Musings on the subject of church - Part II

They say that by attending Regent College you will acquire a taste for Anglicanism and beer.  although the second is true I want to talk about the first: Anglicanism.
It's not necessarily true that you will become an Anglican but many do fall in love with liturgy and the more mainline church service.
I arrived at Regent College in all my anti-establishment fire and was placed in a class called CTC: Christian Thought and Culture. I was given a book called "Descent of the Dove" by Charles Williams and "The History of Christian Thought" by Jonathan Hill and then hundreds of pages of reading written by the likes of Augustine, St.Basil, Bernard of Clairvaux, Origen, Tertullian, John of the Cross, Ignatius Loyola, St.Francis, St.Benedict,  Schmemann, Aquinas, Donne,  and so on and so forth.
We read and read and re-read the thoughts of old, the musings on Christianity from the beginning of Christianity until the present day. The desert fathers, the rise of Christendom, Charlemagne, the monks, the celtic christians, and the reformation.   We read of strange ideas about God from the 2nd century ,we read of architecture and music and baptism and philosophy, science, and post-modernism.

And I sat in these lectures I realized that perhaps all the people between Acts 2 and the 20th century hadn't been so wrong.  I didn't know about this great tradition of people thinking and wondering and moving in the Christian faith.  I didn't know about the thought that had been put into how we do church and why we do church the way we do.  I hadn't ever thought about the fact that God deeply loves the church and has throughout history.

I had also never realized that the Holy Spirit has been present in the church since the beginning. He has not abandoned the church but has indeed been guiding it.  Now - I don't think that just because the Church has done something it means that the Holy Spirit agrees.  But I also can't deny that the Holy Spirit is in charge.

And so - through much struggling in my soul - I started to realize that I could not so hastily throw out the church tradition that bridged the last 2000 years. That there might in fact be merit to learning and reading about the way these people saw Christianity and recognize that the church has progressed and learned and moved beyond the Acts 2 church.
I'm not sure where I ever got the idea that what happened in the first group of Christians was normative and then everything after had been a disaster. In fact, I think that attitude disregards the Holy Spirit's presence in the church. The changes and movements in the church have been brought about by Jesus-loving, Spirit guided people.

Now, the church has been deeply broken and participated in absolutely terrible things over the past and I don't want to trivialize that. But in those lectures I realized that I couldn't just throw everything out believing that we had gotten on the wrong track after Jesus died because I don't think we did.

By the time I had finished at Regent I had a new appreciation for the tradition of the church. I realized that I cannot  either choose to be apart of the church or not be a part of the church  depending on it's faults. I can't just leave and start my own house-church apart from "the church" and say, "Well I'm doing real church here and you guys over there are just deceiving yourselves."
So, full of thoughts about how meaningful and rich life in the church could be I headed back to Edmonton to see how it all would play out.

Musings on the subject of Church - Part I

I have been thinking a lot about church over the past few years and I have wanted to post about this. Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments as I move through these different posts.

In 2004 I read Velvet Elvis - as perhaps many people did. And like many, I was inspired by what Rob Bell had to say about how to understand and live out the Christian faith.  Rob wrote about a different type of a church, about a different way of seeing the world, and about a different view of God.  I became convinced that the only option for church was now house churches. This was the only way to capture the true essence of community and to provide a chance to care about people.  Programs were out and house churches were in. 

I started reading more books like Rob's book - "This Beautiful Mess", "Irresistable Revolution", "Blue Like Jazz", and others. These books only fed my "anti-establishment" tendencies.   I grew cynical about having to leave my home community to go to a church building and I was sure that we were wasting too much time in programs that didn't do anything.  I felt like all I was doing was putting people through programs that took all my time and were burning me out. 


The problem for me was that the church didn't look anything like the church in Acts 2.  I assumed we were supposed to, that the first record of the church was the perfect, pristine and correct or atleast normative. But after about 100 B.C everything fell apart and we had been on the wrong track ever since.

