Repeating Myself

I'm sure I've said this before, but maybe not in a blog/journal post, but I'd really like to learn how to speak whale (no, not like Dori on Finding Nemo).... Haven't heard a ton of whale sounds, but I think I've heard some humpback noises & yeah, there are days where those sounds seem to express perfectly how my heart feels... mournful cries echoing out into the great, vast, darkness of the deep... hoping someone, somewhere will hear the cries and respond so that it's not just my own echoes that I'm hearing....

...mind you I'm also thinking about learning how to curse in Chinese 'cause they do it in Serenity & it sounds cool... so yeah, maybe my judgement is a bit suspect.

"Prayers from a Penlight" by Billy Crockett
You look up one summer night
And see the billion burning suns of the Milky Way.
You've been informed this is barely a drop in the cosmic ocean,
So you snap a self-portrait, all hair and glasses and dental work,
and hold it up to the sky.
"KNOW ME."

Another Night Looking for Serenity

Last night I watched the movie "Serenity"... I'd finished the TV series "Firefly", which is the lead in to the movie, earlier in the week & had decided that I very much wanted to catch the movie & see the last chapter (?) in the story of the crew of the spaceship 'Serenity' (since the series, like most good series on TV, was cancelled far too early)....I was planning to see it tonight (friday), but I'd found that 'Serenity' was disappearing from theaters this week (though one website now says there are still showings available), so I reordered my plans and, in the middle of one of the busiest work weeks I've had in a long time, changed up my schedule to catch the late show on Thursday night (after asking a gracious friend to let me cut my evening with them short so I could sneak off to see the movie.....

....so I sat in a theater with 3 other people & watched this last chapter, a story full of adventure, drama, humour & the fantastic characters that have become 'friends' in some odd sense.... the movie was good, though hard to watch... like life there was lots of joy & lots of sorrow.... and a lot of tension - lots of harrowing moments where the crew were on the edge of dying with hope slipping away fast. The 'bad guys' in the movie, the reavers, were terrifying - the stuff born of nightmares - made even more scary 'cause they never really show them. The pictures flash across horrible faces, full of twisted evil & destruction - and the image is there for such a short time that it leaves your brain to fill in the details with all of the fears it can imagine.....

.... and yeah, I watched, I laughed, i clutched the edge of my seat, heart pounding in my chest, I cried & yeah... I left the theater somewhere after midnight with a whirlwind of emotions - tension, sorrow, hope, longing.... and yeah, was pretty somber getting home & had a hard time sleeping most of the night 'cause of too many thoughts rushing through my head from the movie....

... and the thoughts haven't quite left... today had a dream like quality to it - partly from another busy day at work, partly from being very tired, partly from all the thoughts... but yeah, tonight I found myself alone at home, trying to rest & enjoy some time to myself while facing the thought of a weekend filled with work trying to catch up from all that didn't get done this week. I debated about what to do tonight, sort of wanting to be around people, but yet hating that prospect, too.... I have nothing much to say (sort of) and time spent around people requires conversation, requires me to say something, or to listen, but my heart isn't in it so much..... so I went home, tried to just hang out & rest....

..in the end I pulled the car out of the garage & went wandering, went to grab some desert at the cheesecake cafe & read in a book (starting 'the importance of being foolish" by Brennan Manning).... but honestly I was looking for something....

...I was looking for Kaylee, for someone with the heart of a romantic, a dreamer, someone who can laugh & joke & play & remind you of what it's like to be a kid again, someone who is touched by & filled with wonder & a gentle belief in the goodness of people.... I was looking for Inarra, someone of wisdom & beauty, a person of quietly surprising strength, someone who knows how to listen, how to hear the heart, someone who knows the right things to say & has the courage to fight for & stand with those they love.... I was looking for Mal, or even Zoe, someone with courage, someone who is simply a scalywag, all rough around the edges & full of flaws, but a man or woman of courage, of conviction, someone who knows what's right - not in the pietistic sense of polished moral platitudes - but the frontier sense of knowing that was is right is to show love, to fight for the underdog, to go against those who would seek to control people & crush their freedom.... people who have the courage to love, to live, to fight & die for freedom - their own or for others, people who look after their 'crew', their 'family', leaders for whom leading is coming with the firm hand of giving orders which must be obeyed, but a leadership that will lay down their life for their crew/family, leadership that earns loyalty by being worthy of trust.... and yeah, maybe I was looking to find a bit of Kaylee, or Inarra, or Mal in my own heart....

(and yeah, there were more than a few times where I was checking over my shoulder for reavers)

Most of all I was looking for 'Serenity'.... when describing to my friend why I wanted to see this movie so badly, I described Serenity as this safe place for me, a place that pictured family for me... I've thought over the past week or so, that if I was going to run off & join the circus (or fly to the stars), I'd want to be on Serenity... to be in a place with broken people, with quirky weird people who are not quite right - people who are misfits & the underdogs, but people who, in the end, learn how to love each other 'cause they're really the only family that they've got....

And yeah, in my life I find I'm a story teller - or I'd like to be.... mostly right now I'm a listener. Why does fiction matter? Why do movies & tv & books & plays & poetry, why does it have a place in our hearts & lives? Why do stories move us so? I don't have the answer, but I know that stories paint pictures for our hearts - we learn who we are & who we want to be from seeing the examples lived out in lives around us. Stories teach us about people, about life, about what it is to be human, what it is to love, to risk, to have courage & bravery, to see the power of hope, the dangers of pride & greed, to remind our hearts of our longing for something better.... we are all connected by stories - each moment of our days is another scene in the story that is our life, a story that is woven into the greater story of the history of the world, and, ultimately, the story of Jesus romancing His bride....

This is why i connect so much with the old testament & the gospels in the Bible far more than I connect with the letters of Paul, or Proverbs - the majority of the bible is just stories - stories about men & women who are not quite right, men & women who are often not the nicest people, not the most together. People who are treacherous & scalawags & vagabonds.... ragamuffins as Brennan puts it... the 'heroes' in the Bible are just screwed up 'everyman's (or everywomans) that muddle their way through life the best they can.... the thing that makes their lives remarkable is their encounter with this God who is other to them, but who starts to weave them into His story.... and there story then is not a moral tale - not some aesop's fables to teach some simple lesson - but instead the honest example of what happens when the divine encounters the earthly, when the finite is romanced by the infinite.....

