it has been raining for about five days straight but this morning the stores of heaven were empty and it was clear (or clear-er).  on my way to work i could actually see the mountains and the ocean. the clouds normally shroud them in grey but it was like little elves had created mountains over night, dusted them with snow and planted them around the city.   they had worked through the night to create a winter scape just to get ready for Christmas and that warmed my heart in the weird way that the first glimpse of snow can.

O come, O come

My goal is to celebrate advent this year.

When I was at Regent we sang the hymn "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" during advent.  We only sang the verses - the chorus was omitted.  The reason for this is that advent is not the celebration of Jesus' birth but the preparation for his coming - so we could not rightly since "Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel - has come to you oh Israel!"  Every week we would sing this carol incomplete and every week I would leave with a sense that something was not finished. I guess the act achieved it's aim.

It seems appropriate that advent is celebrated at the darkest time of the year because there is darkness in advent.  We enter into the words of those who sat at the rivers of Babylon  wondering "How Long O Lord, How Long".  (I recognize this is a mixture of Psalm 137 and Psalm 13)  We can look at our world and be angered and discouraged by the same things they noticed:  people not caring for the poor, hatred, pain, dishonest gain, destruction of the world, rejection of God.  These prophets are our comrades for they too lived in a broken world and experienced the pain of loss and rejection and loneliness.  They desperately knew their need for a Messiah who would heal the broken, rescue the weak and restore the lost. And so during advent I am likewise reminded of my own need for a Messiah to further enter my life.

We know that God has made a way for these things to change even though the world has not been made perfect.  He has begun the restoration of his world and reconciliation of man to God.   This great and powerful ruler who would thwart the wicked and tear down nations enters the world so weak and fragile. how can a little baby hold within itself the dynamic tension of fully God and fully human?  I cannot understand.  But it is a blessed thing none the less.

Shhhh - don't tell the ecosystem!

My husband and I have an on going debate over what to do with insects. He prefers to catch them and release them to the wild and I prefer to kill them. I see his point about maintaining the ecosystem but I don't want to have to catch them. I'm a little bit afraid of bugs. There it's out - I said it - I'm not a fan of bugs.
There are a lot of bugs out here in the Northern Rainforest. It seems that bugs grow a little bigger and multiply faster when it's raining. The house we live in has spiders that live in cracks inside and outside the house. Sometimes they even leave a web for you to walk through on your way down the driveway. Delightful!

There is a large spider that lives in the crack in the wall inside our doorway. I have seen it several times and when I go to kill it I remember my husband's loyalty to the environment - and I don't kill it.
However, the other day I was walking through the doorway and saw not just one big spider but TWO big spiders hanging out on the wall. This means that they are multiplying. And so - without a moment thought- I killed one of them.

My issue with spiders is the following - there is a statistic that you eat 4-8 spiders every year in your sleep. So, when I see a spider in my house, I think , "Do I want to have that in my mouth?" I mean, if you are going to have a spider in your mouth either way you might as well have a small spider crawl into your mouth. And if this spider is reproducing, the chances of one of them finding their way into my mouth at night while I sleep is greatly increased. Of course, our bedroom is probably a bazillion "spidey-miles" away from the doorway but "better safe than sorry" I always say.

So, I killed a spider this morning and I'm feeling guilty about it i guess. I feel guilty because spiders are supposed to be really good in the world - they kill all the other gross insects that get caught in their net. And, as long as you don't walk through their web, their pretty crafty and remarkable little devils.

Hopefully I didn't totally destroy the fragile ecosystem of our backyard. Don't tell the ecosystem - but I sleep easier at night knowing there are less large spiders in the world.

one year. almost one year since i have written anything here on my blog. a lot has changed and yet i still find myself mulling over the questions of God's goodness and what it means to be truly loved and transformed by it. my studies this year have given me much more sophisticated language with which to approach these topics but these are still on my mind. I believe that God is good but now I'm trying to figure out how to allow that to penetrate my heart.

interesting that i wrote in March about God's goodness and then I was to sit down in a class in September where the first thing the prof said was, "God is good....he is not out to get us. He is, at the very core of his being, good and he has our best interests at heart. It is when we forget about God's goodness that we grow suspicious of him. But if the Old Testament is to make any sense we have to be rooted and grounded in the fact that God is good."

i was surprised to see that i occasionally had people reading my blog, looking at my statistics. I remember when we all liked blogs, when they were our chance to say something meaningful or to exercise our creative writing skills long lost after elementary school. our skills have been restrained and twisted into writing position papers and reflective essays. it was an outpouring of a place where we could use personal pronouns and pretend that our thoughts and opinions mattered when our profs at university didn't think they did. so, i'm not sure if i'm reviving my blog or not but it feels nice to write to someone out there, it feels nice to have an opinion that does not have to be supported in the church tradition or the latest theological book. and yes...i did use the word nice...grad students are supposed to use bigger and more descriptive words but for now i will stick with "nice".