The type of church I was involved with didn't leave any time to be friends with people who didn't know God. It seems as though it got in the way of the main mission of the church which was getting out and telling people about Jesus, building the kingdom and living life. I grew further and further apart from my friends from high school because i was so busy with church life. 

For me - it seemed as though the church was problematic, we had strayed too far for too long from the original mission and the church I knew now was definitely not what God could have intended.  No more buildings, no more programs, no more instititutions.  I was looking for something new and better. 

So with this attitude in mind I headed for Regent College expecting for them to tell me more of what I already knew. I went to learn biblical languages and textual interpretation so that I could better understand these texts fully believing that if we got right down to the Greek and Hebrew there would be clarity about how we should live, how we should do church and what the Christian world was all about. 

Spring

Creation stands silent in amber and crimson protest 
as white icy fingers take its voice.
Yet smiling it resigns 
knowing that resurrection lies 
within their smallest seed.

people

Every Wednesday morning I get dressed like a student and go to my New Testament class.  I take off my backpack, sit down and relish in the fact that i look like everyone else in the room, that no one notices I'm there and I can just sit in the backrow and listen.

Recently I've started arriving early so I can watch my professor's screen saver.  He has thousands of beautiful pictures of people.  I sit there in the early sleepy quiet that morning classes bring and am reminded of the beauty there is in regular every day life, in regular every day people.

My prof tells us several times every class that the New Testament is about Transformation. This man, Jesus, changed everything and changes us when we meet him. He always says "Something has happened, and the world will never be the same!" This something is Jesus.

My prof spends a lot of time in class talking about how human beings are "image-bearers" of the mighty Creator God. He talks about how this reality should radically change how we see the world.  If all people bear God's image then slavery is wrong because we are treating those that bear the mark of the creator as possessions rather that infinitely valuable creations.   We start to care for the poor because they are precious humans being marginalized.  We love our fellow man because God made them and knowing God should change how we see everyday people.

I think that is why my prof has all these pictures of people on his screen saver.  The reality of Jesus in his life makes every day broken people worth photographing. And if you watch the pictures long enough you can be equally fascinated with the mystery and depth that is in every face.  I've been thinking about how when we come to know Jesus and are drawn deeper into relationship with him, I think we start to see people differently. People become more precious, more important, and more valuable.  And it's this transformation, not guilt,  that moves us to have compassion.  It's this transformation that helps us recognize the beauty that is in every day life and in every day people. 

Oh Donald, how I have missed you!

I have returned from a rejuvenating break at home.  It was nice to feel like myself again, talk with people about new ideas in a familiar way, eat and drink things that I am used to and enjoy the comfort that comes with people you can easily laugh and talk with. It was good to be home.  As a result of this break I have had a change of heart towards the world. I feel as though the world is a big secret waiting to be found out, pursued, and discovered. That things around me are buzzing with potential and that I am capable of participating in it. I even feel the desire to read and think again.

When I was at Regent I read so much that I had couldn't even talk about it after I left - in some ways I didn't know how to talk about the things I had learned because there were not very many venues in which to discuss the ideas.  And I often felt like I was in a completely different head space than most people I met.  I would try and talk about the things I was processing from my time at school and people often just didn't understand either the importance of what I was saying or why it would matter in the first place. Not many people are too interested in how the printing press sparked the beginning of individualism within Christianity or how gnoticism has seeped into Christianity and distorted the good news of Jesus. If it wasn't for my lovely husband to talk about these ideas with I probably would have imploded.  By God's grace my faith was still intact by the end of Regent but I had no idea where to move next and experienced significant apathy towards any movement in my spiritual journey.