... stories are not truth... they are not logical statements that can be proven right or wrong.... they're just stories - they point to truth, they paint pictures for our hearts that, if we look at them long enough, we can find the truth, and ultimately the One who is Truth.... but yeah, you have to listen to them to make them matter, you have to let the stories into your heart - let them sink in & let your story weave in with the stories of others... and this is part of learning to love - to see that you're not so different - that your story sounds sometimes like the story of another - that somehow you have common bonds, a common heart & a common hope, common longings & dreams, common fears & sorrows as others... and in that, if we listen, we find that the differences that keep us apart are not nearly as big as the similarities that bring us together....as put by another great storyteller, "If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? "

Stories remind us of what matters - of how fragile we all are, that the things which so often take up most of our thought life really don't matter. We are fading like the flowers & there is only the moments that we are living in now in which we have time to love, to laugh, to fight for what is right, to stand up for the oppressed, to try to bring light into our little corner of the world & help bring hope & freedom to those around us.... to simply enjoy the moments we are given.... instead of frittering them away with meaningless pursuits....

...and yeah, I know it's all complicated & such, and thankfully the good stories show that complication, show a world full of risk & full of villains who stand against all that is good & right.... but yeah, the stories remind us of what our hearts long for....

....and hence 'Serenity' reminds me of home.... of the family I've been longing to find, of the courage & bravery I long to find in my own heart, of many, many things.... but most of all it, like so many great stories, reminds me how to fly....

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: It ain't all buttons and charts little Albatross. You know what the first rule of flyin' is? Well I suppose you do, since you already know what I'm about to say.
River Tam: I do, but I like to hear you say it.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Love. You can know all the math in the 'Verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, she ain't keepin' up just as sure as the turning of worlds. Love keeps her up when she ought to fall down, tells ya she's hurtin' 'fore she keens, brings her home at the end.
River Tam: Storm's getting worse.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: We'll pass through it soon enough.

Possibly unpopular wisdom

"From December to February the harmattan wind blows sand and dust from the Sahara Desert into the skies throughout West Africa. It results in a hazy sky, reduced visibility and altered perception; the strange feeling that things are not what they were, or at least not what they seem.

There is so much I thought I knew before i came here. I knew my mind and its philosophy, my body and its limits. I knew religion but put my faith in science. I knew what it meant to be a white man and a Canadian. There was so much I was certain of and so many lines that I had drawn with a chisel in stone. now it is not as if the lines have been erased and redrawn. Instead, the stone has turned to dust and has blown away.

I am sure of one thing: The world does not need to be saved, only savoured"

- Marcello Di Cinto, "Harmattan: Wind Across West Africa"

I find this thought beautiful. Especially after too many years of trying to save the world myself.... I think in the church we see that Jesus died & rose again to save the world & then we figure we need to 'do something' to be productive or useful or helpful to 'help God' or 'do something for Jesus'.... and more often than not, it's that we end up doing something, often misguided though often with great intentions, that is really there to make us feel better, make us feel like we're 'useful' and can earn His love & acceptance (which are free gifts to all anyhow & don't have to be earned).

Instead, i think I'm learning that to save the world, and to find my salvation, a lot of life is laying down my attempts to prove myself as a 'somebody'.... I find that as I rest, as I savour the world around me, as I enjoy the richness of the moments of life, I find that is what makes me feel alive, what makes me want to live, and yeah, I wonder at times if that savouring of the world, of the moments of this gift of life that I live in, that we all live in, is really what ends up being the light that points to salvation....

I don't know.... I do know that the people who seem alive to me are the ones that make me want to live, the ones that remind me of what my heart of hearts longs for.....

Feelers

I love my personality type - which is good 'cause it's mine & I sort of can't get rid of it - so it's good that I like it otherwise I'd drive myself nuts (though i do a good enough job of that as it is).

But I love being a feeler - I love processing things through my emotions. Yes, it's not always the cleanest, quickest, most efficient means of dealing with things. yes it does bring all kinds of chaos to my life that maybe wouldn't be there if I rationalized everything through... but yeah, I love the fact that I can spend one moment going "woe is me, the sky is falling, we're all doomed" and the next moment being freakishly happy, raving on about what a beautiful place the world is & how great it is just to be alive & to take another breath.....

... I think that kind of stuff scares all the thinkers out there 'cause it seems so out of control... That's 'cause they're interpreting things through their noggins instead of their hearts... for the thinkers to express that range of flip-flopping emotions that quickly would require severe mental illness to be a logical reason behind the outburst.....

...but for me, the expression of all this stuff is just normal... it's part of my life & just part of what it means to be me... and I've learned how to live with it... and in that words like 'depression' and 'suicide' don't scare me... they're things I've faced so many times that they're not scary any more... I know I'll likely always be prone to hearing their voices or feeilng their tugs, but I know that the moments will pass & the voice of hope & tug of beauty will soon replace the darker cries....

It's just how we process stuff.. Extroverts will blab & blab & talk themselves in circles until they sort out what they're thinking/feeling... Introverts like me will hole up somewhere and basically go through the same process, but our 'listeners' will be God, our own heads or our journals.... thinkers will make lists of pros & cons & weigh out decisions with complicated logic, where as intuitive feeler people like me will have to search things out - feeling around with our gut instincts & our hearts like some blind man with cane - or like someone fumbling in the dark for a light switch.... eventually we find the way to turn the lights on again, but we need that time to fumble around & find the switch ourselves rather than be told the logical places to look & the 'right' way to do something....

heard this quote from Josh Mac Dowell today I think - he mentioned that the past generation believed something & therefore they knew it would work, where as the current generation only believes something if they see that it works... I'm definitely in the camp of the latter....

Stuff I Learn From Watching TV

Tonight I'm watching an episode of 'Firefly' (fantastic series, great stories, great characters, lots of fun & the lead in to the movie "Serenity" which I still need to watch). In tonight's episode, the engine on the ship "Serenity" breaks & the crew is stranded in space with life support failing, the temperature dropping & breathable air running out. Mal, being the good captain that he is, sends his crew out on the two shuttles hoping that they'll find help. Mal refuses to leave the ship & decides to stay there in case someone hears the distress beacon that Serenity is sending out. Odds are against any of them finding help, but Mal's chances of survival on the crippled ship are slim & none, and the crew knows it. They beg him to come with him on the shuttles, but he won't leave Serenity....

...finally, the beautiful Inarra comes to Mal, begging him to come on the shuttle with them. Again he refuses, and she looks at him, with eyes full of love & concern, and says, "Mal, you don't have to die alone".....