Colin Hay

"It's easy to love somebody/It's easier than to be loved. "

I was listening to Colin Hay the other day, as I often do, and was struck by the above lyric. Struck by it because what Colin was saying is quite profound. It's incredibly easy to love someone, to bake cookies for them, to buy them a book they like, to call them up when you think about them. But to be loved is an entirely different story.

To be loved is to let someone know who you are. To let them know the things they could tease you about, hate you for, be disappointed in you for. To be loved is to let them know the secret delights you have and your wishes and dreams and foolish hopes.

A good friend of mine put it well the other day when we were talking. This idea that we all deeply want to be loved for every flaw and wonderfulness that we have, we want someone to know us completely. But we also don't want the person to know us fully because we believe that if this person knew they wouldn't love us in our entirety.

And the greater the person who we find so lovely and caring, the less we want them to know us for real because then they might not stick around and we want them to stick around.

I'm ridiculous with the people I care most about. I worry about being a burden on people. When I go to another city to visit someone I always have to have some reason other than them to come to the city and will just happen to see them while I'm there. I don't want them to feel overwhelmed by the fact that I want to hang out with them the whole time, so I create "outs" just in case they don't like me as much as I like them.

But what if we let people see us for who we are, for all our quirkiness, for our brokenness? What would happen then? I think...i think we would be transformed. Our brokenness will always be with us I imagine. But why continue to allow that shame to stop us from being loved by someone, loved in a way that will truly transform us if we let it.

I think that if we let someone know our true self, with all our mistakes and bruises, we actually are freed a bit each time from the weight of guilt and shame that we carry around in our flesh. This transforming power that God has to change us when we live in the reality of his love is amazing. And as we are loved, we throw off more things that entangle us and hinder us and have a chance to live in a little more freedom.

And when we, in turn, love someone and God shows them kindness through us they are filled with joy and want to love us back even if we're messed up. And the cycle continues, loving each other, creating thankfulness for the love, wanting to love more and so on and so forth. it is a beautiful and tranforming thing.

If we hold back from allowing people to really know us, we don't change. If we hold back we continue to dwell on the fact that we are broken people because we are confirming with our actions that if anyone really knew the depth of our dark hearts they wouldn't love us. ashamed of ourselves, not worthy of love we keep a cool distance.

However, if we allowed people to really love us, to give to us without a requirement of giving back and learned to be comfortable in our own skin we begin to allow ourselves to live in the light of those that are loved. Thankfulness and grace will begin to grow in our lives because we understand how unworthy we are and how loved we are at the same time.

The reality of our brokenness will always be with us but let's not keep living in the guilty and weight of that brokenness. We're messed up, that sense of failure is brutal but......let's keep going. We need to be living realities of people who are loved. The world needs to see it and we need it. Transformed. New Creations.

Maybe this post is only for me but allow me the chance to say it aloud even if it's only for my benefit. But i hope you can resonate with what I'm saying.


IN OTHER NEWS:
A few days ago there was a Hoola-hoop show down between myself and Emily. Several attempts were made but in the end the Universal Hool-a-hoop-a-thon was won by Emily. Oh....and an important detail...Emily is in grade 1 and about 3 feet tall. That's right, i lost a hool-a-hoop competition to a gr.1 kid. she was amazing, no effort at all. but you can't feel about loosing to such a great competitor.

And we should all go stand in the warm sun, and listen to "Peace Train" by Cat Stevens. I did it. It was lovely moment.

Do you think that God is good? That he is right in the things he has done, created, caused in your life?

I have been struck by the view of God we have. I have been greatly saddened by many comments I have had people say to me because they reflect a belief that God is not good, that he desires awful situations for us.

I believe that God uses the hardness of life to teach us lessons but I do not believe that he causes destructive pain in our lives. Life is hard enough living in an imperfect world, God doesn't desire to give us more.

And yet we often believe that when life is going good, it's going to have to get hard again because we wouldn't want to get too comfortable. When we feel like life is a real blessing we believe that a depression or financial stress or pain is just around the corner because we couldn't have an enjoyable life, we don't deserve love or goodness and so really we should just get what we deserve.

But do you see what sort of incorrect view of God this is? What does it say that we believe about God if we have come to this conclusion?

Do we believe that God is slow to anger and abounding in love? That his love stretches to the skies? That we will walk through the fire and not be burned?
Or do we believe that God places us in the fire in the hopes that our scars remind us of some lesson that we have to learn? And that what God sees in us is not his beautiful creation but something that always needs work, needs to be changed and is constantly doing wrong? I just don't see that God operates like that.