But this break I got the chance to meet with some friends who were my "idea" friends. When they were first married I would go to their house and we would drink tea and talk for hours about the church and Christianity and such things.  And seeing them sparked this feeling inside me that I wanted to read again and engage with the Christian world. Whenever I start to feel like this I want to read a Donald Miller book and then I also want to write a book.  I’m not sure what it is about old Donald but he just perfectly fits the mood that I am in at the moment.  I can remember the Christmas Break in 2005 where I felt like this and I read  Blue Like Jazz followed closely by Through Painted Deserts in early 2006.  I like the way he sees the world.  And luckily - Donald has a new book out and it's about the story of our lives and living meaningfully.

It feels as though there is space in my brain again for thoughts and ideas.  The things from Regent have been somewhat chewed on, digested or spat out or merely forgotten.  So here I am in 2010 - beginning on a little journey into reading and thinking again and I'm feeling hopeful about it.

I'm writing a paper on the theology of suffering and taking a course where suffering comes up a lot.  So it's on my mind.  This is the quote I will share with you. It makes me wonder at what price come the music and literature I enjoy.   I know this quote is a bit heavy but I also think it is beautiful - in a sad way.

"What is a Poet?  A poet is unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music. His fate is like that of the unfortunate victims whom the tryant Phalais imprisoned in a brazen bull and slowly tortured over a steady fire: their cries could not reach the tyrant's ears so as to strike terror into his heart. When they reached his ears they sounded like sweet music. And men crowd about the poet and say to him: "Sing for us soon again"; that is as much as to say: "May new sufferings torment your soul, but may your lips be formed as before; the cries would only frighten us, but the music is delicious." And the critics come too and say: "Quite correct, and so it ought to be according to the rules of aesthetics." Now it is understood that a critic resembles a poet to a hair; he only lacks the suffering in his heart and the music upon his lips." 
Kierkegaard

Confessions of an money-saver

I have been thinking a lot about money and me these days.  you see I have been anti-money for most of my life or should I say "anti-wealth".  I never wanted to be in a place where money was something I was seeking or controlled by and I never wanted money to be the most important thing to me.  So I sought to live a life of frugality.
I have always been careful with my money.  I would never spend money on something frivolous.  I would rarely ever go out for dinner; I frequented cheap movie theatre and almost never paid full price for a movie. Clothes that I bought were always second hand and if not they were definitely on sale. I remember the first time I spent $20 on a pair of jeans - I felt like I was becoming materialistic.
I often find myself wondering "can i get a better deal?" or "what else could I do with that amount of money?" .  The other day I went to buy a Hot Chocolate from Starbucks and after pondering the purchase I decided to buy 2 liters of juice instead because it would last longer and was cheaper.  And if I buy more than $20 on myself I get real buyers remorse because I'm just never sure if I spent my money wisely.  By trying to not care about money I have actually started to value it too much because I'm concerned about wasting it.

I was thinking about taking art lessons today and the first thing out of my mouth was, "Well, it's probably too much money."  But maybe, just maybe, art lessons might be a really good thing for my soul that has been a bit displaced since moving, maybe I would find it really freeing to paint and watch the world around me, and I might even just get a kick out of mixing colors and creating.  So maybe money should be only part of decisions and not the deciding factor.  Taking art lessons could actually be an investment.   I could think about using money to expand my horizons and invest in life.   Maybe I'll start small with a fruit smoothie at Starbucks (i've never tried one before) or try the Thai restaurant near our house - the possibilities are endless!

Final Episodes

I love watching final episodes. I have watched the Final Episode of Seinfeld, Friends, the O.C, Scrubs, Arrested Development, M.A.S.H, The Beverly Hillbillies, Veronica Mars, One Tree Hill, Dawson's Creek, Cheers, Corner Gas, Road To Avonlea - just to name a few. 
I have watched final episodes of shows that I didn't even really know anything about.  I love to watch how things end and I gain much pleasure from resolution.  These episodes always pull at your heart strings and gives you a good sense of closure. I love montages of past episodes and how you can see the characters change and they always have a good song playing over the montage. I like to hear people say the thing they always should have said to someone, to watch that person do something that they always needed to do. Final Episodes always involve leaving a room, then turning around for one last look, turning the lights off and seeing those credits for the very last time.  