...and, quickly, unexpectedly, my body clenches in a sob... the tears burst out & my lungs choke out something that is half sob, half scream... the union of sorrow & pain.....

... today hasn't been the best of days. Early morning breakfast with friends, body tired & tummy hurting from being, well, just a size or two too big & being asked to put more food in this early in the morning. My friends called another friend of theirs, a guy offering a job to work on electronics (satellite communications) in Afghanistan. Job requirements: good working knowledge of communication protocols, need to be single & willing to travel on & off to Afghanistan for the next 2 years or so.... My friends, having been to Afghanistan, think it's a great fit & figure I should go for it, try to sell myself so this guy is impressed.... but I walk away from that doubly 'condemned' (for lack of a better word). One, I know that my 'career' of test engineering has left me without the technical expertise this guy needs. I feel inadequate with that. I've dabbled in a little of everything in my field. I'm a jack of all trades, master of none. I know how to take someone's design & look for flaws, possible breaking points. I know how the process of test works. Try to find repeatable ways to show the problems so that the problems can get fixed & you can prove that they're fixed. I know how to pull apart other people's stuff & help them make it better. I'm reasonably useless when it comes to building stuff of my own from scratch.... I just don't have the know how.

And secondly, I, well, I just don't want to spend two years somewhere else. Long ago I longed to go to the 'mission field', to hit some far off land & integrate myself into their culture & love the people of another land... Reading Marcello's book, those images of far off places flood my mind & I've been thinking about travelling, about discovering places & peoples... and yeah, here I have the chance to do that for real & make excellent coin while I'm doing it and, and yeah, all I can think about is that I don't want to spend 2 years somewhere else... somewhere else ir relative alone-ness.... I thought about how hard a time I have fighting loneliness here in Calgary & just how much harder, how much more dangerous, it could be to be off in Afghanistan where the language barrier gets in the way, too.... Mostly I just ended up thinking about how I'm not sure if I can handle another 2 years of life single & watch myself get further old without finding someone (though I suppose one could argue that there's maybe some nice afghan girl that I could pay 10 camels for..... though somehow that doesn't appeal so much right now... maybe after another 2 years of singleness, I'll change my mind)... I have a 'life' here. It's maybe nothing too fancy, nothing too special, but it's mine & yeah, there's this illusion that maybe I'll meet someone here in Calgary (or at least in Canada) & it'll all work out & then we can think about blazing off to far off lands (if I learn more about how to design sat-com networks).

But yeah... my confidence has been shot today.... It's normally pretty fragile at the best of times... over the past couple years it's been getting better & better - the best it's ever been, but it's still pretty fragile... women are the 'silver bullet' though... so far, no matter how strong my confidence is, you put me in a room with a woman I'm even slightly interested in & my sun rises & sets with her perceived like or dislike of me.... often I'm so expecting rejection that I invent it when it isn't there and put myself on this treadmill constantly trying to win affection, even from people that I'm not sure I really want to win them, or, at least, not sure I'd know what to do with their hearts if they did end up giving their hearts to me....

... and honestly, some times I think it'd be way easier to just stay in my life of singleness. I'm getting comfortable with it. I'm enjoying it. I'm managing well, I don't have a ton of things to worry about (though I manage to invent my share of things to fret about). I like this quirky, weird, introverted life I have. There are so many little joys to it, so many moments of good things & random encounters with beauty & grace... and yeah, even lame-o stuff like $10 Transformers Alternators at Wal-mart - silly little things that make me happy, at least for a while....

...but there's always that 'chink' in the armour, that one nagging thing that won't let go... there is a reality that we are not made for solitude & isolation... we can't survive without them, all of us must have times to be alone with ourselves, otherwise the lessons we learn & live don't sink in; we never really get to understand the wonder of being ourselves unless we have time to enjoy being with just ourselves (well, maybe that's not true - maybe that's just the single introvert talking for everyone)... But we are made for relationship, made to be with others. We long to know & be known, to love & be loved... and there is something missing in us until we find fulfillment in that...

...and yeah, I know the reality is that we are never 'filled' by relationship... there is no relationship this side of heaven which will complete us, which will take away every moment of loneliness. There is no one, apart from God, who will totally understand us, or who will be able to perfectly love us... Even with God we feel pretty cut off from Him a lot of days... and so I know full well that the gnawing emptiness will not ever go away fully, but, like the craving for food, must be nurtured & satiated regularly.... without the regular in-filling of food, our bodies die, without the regular in-filling of love, our souls & spirits (and often our bodies, too) die....

...but even with knowing this, there is still the longing for closeness, for 'one'ness as good as it gets... it's the longing for eden, the longing to find eve, or at least the one who will be 'eve', the 'first' woman, to me... (in the sense of the wonder of falling in love & meeting someone who becomes to you like the first woman you've ever really 'seen' )... and yeah, this ache doesn't leave... and I sort of hate it. I've sort of tried to gear my life to be self-sufficient. To be able to give to others, but not need.... and it's this 'chink in the armour' that is definitely a need which won't leave, which I can't fix on my own (unless I do the 10 camel thing), and one that I have no control over.

Though I try to control it... I try to contort myself to 'be' someone... I don't primp & preen 'cause I figure my looks won't win me somebody. I don't flaunt money around 'cause I'm no good with that stuff & may not always have the cash... but instead I try to contort - try to find out what 'she' (whoever that may be at the time) wants & try to contort myself to fit the image of what I figure she wants... all of which ultimately fails as I try & fail to be someone who is more exciting, more adventurous, more of a risk taker, more this, more that... and I contort back & forth, all the time bending myself to the ever changing winds of what I think 'her' opinion is (which is made even more doomed to failure 'cause I, as a guy, am trying to read a woman's mind).... and in all of the contorting, the voices in my head bring the endless parade of 'not enoughs' to my ears and the hapless female that has gotten my attention slowly backs away as my insecurities run rampant & I slowly self destruct in my desire to 'impress' her, all the while losing myself to try to 'be' what she wants....

...it's pretty pathetic really. I sort of hate doing that, but yeah, haven't quite shaken it yet....

