinning mechanism had broken use.

The Old Standby is no more.
(Save a nearly functional piece of equipment that could yet be proved as value as a coffee cup holder, laser pointer etc. )

But it is nice to have a piece of equiptment that lasts.

Where do I go from here? Into the market for an MP3 player. Hopefully one that can live up to the name "reliable".

Anyone have one for sale?

Back to the Essence Part 1

2006-11-17T12:38:00.000-08:00

I have been implored to post somthing- so here's what I hope to be the beginning of a short series that was sticking in my mind lately:

It seems that I came to the reality that God had a plan to use my passions for his purposes. Then it seems that I started to call the passions my own and make "my" plans, because God wanted it for me. Subtle shift perhaps- maybe not even a big deal. However, once and a while somthing throws your perspective back into place. Do you ever have those moments? Mine came when somone else's life flew out of the influence of my hands.
Life as we know it in the physical, hangs by little more than a beating heart and functioning brain- both of which can stop in an instance given the proper inclination. Yet we live on and call our lives our own. Untill we are reminded that we are but man.
So I was taken back to the essence. Back to the place where I sing songs about giving my heart, my life, and my dreams to God and meant it. Because despite what God wants to do with my life, be it coherent with my will or not, the essence of the matter is that I give it to him first and formost.
It's a surrendering that I'm willing to watch the outcome of: I commit my life to you.

Perhaps worth your time

2006-10-30T19:32:00.000-08:00

I just clicked on a MSN Hotmail article featured on a window today. It had to do with global warming, and that being an interest of mine, I found a button to watch a movie on the article. Since movies are easier and more culturally applicable (ha ha) than reading, i took this avenue and soon found myself watching our very own Gary Lunn speaking on enviromental issues. Want to get a look at what Mr. Lunn has to say? You're link is below:

http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/TopStories/ContentPosting.aspx?feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V2&newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20061030%2fglobal_warming_061030&showbyline=True

2006-10-25T23:05:00.000-07:00

I suppose it was during one of my first Hermeneutics classes that a scary thought hit me.

Let me set up the stage for you with an explanation of the class of Hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is, simply, the study of the Bible. When that name refers to the class I was in, then it, perhaps means, "the study of the study of the Bible." It apparently comes from the Greek word for "to interpret." Hermes was a character, or god of mythology who would take messages from Jupiter to the people. Using this analogy, Hermeneutics is, in some way, a medium that helps to translate between one philosophy, history, culture, and language, of one time (Bible times) to another (the present). Through the lense of Hermeneutics we must carefully examine the Bible to find out what it really says, lest some meaning perhaps be lost or changed in the influenced, prejudiced, etc., interpretation we make.

The scare came when I got a sense of what duty of responsibility I had in this knowledge of Hermenuetics.

James 3: 1-2
“ 1Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.” (NIV)

Luke 12:47-48
47"That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. 48But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (NIV)

Suddenly this class was no joke! What had I gotten myself into? Would I now have a stronger responsibility to study and figure out the Bible for other's benefit? Before I enrolled in this class I could easily enough shrug off what I didn't understand from the Bible with the best explanation or suggestion I had, or pass it off to someone else, or say "I don't know, but that's a good question." Now- now that I’m more equipped, I seem to have no good excuse for NOT looking deeper. If I say something wrong, will I no longer be excused, but now have to answer for it (since I haven’t used the portion of my ability?) Will my far-out thoughts now be ignorant if I don't bother to look deeper to find out if that's what the Biblical text actually means?
Probably.
Maybe there is a deeper issue than this going on though. Perhaps the following is a better question: am I afraid that God won't be all I want to interpret Him to be if I start finding the genuine raw truth and not just my lazy, culture-stricken take-what-I-want interpretation? Is this presumption possible? Or will I - and I believe that this is true - find more about God -the true God I know and desire to know better- as I dig into the truth about him? How can I be satisfied with mediocrity anymore? I'll want the truth.
I believe the truth is the best option, partially because it is genuine, and therefore dominant to any invention of our own intellect. Secondly, I believe that I’ll find it to be better on the whole than any other option anyways- I suppose you could say - even if the other options were true. I haven’t searched this out deeply, so I don’t presume to know or teach, but it seems that calling Jesus, "the Truth" makes a lot of sense. He really is the most real, best thing ever.

But now if I have gone and poured my heart out about something which I really don't know everything about, what can I say? Where can I draw a line? Is it OK if I stand in front of you and presume NOT to teach? What I say on this blog, what standard will that be held to? Where can I sacrifice formality for radicalism? Where should I weigh extremisms with a standard?
(Should I remove myself from culture entirely in order to be unhindered in my cultural bias’?)
Then again, think on this. The outflow of my heart, which you might find in my poetry and songwriting, might not be 100% theologically sound, but I don't imagine I need to sacrifice artistic elements either. The Psalms, as a Biblical example, boasted plenty of these. While the outflow of my heart might be truth to me, that is, the truth about how I feel; the words are more likely to find themselves theologically grounded as I pursue truth. Even now as God’s Spirit is in me (1 Cor 6-16.) What about David, who somebody (who?) has called a man after God’s own heart (Check out 1 Samuel 7). Could it be that as he pursued the truth of God (Fighting the Giant wasn't quite a reinterpretation of the fact the God would be with him- even against such odds) his psalms, therefore came out of his heart, beautifully OK. I think that this would be because he was in-tune with God's heart. What I suggest is that if I refuse to compromise to any cultural medium ( to my utmost) in discovering the truth of God- and as God shows me more on my journey, my artistic expression and emotional flow will be based in truth. My expectation, I will add, is that the truth will be the most applicable, most powerful and dynamic artistic subject and draw for emotional expulsion; I imagine it as being relatable, down-to-earth, while yet superceding all else untouchably. These are just predictions based from my experience thus far.... But life's a journey; stay tuned, and find truth!

This blog

2006-10-07T18:26:00.000-07:00

Large-scale launch of this blog may not occur untill mid-December /06. But please stay posted for anything that might come between now and then.

Yours,
M C