My friend Daytona was talking about sitcoms on his blog the other day which got me thinking about all the sitcoms and TV shows that have come and gone. I poked around on YouTube and watched the Final Episode of Fresh Prince of Belair and Gilligan's Island .  So I have added some new ones to the list.

Of all the final episodes I have watched there are two that stand out as the best.  The first would be the final moments of MASH - this would make even someone without a soul cry.  What a great show. 

And the second is right here.  The last episode of The Wonder Years  And I found it on YouTube. Here's a little nostalgia to get your weekend going.

Enjoy!

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.

So I'll start a revolution from my bed

Things that can be currently found in my bed right now.
-an Eeyore stuffed animal
-a dog stuffed animal
-one slipper
-three socks
-a hair dryer
-a towel on one pillow
-a bible
-a rice bag
-'till we have faces by C.S Lewis
-2 hudson's bay blankets
-a set of flannel sheets
-a comforter
-four pillows, two for show, two for sleeping...and only one that i really sleep on.
-me

And on top
-a brown hoodie
-one down vest
-one army green jacket

So what have i learned from this realization? My bed is too big. I can sleep with all these sorts of things in my bed quite comfortably and never even run into them. The socks and slippers and rice bag are just out of reach of my feet so i have to dig around to find them, or they just rest there never to be found again....until i wash my sheets i guess.

And then I rest whatever book i am reading on the extra pillow i have. it's like a soft, cuddly shelf in your very own bed. Lovely thing. I can even rest my glasses there in the evening and my watch, that i use as an alarm. But my glasses and watch are currently on my person so i did not include them.

Hair dryer..well..that's for extra warmth in the cold evenings. nothing like heating up your bed with a hair dryer. it's good for people like me who have ice running through their veins or were born without the talent of creating their own heat.

So that's what my bed is like. a nice place to be if you are cold or are in need of some reading material. there's definitely for a few people in there. you will have to bring your own food but i can't even begin to tell you what i have within reach of the bed that would take too long. but there are some tasty M&M's very close by.

Winter Jacket Day

By the title of this post you might think I'm going to talk about how today was cold and you needed a winterjacket, but you would be wrong, so very very wrong.
Winter Jacket Day is a term I have for a sort of day I experience everyonce and a while. So hold on, this is going to be good. Or at least...it will allow my to communicate with some of you much more efficiently if you understand this.

I'm not a big fan of winter jackets, I lived a whole year of school by only wearing a vest, hooded sweatshirt, scarf and mitts. I didn't want to have to wear a winter jacket. And as I stood there freezing in -20'C weather at 7:30 in the morning I was confident in my choice of clothes.

Have any of you had the experience where you need something from the back seat of your car and you reach back and cannot quite get it because your winter jacket gets in the way? And you know if you weren't wearing this huge jacket you would be able to reach it. Or you are walking up a tobogganing hill with your whole winter get-up on and it is taking forever, and you can't walk quite right because it feels like your clothes weigh so much, and your too warm or uncomfortable and yet cannot get away from these clothes you are wearing? Or you are moving someone's stuff in the winter, outside and you're winter clothing is causing every movement to be hindered in its fullness.

Well, I experience this a lot. I find winter jackets suffocating, they restrict every moment you make and sometimes when you are trying to get it off it feels like you might not ever be able too because it's stuck to you somehow, it has become one with your person, your whole person is restricted. In that moment of frustration I think of Arizona, where I could be completely warm with only a bathing suit on. I believe that does not help the situation and only increases the annoyance.

And sometimes, even when I'm not wearing a winter jacket I have that same feeling, that feeling of being restricted, suffocated, a lack of freedom. I never know quite what causes it but somedays that's just how i feel. most often in the winter. Those are winter jacket days. Those days when your person feels restricted somehow, unable to be free.