... and so Inarra's words somehow strike deep and cut through all the crap of the mind games I play with myself trying to convince myself that I am managing.... the reality is that I am afraid... I fear the aloneness, fear that it will always be 'mine', fear that I will not know what it feels like to find love & community.... and yeah, I think I fear love & community as much as I fear not having it... I'm not used to it & don't know what to do with it.... part of it is, as Mal says at the end of the show, after he's made everything right & takes a bullet in the process, "will all of you still be here when I wake up?"... I fear that, as with everything in life, relationships are transitory... I keep wanting to find 'happiness' and then camp there for the rest of my days... to stay in bliss & roast marshmallows while waiting for the world to end.... but life is full of change & love grows with the times & changes through the seasons... Love faces risks & challenges and stares bravely in the face of death which comes for us all.... No matter how 'good it gets' on planet earth, life keeps changing & there is the risk that it will all fall apart, or, to look at it another way, it will all work towards the best - to whatever brings us to healing & wholeness... happiness is a moment by moment luxury that may or may not last... Love is, as the poets say, stronger than death, unyielding as the grave....

I'm stuck here now, looking for some nice conclusion to sum this all up. I'm happier for venting. Feeling more content with the aloneness - here in a quiet room, lying on a bed for two that holds only one right now.... but there is no conclusion.. There is only the tension of being human - of longing for relationship & running from it, of needing to find one's place in community & to find one's self, of existing in need & of looking after yourself, of being broken & yet whole.... and yeah, it's life, a beautiful gift, full of joy, & yet touched by much tragedy... but all of it messy without nice clean answers or magic cures to fix it all.... no formulas, no easy fixes.... only staring into all that we fear & somehow finding the courage to love (or at least the courage to be open to love)....

By Request

Was asked for a list of authors/books that have influenced me... here it is:

Authors:
-Rich Mullins (see his Release magazine articles at http://www.kidbrothers.net/)
-Brennan Manning: 'The Ragamuffin Gospel' (life changing book for me), Ruthless Trust, 'Relentless Tenderness' and many more - looking forward to reading the new one 'The Importance of Being Foolish;
-Mike Mason: 'the mystery of marriage', 'the gospel according to Job', 'the furniture of heaven', 'practicing the presence of people'
-G.K. Chesterton: 'Orthodoxy'
-Frederick Buechner: 'Telling the Truth: The gospel as comedy, tragedy & fairy tale', 'the son of laughter'
-Anne Lammott: 'Bird by Bird', 'Travelling Mercies'
-Madeline L'Engle: 'Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith 7 Art'
- Marcello DiCinto: 'Harmattan: wind across west africa' - the one I just finished. Absolutely beautiful book & yeah, I felt soooooo bummed finishing the book... I so desperately wanted to hear more of Marcello's stories....
-Jennifer Grant: 'Making Light of Tragedy' - a collection of short stories... this book was exquisite... I didn't understand 1/2 of what she was talking about, but her writing is so delicious... like some sinfully rich desert...
-Jewel Kilcher: 'A night without armour'
-Emily Dickenson: random poems
-Gary Smith: 'Radical Compassion: Finding Christ in the heart of the Poor' - an essential book if you want to catch the heartbeat of loving street people
-Ben Pasley: 'Enter the Worship Circle'
-Lloyd Alexander's series: 'the book of three', 'the black cauldron', 'the castle of Llyr', 'Taran Wanderer' & 'The High king' - read these when I was 11/12 & it's the 1st books that I've cried while reading (but not the last)
-The bible: once you catch the 'big picture' instead of focusing on just little spots, verse by verse, it's a gorgeous piece of literature whose stories have woven themselves into my story & vice versa...

Songwriters:
-Rich Mullins
-Bruce Cockburn
-Bill Mallonee of Vigilantes of Love
-Don & Lori Chaffer (of Waterdeep)
-Andrew Peterson
-Andrew Osenga
-Derek Webb (formerly of Caedmon's Call)
-Nichole Nordeman
-Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace
-Nicky Mehta
-Jewel

and lots of others.

Wise Songs from Don

Mr. Don Chaffer (of the band Waterdeep) is a fantastic lyricist... (as is his wife Lori).... his music & words are well worth the listen & thought I'd share...

..was thinking about one of the songs tonight.


If You Want to Get Free

by Don Chaffer

In the gas station bathroom by the condom machine
I heard the word of the Lord
He said “Take off your shoes,
this is holy ground too
you know I came for the sick and the bored.”
Beneath the selling of beers
And the welling up of tears
Out beyond the beam of the remote control
There’s a whispering voice
That the humble ear ears
that says “I am still waiting
for you to ask just to be made whole.”

And the bush it was burning on the mountain top
and though the leaves never blackened, the fire didn’t stop
That’s the way that it works in this old life of sin
You gotta let the fire burn you just to get clean within

I am so often deterred from my actual intent
by distractions in a cellophane wrap
And the cruel voice that taunts me when I open them up
to find just one more box full of crap
It’s where you’re mocked while you abstain
and then cursed when you give in
It’s all a game that’s impossible to beat
But there’s a peaceful refrain God’ll sing in your brain
when you put the nails to your hands and your feet

And the smell of our sacrifices
still fills up my head
There’s just a few left at the altar, Lord
all the rest of them fled
And we’ve cried and we’ve tried
We’ve sweat and we’ve bled
But we don’t just need atonement
We need to be raised from the dead

When they took down the cross from that dark hillside
The blood on their hands was the blood from his side
That’s the way that it works, That’s the way it must be.
You gotta let His blood stain you of you want to get free
If you want to get free
Don’t you want to get free?
I think you want to be free.


The Worst is My Being Alone

by Don Chaffer

“Aaron, have you ever had a burning in your chest
That made you just want to be free?”
It was a warm afternoon when she asked him this,
As they sat on the shore of the sea

Well, Aaron just tugged at his hair and he took
A very long time to reply
And by the time that he spoke, she’d forgotten she asked
And was lost in the clouds of the sky

He said, “Kelly, I don’t think
I’ve ever wanted as much
To be free as I’ve longed to be known.
And of the things that I hate
As I look at my life,
The worst is my being alone.”

The rest of his words he kept from her ears
Cause he thought she might not understand
And she didn’t reply. She couldn’t figure out how,
Cause the fire in her heart had been fanned

Oh, of all the things known that he could’ve spoken that day,
He chose one from deep down inside
Without intending her to, he caused her to confess
Her false confidence and how she had lied

She said, “Aaron, I don’t think
I’ve ever wanted as much
To be free as I’ve longed to be known.
And of the things that I hate
As I look at my life,
The worst is my being alone.”