I realized recently that I had started to believe that it was wrong to desire good, fruitful, loving relationships. That it was wrong to pray for a good place to live next year, that it was wrong to desire that it would be a good experience, one that builds and encourages me. I had begun to believe that every experience was going to be hard, destructive and the like. That I have all these things that are wrong with me that need to be made right and the only way for them to be made right is through hard circumstances. That we have to stay in awful abusive relationships, hard destructive situations, caring for people in a way that allows ourselves to be destroyed by their harshness. And of course we don't say anything to them or work to change the situation because this is what God wants for us, to give and be destroyed by the world. We don't see ourselves as worthwhile and therefore we don't deserve any better.

Yet, what if...what if God wanted good things for us, what if he was looking at all times for chances to give us good things, peace and joy. I'm not talking about material items, I'm not talking about fame. I'm talking about loving relationships, peace and joy, hope for life. I believe he wants to give us things. And yet we walk around in lives that reflect a God that intentionally abuses and destroys us.
In Matthew 10 Jesus tells his disciples that if they are persecuted in a village they should flee. Go somewhere else he tells them, get out of destructive situations. There are other people to tell about me other places. There are other places to be.

Now, I do believe that life is just plain hard sometimes, that sometimes we have to stay in hard situations to see them through. That pain is very real and happens in this world we live in. But I believe that God gives us the strength and resilience to be in them. I just see so many people exhausted, sad, and discouraged in their lives because they choose to stay in situations or relationships that are destructive.

Jesus said that he came to give us life more abundantly. MORE abundantly. Do our lives reflect this truth, this beauty, this wonder of something more than the rest of the world lives. Many times I have spent time with Christians and just thought...man this is not how we're supposed to treat each other. Am I supposed to feel encouraged or discouraged after spending time with people who know Jesus?
And then i have spent time with people where I leave feeling so encouraged, so blessed, so loved and appreciated, like I was important. I loved those times, I feel like myself, like I can do this living thing, this Jesus thing in the world.

And if some flawed Christian individuals can make me feel encouraged, loved and important...then shouldn't a relationship with God do so much more? I believe the answer is yes.

So my thoughts today are: it isn't wrong to get out a situation that is destroying you, to take a break from someone who is destructive to have in your life, to find new people to spend time with if those you are with pull you farther from an understanding of a loving God.

"Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Zeph 3:16-17

Note the words in this verse.."delight" "love" "rejoice". This is the beauty of grace. This is how he sees us even if we are messed up, we don't deserve goodness and blessing but in the beauty of his mercy and grace he gives them to us. Don't taint or destroy this gift he offers because you see yourself as not good enough. Humble your heart to accept his beauty into your life.

There are so many things that go unsaid in movies. And I find this excruciating. I realized just how difficult I find this when I was watching Music and Lyrics last night. (I liked the film but that is besides the point). I made this realization during the classic romantic/comedy moment when the lovers have separated over some argument or stubbornness, and the music plays while they show several scenes of them listlessly trying to piece their lives together without the other.

You see in movies the girl or boy always walks away before the person can wrap their toungue around whatever they were going to say, or there is some miscommunication that causes the lovers to separate and if they just called each other up and said what they were thinking it would all be sorted out. But instead they sit by windows as it rains and drink coffee in a catatonic state.

I loathe things going unsaid. I think it is why I hate the OC and those sorts of shows, so many things not communicated, people don't say what really happened or what they're really thinking. Arrrrggghhhh. I mean, although I love the Office, the entire Jim and Pam thing is based around people not saying what they should and Pam just not owning up to the fact that she loves Jim.

And these parts in movies are even more unbearable is that the reality of things going unsaid resonates deeply within me. Those things that I wish i had said to that person several years ago or that i wish even now I had the guts or wisdom to say. You know what i mean? When you just didn't say what you were actually thinking, when I acted in my better judgement and was not completely honest, when I tried to separate myself from my feelings and make the decision I thought I "should" make.

My mother, bless her soul, always tells me that I should start living what I WANT to do and not what I SHOULD do. but it's hard to get out of that habit because I have lived the way i thought I SHOULD for so long. However, in that time i think i have let some people go that i shouldn't have, and kept others when they were obviously bad for me. And I'm not just talking romantic here.

But I sometimes i think...if i left myself to what I wanted we would be in a sad state because I am a person who struggles with my flesh. sometimes it feels like i do the opposite of what I want to do because I don't trust my own judgement on what is good and right.

C.S. Lewis writes the following passages "We have been like bathers who want to keep their feet - or one foot- or one toe- on the bottom, when to lose that foothold would be to surrender themselves to a glorious tumble in the surf."

Perhaps I need to let go a little bit, trust that doing what I want could actually be a giving of God's glorious freedom to me, and not live in this guilt and "should" mentality.

As to what becomes of the things that have gone unsaid between me and other people, I am not sure. I do not yet possess the wisdom to reconcile those situations and have some sense that time will continue to give me that wisdom. I hope.

For now, I will try and lift my feet off the ocean floor and surrender myself to the surf.