Now, after all that explanation I can say....today was a winter jacket day for me.

Knitting and Heroes

In the past two days I have become addicted to Heroes. My sister told me to watch it so eventually we could watch them together and so i watched one and then another and yet another. Quite the addictive show. A little creepy at times, but it's about superheroes, I'm not sure why I didn't watch it sooner. I guess I don't know how to "download" things onto my computer.

The bad part about my addiction is I think I can justify it by knitting while I watch. I started a pair of socks and of course I need something to do while I knit, so I watch TV. Either Heroes or Buffy The Vampire Slayer, thanks to my lovely cousin.

And I feel almost justified in my watching huge amounts of television which is ridiculous i know, but i am sort of being productive, although I don't do anything else. If I started knitting some sort of project for people in Africa or something, I might even think of myself as a saint and not just "productive".

I have been watching them on peekvid.com but have run into a wall at Episode four. I can't get any epsidoes beyond episode 3 to load. It's an incredibly sad thing. So does anyone know how I can continue watching Heros? Don't think about it as feeding an addiction, think of it as caring for your good friend and her lack of a social life. I really do sort of have this addictive thing to TV shows if I get into them. I watched a whole season of Average Joe once with my mom, i wanted to know what happened. So it is best for me to watch all the episodes and be done with it.

Even when I watch movies I would rather fast forward to the end, know what happens and then
rewind the movie and watch it in peace. a bit strange, but 'tis who i am.

The weird part is that I'm quite content knitting and watching Heroes or Buffy. Sitting in my room after running after children all day, watching and knitting. Quite enjoyable. I mean, Heroes is exciting, I don't think I could handle much more stimluation than that.

I know I'm a little late to jump on the Heros bandwagon. But I should have a long time ago, you know my sister Claire is on the show and all. But I really like it. Especially Hiro. He is such a great character, except for the fact that he is supposed to be Japanese and it so obviously Korean. Minor detail to Western world but is a big deal in Korea I imagine. I hope that Korean people aren't too offended by that. But I really like that they always speak in subtitles. Instead of Americanizing the characters.

But what is with Niki, she's creepy with her whole alter ego and Siler. Maybe i should watch Heros with someone else for safety sake. It's a little creepy in quiet house where you are alone. But I ask you, what is life without a nightmare or heart stopping fear everyonce and a while?

So if anyone knows how to get episode four or whatever that would be awesome. Thanks. As for now I'll continue eating candy that the teacher I'm subbing for left me. Quite the life.

Yet Another Salute

My grandfather is a lovely man who cherishes hard work, smart living, wisdom with money, family, God, and most of all his granddaughters. My grandfather has had the lucky fortune of having 11 granddaughters. He loves it. If we meet him at some church get together and give him a hug or kiss him on the cheek, he will turn to whoever he is talking with and pretend he doesn't know who we are, and makes some comment about still having charm with the ladies....even as an old man.

He says shocking things because he can because he's old. And so he will definitely try and get your goat if you're paying attention. He will make his funny comment and then give just a small little smile and a wink with his bright blue eyes.

My grandfather sold me my car for half the price we had agreed on. When I went to write the cheque to him he just pretended we had agreed on the lower price and then smiled and winked.
He definitely seems gruff to some people but there is such a lovely heart hidden in him. I have heard countless stories of him giving people work that had moved to Edmonton and helping them out when they needed it.

My grandfather supervised the building of the Hudson's Bay Building downtown when he was 24 years old. His company also built the Glenmore Reservoir and built a hydro dam that allowed Yellowknife to have electricity for the first time. And they made the trip by using caterpillars that pulled large sleighs that they rode in.

He has travelled the world and taken care of his family. Worked hard and helped out many people. Seems like he has lived a good life. And he's a heck of a Sequence and Rummicube player.