And as they headed home, neither of them could speak a word
And they held their own spirits to blame
But at the pulse of the waves, they both turned around
Surely someone was calling their name
Someone was calling their name

Disappointment with being found out...

This week at work,coming out of our mind-numbing team meetings, our secretary/administrative assistant asked me where I got my mug from. "Uh, Edmonton," I said as it was a AM930 The Light (was Edmonton's equivalent of Shine FM). "Oh," she asked, "are you a christian?" Sheepishly I replied, "uhm, yes". To which she replied, "Oh that's great, so am I. I was just wondering if that radio station was maybe a sister station to Shine."

That conversation rattled me a bit... it bugged me... and it took me a bit to figure out why. Initially I was thinking, wow, how much have I changed. Used to be I'd wear Christian T-shirts (the tacky '90's kind - I still have some, I can prove how tacky they were) and hoped that people would realize I'm a Christian.... but now my T-shirts are all hidden in my drawers & I'm sort of semi-ashamed of them... and with this conversation, I felt bad about being 'found out'... and I had to ask myself if I'm now feeling ashamed to be identified with Christ....

... and yeah, a couple seconds after asking that question, I thought, nope, not ashamed of Christ, just don't want to be identified with Shine FM, or Christian mass marketing, or anything related to creating a Christian subculture that is 'safe & fun for the whole family'...

...I was disappointed I guess, not that our admin assistant found out I was a Christian but in how she found out. It would've been cool if she thought I was a Christian because of the way I showed kindness to people at the office, the way I respected them, the way I listened. Maybe I would've felt good about if she thought there was some light or passion in my eyes, if she saw some wisdom, or joy (though joy is less likely to be seen with me perhaps), peace (well, yeah, maybe peace is out, too), or something that made it look like I've been with Jesus.

Instead what she saw was a Christian marketing mug that (honestly) I'd brought to work 'cause I didn't mind if it got smashed or stolen.... but it is this, more than any of the inside stuff, which identifies me as being 'one of Christ's'....

...sad what it's all come to, eh?...

t-shirts (what we should be known for)
(words and music by derek webb - from his "I See Things Upside Down" Album)

they'll know us by the t-shirts that we wear
they'll know us by the way we point and stare
at anyone whose sin looks worse than ours
who cannot hide the scars of this curse that we all bare

they’ll know us by our picket lines and signs
they’ll know us by the pride we hide behind
like anyone on earth is living right
and isn’t that why Jesus died
not to make us think we’re right

chorus
when love, love, love
is what we should be known for
love, love, love
it’s the how and it’s the why
we live and breathe and we die

they’ll know us by reasons we divide
and how we can’t seem to unify
because we’ve gotta sing songs a certain style
or we’ll walk right down that aisle
and just leave ‘em all behind

they’ll know us by the billboards that we make
just turning God’s words to cheap clichés
says “what part of murder don’t you understand?”
but we hate our fellow man
and point a finger at his grave

chorus
they'll know us by the t-shirts that we wear
they'll know us by the way we point and stare
telling ‘em their sins are worse than ours
thinking we can hide our scars
beneath these t-shirts that we wear

Ramblings on Beauty & Breathing

This is why life & depression & humanity & feelings are all so funny & hard to deal with. A few days ago, I write despondently about how mundane my life is, how I have nothing to look forward to, am drowning in this sea of emptiness with miles and miles of desolation as far as the eyes can see.... and tonight I'm breathless with wonder, lungs bursting with this sense of awe at just how good, how rich it is to be alive, to spend a moment on this planet, spend a moment in my own skin....

...and the difference? who knows. Tonight is the same as other Monday nights. Psuedo-plans cancelled with a friend 'cause they're busy so I retreat home to forage for food (trying to save the good leftovers for lunches at work) and plop myself in front of the TV. An extended supper ensues with a three course meal consisting of potatoes with cheese followed by ice cream and then saskatoon crumble with cream on top (man, saskatoons are like gold to me - precious commodities, things I horde & only the special few get to share in my 'stash')... this lasts me an episode of the Gilmore Girls with the humor & relational drama and an episode of Firefly, cool sci-fi with enough tension to have me swearing at the TV screen telling the people to get back into their ship before the baddies come & everything falls apart..... I limit myself to the 2 episodes so I don't get the lethargic feeling from too much TV & head up to my room to read the chapter in Marcello's book about his travels around Niger while I soak in the tub..... and Marcello's tales are breathtaking - tales of the poor, of the Tuareg people - their blue robes, silver swords, coffee-cream skin and liquid grey-blue eyes (Marcello's words) - tales of hiking 40 km through the desert, tales of camel riding escapades, of fighting malaria, of marketplaces in far off lands......

... and i'm left feeling alive, feeling like the world is this wonderful & amazing & fairy tale place with dragons & ogres & monsters, but bravery & courage & beauty & yeah.... it's the beauty that floors me, that makes me stand in awe of the world around me, of life and of the maker & giver of all of it....

and yeah, maybe some of it's from the movie last night, too - the good mood from the movie, the wonder & awe from that lasted through the day & even the mundaneness of work - with it's meetings and e-mails and sorting spreadsheets that nibble away at your soul like rats in the prison cell - couldn't extinguish the feelings of happiness....

... so again, what's the difference? what's the magic cure for depression? What's the silver bullet that defeats the werewolves within? beats me....

...but yeah, a long time ago, somewhere on the way around Galway or the Aran Islands in Ireland, I remembered how to breathe again. I remembered what it felt to actually enjoy just the fact that I was alive, that I could take a breath, that God was somehow savouring each moment with me.... and yeah, I've had places in my life where I've been able to breathe - as opposed to the other places where breaths seem rushed from the hustle & bustle of the north american life, schedules, worries, chaos, drudgery, traffic, deadlines, pressures, fears, etc.....

.... so yeah, the funny thing about life & humanity & feelings & such is that they are... that you can't control the moments and yeah, you can try to adjust your moods & think positive & all that stuff that I'm not much good at, but there are places where sometimes you're happy & sometimes you're not.... sometimes all you can see is blackness & sometimes where all you can see is light & colours and beauty all around you.... I figure in God's plans, in the gift of being human, we get to, like His Son, experience the entire gamut of emotions - we get to, like Christ, be made like our brothers & sisters & to experience what they experience, what all humans experience... and yeah, in moments of clarity like this it's rich & beautiful & right....

(and yeah, figured I'd jot down these thoughts in the 'clear'ish moments while I can before dark moments sneak in & cloud the vision again.... gotta recognize the balance that all of us experience both the good & bad, light & dark, happy & sad in our lives.... and yeah, realized tonight, too, that beauty sneaks up on you & surprises you just as much or more than any of the sad/dark stuff).

Bruce Cockburn's "Pacing the Cage"

One of Bruce Cockburn's best (of many) songs - one of my favorites (and the 1st song that got me into Bruce's music):

" Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it's pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you live too long
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage

I've proven who I am so many times
The magnetic strip's worn thin
And each time I was someone else
And every one was taken in
Powers chatter in high places
Stir up eddies in the dust of rage
Set me to pacing the cage

I never knew what you all wanted
So I gave you everything
All that I could pillage
All the spells that I could sing
It's as if the thing were written
In the constitution of the age
Sooner or later you'll wind up
Pacing the cage

Sometimes the best map will not guide you
You can't see what's round the bend
Sometimes the road leads through dark places
Sometimes the darkness is your friend
Today these eyes scan bleached-out land
For the coming of the outbound stage
Pacing the cage
Pacing the cage"

Reflections on Poverty in Africa

From Marcello Di Cinto's travelogue, "Harmattan: Wind Across West Africa"

"It's hard when poverty smiles as you. it's much easier when it scowls.

I remember a beggar girl in Cape Coast. She was lying in the shade on the side of Aboom Road. She was like a pile of sticks, her limbs fleshless and twisted into unnatural bends. She couldn't walk, she could scarcely lift her head, but she smiled at me and told me welcome. Laying there in a heap like something discarded and forgotten. And she was so happy to see me she somehow found the energy to smile. Her happiness was as impossible as the angles of her limbs. I think about her often, and I remember how hard it was to smile back at her, and how foolish I felt. She cannot begin to know that her smile hit me like a rock.

Nobody wants to hear stories like that. Everyone wants to hear that the weather is hot and the food is weird and I've learned to wipe my ass without toilet paper. It is easier not knowing about that girl in Cape Coast. I wonder if she is dead now. I wonder how many people remember her.

The truly poor in Africa are difficult to see because they blend in with the rubbish and filth that they live in. They are the moving shadows in the trash heaps, camouflaged in squalor. When you see them the horror is in realizing you are watching them decompose. Their living flesh is slowly being milled into earth, or taken away in tiny flakes by flies. Crawling naked through the trash heaps, they search for bits of food - some wilted lettuce or a banana peel with the little plug of fruit still in the center. They don't beg. I suppose they haven't the energy. Eventually they just disappear."

"On one of my first mornings in Niger, I sat at a taxi park waiting for a ride. I was in the shade with some of the other waiting passengers when a beggar approached me. He was a small naked boy, about three years old, and his left arm was severed from the elbow down. He walked up to me with his one hand extended hoping for a handout. Immediately, reflexively, I shook my head.

But he didn't go away. He stood, rubbing his cheek with his stump, and stared at me with a gaze that I couldn't interpret and cannot forget. He made me feel ashamed of myself. This child with dusty shadows on his bald head, a sticky nose and eyes far too old for him. And me with principles far too clean for this place, far too tidy for this dirty boy and his missing arm. he scolded me by rubbing that smooth stump on his rough cheek. In a moment all that I thought I knew, all my white-man's logic and convictions, all my absolutes, fell into the dust with a clatter only I could hear. And inside me something started to bleed.

Withered, I reached into my pocket and gave the boy some coins. he didn't thank me. He didn't even smile. I didn't deserve it. He walked away, turning back only once with that same punishing glare.

A man sitting next to me saw what had happened. He touched me on the shoulder and handed me a banana."

One Last Dance

There are perhaps certain things that a guy shouldn't admit & hope to maintain some image of looking all 'manly'... but yeah, I often fail at that image anyhow, so who cares....

Skipped church tonight to watch the movie "One Last Dance" tonight (watched the movie with a girl if that counts for any points towards being manly again).... it's a movie put together by Patrick Swayze (from Dirty Dancing, which I haven't seen, but will have to watch some time) and his wife, Lisa Niemi. They star in it, wrote it, directed, produced & funded the movie... it's their 'baby' and they've taken good care of seeing it grow.....

Anyhow, I guess I'm not the best movie reviewer, or the best reviewer of anything... I don't know enough to know technical merit or anything, but yeah, all I sort of know in movies is what I see & feel & yeah, this movie was breathtaking... I'd recommend it highly to any dancers I know, to any artist I know and really just to anyone that appreciate's beauty, anyone brave enough to dream... the dances in this movie (woven in with the story) left me speechless & in tears, awed by the wonder, the grace, the beauty of the human form...

Recommend renting it, or ask me to loan you my copy of the movie (after it gets loaned out to some friends who I will force to watch this thing)....

But yeah, the movie opens with these dancers performing & Lisa Niemi's character voicing these words.....

"When I was about 14 or 15, I discovered some things inside of myself. I discovered that what was inside of me was infinite. That you can go down to the bottom of my soul & keep reaching, and reaching, and reaching... that everybody was like that, that the things, the power, the majesty that we all have as human beings is just unthinkable, unfathomable.and that's what I brought to my dancing......"

There was a time in my life (the ghosts of which are still present) where I would've written that statement off as humanistic, new age babble.... but yeah, I start to see now (and especially in this movie), the reality of who God made us to be. One person coined the phrase that human beings are the "universe next door", that, being made in God's image, He has also given us, even in our finiteness, a part of His infiniteness. The truth is that we can keep plumbing the depths of another's soul (or our own) for all eternity and never reach the end, the bottom....

I just start to realize how breathtaking it is to be human, what a great gift it is, how much of a mystery it is... how little I understand of it. Too often I am cursing the limitations of my humanity & cursing myself for weakness, for lack of discipline, for a ballooning belly, for feeling too much, thinking too much, not being enough of this or that.... and yeah, I forget to recognize the beauty, the majesty & the power of just what it means to be human.

Watching this movie, seeing people pour their being into the dance made me realize how the greeks & romans could've looked around & called people 'gods' - about how they mistook the image of God as being 'god' himself.... There is this aspect where, when our hearts are alive with passion, where we find our 'one thing' and pour our being into it, we blaze with this light, this incandescence, that is blinding in it's brilliance.... and yeah, I thought again tonight of how God sees us, of how He is not threatened by our brilliance, but captivated by it... I thought about tonight how that, as much as I long to be 'needed', I am often proudest of those I love when I see how little that they 'need' me, of how much they shine & are blindingly brilliant all on their own & don't need me to 'help' or 'encourage'.... There is such overwhelming joy where you see people you love 'get it' where they understand who they are & step into the true brilliance of being - of where they find the moments where they are free to be fully themselves, to fully embrace their passions & pains & really, really live as if this were their last moment and they were some dying star blazing brilliant in the night.....