I love my grandfather. And over the last while he has become weaker and weaker but everytime I see him he looks me right in the eyes, holds onto my hand and says, "You know I love you right?" And everytime it makes me cry. I don't know why I cry, you would think it would make me happy to hear it but I cry. It's how my body gets out that emotion that wells up within me. It touches me very deep inside and makes me feel like a little kid.

Tonight I went to see my grandpa and I tucked him into bed, made sure he was warm and kissed him goodnight. Quite a reversal of roles. He told me he loved me before he went to sleep and I managed not to cry for my grandma's sake.

Lately Grandpa has been telling me that he is cold and very tired. But he still smiles at me, even if he is a little less spry these days.

My sister is planning a flight home to see him, which means that there isn't a lot of time left. Which is why he needs a salute. There are many things to salute him for but I will keep it simple.

So....
Grandpa, I salute you. I salute you for not forgetting to tell me that you love me. For taking care of your family in many different ways. For 92 good years of life. For having the kindest blue eyes that I have ever seen.

I enjoy reading, I'm not an avid reader by any stretch of the imagination but I enjoy reading. I like talking about interesting thoughts that I have read with people, I like hearing their thoughts. It definitely can be a bit of a pride issue to be able to drop a Lewis quote into a conversation or Dostoevsky or something. I see it as such, I'm aware I can be pretentious. But sometimes it's just fun to talk with other people who have read the same books as you.
I am mostly out of my league with real readers, they have way too many books to pull from and I must seem amateurish to them. But I like to read.

I asked my Uncle once what made a person able to bend with time, to change and be gracious as Christian thought and earthly culture changed. How was I to resist becoming a cynical old person, how was I to be able to read new authors with new ideas even when I'm 60? I wanted him to give me a list of books that he had read that I should read because that seemed to me the answer, reading more books.

And this is what he responded:
"I think it's largely a spiritual question. I'm not particularly close to God, but the people I knew who were really close to God, who showed it in their lives as people of grace, persistent commitment, joy, humility, also had very open minds.
The people who focused on ideas, on thinking, on being smart and open-minded, didn't stay open and moving. Of course this doesn't mean that you don't think lots or have positions, even strong ones. But they are "softened" somewhat, by Spirit presence.

A side issue and practically speaking, keeping lots of new info going in, keeps you a little off balance, prevents that kind of harsh certainty that is part of eventually rigid positions. So read lots. But more significant to seek Him."

In Zach Braff's movie The Last Kiss one of the characters, after reaching a frustration with the selfishness of Braff's character says this:
"What you feel only matters to you. It's what you do to the people you love. That's what matters. That's the only thing that counts."

Sometimes i find myself reading books and they make me feel a certain way. They make me feel passionate about problems in Africa, enraged by the American government or materialistic people or affluence, cynical about manufactured Christianity, or various political or religious ideas. I feel it, it wells up within me.
And yet....after I have read the book I go to another and even though i have some great quotes or thoughts for the next conversation I have with someone, I will have very little to show in my actions that their words really affected me.

I can talk for hours with people about issues, thoughts, etc. But after a while I begin to look foolish because my life does not reflect these things I am so passionate about.

So the question is today: are you talking and not changing? are the glorious words you find on those pages penetrating your world and actually changing who you are? or are they just put into your brain and causing you to only feel things rather than do something?

Please read. It's important. And talk about it, talk about it lots. Form groups to talk, write e-mails, call people to talk. But allow it to change you.

There seems to be little point in reading with no change, to be moved emotionally but not get our legs in order to actually move forward. seems better to read one book and allow it to change how we live, how we spend our money, how we look at people, than to read thousands and stay where we are.

Better to not talk or share our lofty ideas, then to share them and never be changed, to talk about them and never have anything different. Seems like a work of evil to sit around and discuss these things we read, while Lazarus waits at the gate of our homes, waiting to eat the crumbs of our table.