...and I know that this joy that I feel for those I love is a fraction of the joy that He has for us, a fraction of the pleasure that He feels when we, even for a moment, even in our dreams, believe that it is possible to fly, to be free, to really live, to be brilliant..... and yeah, our person hood, our humanity is such a gift from God & I think He so wants us to live that out whatever the cost & yeah, we so often squander that by hiding ourselves trying to fit what is acceptable....

Later in the movie, Lisa Niemi's character describes it like this:

"When I was about 14 or 15, i discovered dancing. I was... I was so in love. To dance was this flight, this intoxication, this moving through colours; reds and blues and greens... and... it was like my soul sweated out of every pore of my body and I was larger than myself on stage because I wasn't just this. And I felt like if I could take all of that & put it in my dance & if it was only one person that got it, got this thing that we are, it was worth it, you know? So, what did this girl decide to do? She decided to go to New York & that was not a good idea. And I took all of that stuff into class with me &, well, I don't think that's what they were looking for. But I kept at it, I kept at it & then I got into Alex's... you know I vowed, that nothing like that was ever going to happen to me again, so I went on this big campaign to learn how to be like everybody else because I was not having such a good time of it, but it seemed like nobody else was having such a big problem. So I went on this big campaign learning how to dress, how to talk, how to behave, and I learned...I learned, but I felt like a cheater, like a big cheater because I left everything that was important to me behind with that girl that danced. But you know what? When you had me dance today, I remembered... I remembered myself....and it makes me realize that dance is something you can't kill....so what do I have to be afraid of... I don't have anything to be afraid of.... thank you...."

Those places where we 'remember ourselves' are beautiful, are the pathway to really living... spirituality is not about rules, about form and structure, it is about dance, about beauty & flow, about letting go & letting the One lead and move and flow with you & through you... to come alive is to let go of conformance, to let go of being in control, being 'normal'... and yeah, in those places perhaps we get to be extravagant, get to look like people who are infinitely loved by the great dancer, the great artist who did not consider it a shame to take on our humanity, but embraced humanity, so He could embrace us & deliver us from our fears (see Hebrews chapter 2).

Anyhow, watch the movie.... it's good & it'll do your soul good (unless you're too manly for that sort of thing)...

More wisdom from the movie that I haven't 100% gotten yet, but will ponder more:
"Watch out, the mirror isn't going to eat you up. The mirror can either serve you or it can destroy you. The longer you look at it the worse it can be for you. But when the mirror withdraws and disappears, that's when you find the mirror within yourself. That's where the real mirror is. ... you must look closely, deeply until there is no longer any mirror at all, just you... if you work long enough, hard enough, eventually you will have to look and this is good... "

Letters to Angels: My new motto

"There are poems that have no words. I read them in the moments of ordinary days, by the light of solitude and quiet. I almost forgot this is the only way to see them."

-Marcello Di Cinto,
"Harmattan: Wind Across West Africa"

(fantastic book by the way.... highly recommended)

Letters to Angels: Anticipation

I know the feeling with Christmas & how as I got older the whole Christmas thing became a big let down... mostly for me it was the anticipation - that when I was little, Christmas was a major event that took tons of time to prepare for. There was present shopping of course, but then there was the ritual of finding a tree, cutting it down, setting it up at home, decorating it. There was lots & lots of christmas baking from mom that we'd sometimes assist with. There were presents to rattle & shake & contemplate... school christmas pageants to prepare for... all this stuff that took up nearly the entire month of december... and yeah, it was a huge let down the 1st time I was at an engineering job & worked until Dec 24, drove home & voila, slam-bam, there was Christmas & it happened in a moment - the tree was up, stuff baked, presents opened.... no preparation, no ritual of getting you ready for it all - it just happened & then vanished & I was left going, 'wow, is this it?'....

and yeah, maybe the reasons why our days go so fast as adults is that we don't have things to anticipate, things to look forward to.... or maybe it's that we have things to look forward to & then we live for the anticipated moments - we rush all of our other days to get to the 'big' moments & then find they vanish too quickly & we can't hold on to them... maybe as kids there was the potential that every day could be an adventure & that's why it felt longer... maybe not though...

.....

I'm really not sure how I'm doing. I'm randomly depressed a lot more than normal (maybe - maybe not, it's hard to measure 'normal' depression levels for me). It's nothing super serious. I just feel empty inside most days. Nothing to look forward to really..... one of the things I have to work through is a low self image thing.. but yeah, been struggling with not having a 'purpose' in life.... and yeah, thought about doing ministry stuff again, but realized that was 'addiction' talking - that I wanted to do ministry not 'cause I wanted to do ministry, but 'cause I love that feeling of being helpful/useful. But I've seen how that gets hollow eventually 'cause I've realized the being wanted/loved/friend means more than the being useful does....

So yeah, two saturday's ago, I had an epiphany about the verse in Matthew 6 where Jesus goes, "don't worry about tomorrow, today has enough worries of it's own - you can't change anything (add an inch, etc.)"... the epiphany lasted for 45 minutes & then vanished. It was this amazing moment of where I felt 100% free to be myself & was all happy & contented that I could be me without having to change/figure out the world/figure out how to save the world or figure out what my next 20 years was going to look like... It was fantastic & then yeah, it sort of went away.

So I've been trying not to worry, but I feel randomly bummed out & am just not sure why. There's nothing wrong, but maybe nothing super right either. I don't want to hang out with people so much, but the times that I do spend with people in places where I feel 'connection' then I get all greedy & want to hang on & make each moment last....

I think it's like the Christmas stuff for me - I had stuff to look forward to in life & that kept things going & made me feel happy. Now I'm just living in the moments and it's not so exciting....

An Old Story

I remember this story, told by Marilyn Elliot, a woman growing in wisdom & as a 'mystic' who I learned much from by listening to her reflect on how she was growing. She told it as part of a sermon... can't remember the sermon, but the story was powerful & one that I end up thinking about every so often.... I don't remember it exactly, she told it better, but I'll try to do my best....

Long ago, somewhere in europe, sometime in the past (B.C., I guess - before cars), there lived a wealthy, wise and somewhat older woman who was petitioned often by a man who wanted to join a monastery and wanted her to be his patron. In those days (much as it is today), people wanting to join the monastery would seek 'patrons'; wealthy people who would pay for them and provide for their 'earthly' needs while they pursued their call to the monastic life. This man knew of the wealthy woman & knew of her love for God & support of the church and thought that she would gladly help fund so noble a cause as him fulfilling his calling to a monastic life. And so he approached her, explained his situation and his intent and asked her for her reply.

To his surprise, she turned him down, saying that she was not certain that he had the right character for the monastic life. She kindly counselled him that the monastic life was likely not his calling and that he should pursue his life in the everyday world surrounded with every day people.

The man began to protest, saying that it had been his desire since childhood to sit in the presence of God, to learn more about Jesus and to give his life to knowing the heart of God. She refused again, but he would not relent and kept begging and pleading with her that she would honor his request.

Finally his persistence paid off and she relented. She told him that she would agree to be his patron, on one condition. She would pay for him to be at the monastery for one year and during that time he would lack nothing, her finances would cover it all. But, the condition was that at the end of the year, she would put him through a test and, if he passed the test, she would be his patron for life, and if he failed, he would have to leave the monastery & return to his life as it was.

Gladly the man accepted, certain that he would meet any challenge that the lady sent his way. He went to the monastery, accompanied with the lady's funds that, as she promised, provided for his every need while he was at the monastery. At the monastery, he spent much time in prayer and fasting, in meditation, in reading the Bible, in listening to great teachers. He spent time in solitude, in silence, he learned service and pursued wholeheartedly every aspect of monastic life.

As the end of the year approached, the lady sent her servants out with express instructions on how they should prepare the test for the young, would-be monk. Her servants found a prostitute on the streets and brought her in to the lady's care. They washed and bathed her in the finest oils and fragrances. The lady bought for her the finest, most beautiful and most alluring gown so that the woman shone with beauty. At the end of the year, the lady sent the prostitute in to the monastery to visit the young, would-be monk.

The next morning, the lady's carriage came to take the young lady/prostitute away. She was paid handsomely and sent on her way. Shortly after that, the lady herself came to the monastery to see whether or not the young monk had passed her test or not.

As he heard the lady approach, the young would be monk came bounding out of the monsatery, bursting with joy & happiness.

"I passed, I passed the test," he glady exclaimed. "You sent that woman in to me and, no matter how beautiful she looked, how wonderful she smelled, I felt nothing!! I felt nothing!!!"

"Away with you, charlatan," the lady shouted back in reply to him. "Take this man away from here," she shouted to her horsemen, "for he is a liar and knows nothing of the presence of God or the heart of Jesus. If he knew the heart of Jesus, he could not have been in the presence of this woman and not felt something for her."

And yeah- I forget the 'punchline' at the end - how it exactly goes (which ruins the 'joke')... it's that last bit of the story that has the power, that shows you what is really important. It was a sort of an open ended statement though - something that made you not 100% sure what the guy was supposed to feel (which maybe shows something in my character), but yeah.... in the story, the guy figures his 'test' is about whether or not he's going to commit any sins.... his model of the Christian life is one of 'holiness' and 'righteousness' and so he assumes the 'test' is one of will power, one of the ability to look temptation in the face and turn away from it without giving in. Thus a victory for this guy is 'not sinning' (i.e. not doing something which breaks some obvious law thing - in this case, having sex with the prostitute).

For the wise, older lady, the Christian life, and really, the heart of Jesus, is about love. It's about tenderness, compassion, kindness, selflessness, respect - all of the multiple facets of love.... So for her, the test of true discipleship, the test of whether or not someone really knows Jesus is simply, do they love..... I love the open ended nature of the story 'cause the guy could've come out saying just about anything & she would've let him stay... he could've come out weeping, crying for the struggles the prostitute faced. He could've came out frustrated at his powerlessness to help the woman. He could've come out joyful & radiant that he was able to spend time in the woman's presence and to experience her uniqueness. He could've, I think, even come out after having slept with the woman, having let passion mix with compassion to where he gave himself to the woman as an act of love..... he could've come out saying anything, anything remotely resembling love, anything that involved feeling something for this woman, and the lady would've supported his pursuit of the heart of God....

The story makes me wonder about our priorities in the church (not epic specifically, but 'the church' as a whole). Often we seem so preoccupied with doing 'right' and not committing 'sins', that we commit the 'greater' sins of withholding love from one another. We entertain our own idolatry, where we become the center of our universes. Where every aspect of life becomes a self-serving act in our pursuit of 'holiness'... and we cloak it all in great theologically correct terms that really just become a mask for our pride - a pride which wants to see us in a place where we don't 'need', where we don't 'fail' or 'fall'... of where we are past the point of stumbling.... and it's so odd.... the message of the cross is that humanity is fallen, that we cannot live perfect, flawless, sinless, holy lives on our own & that is why the perfect, flawless, sinless, holy One had to die to give us, through grace, His righteousness - his 'rightness'.... and so our idolatry of self, our quest for 'holiness' often becomes a denial of the cross, and a rejection of the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in our lives...

... I find as I walk in the world of the non-Christians, so many of them put me to shame in truly loving. These are the people for whom sin is a foreign concept. They have little to no concept of guilt or shame (and even less of 'holiness') for they live in a world where the rules of 'right' and 'wrong' are either not present, blurred, or simply broken down into the concept of "well, if I'm not hurting someone, what does it matter what I do?".... and yeah, it's all messy & lots of loose ends and imperfect and whatever, but, man, I've seen them love... I mean really love - really show compassion for others, really give themselves, heart and soul, to another person - to try their best to love them... and yeah, often it blows up, often it doesn't work out for them. Often they show anger & hate & cause hurt as much or more than they love, but some days... it's brilliant - blindingly, stunningly, amazingly brilliant, the way that they love, the way that the heart of God shines through their hearts & they have no idea that it's even Him, other than the good feelings left behind....

...and yeah, we Christians do that, too, sometimes... but some days I just worry about us as we get caught up in trying to "do the right thing".... It's too bad really. I've met lots of people who seem to not sin very much. Usually they seem kind of fake to me and, at the best of times, well, I just can't relate to them, so I sort of tune them out.... some days I wish I could be them, but know that I'm not very good at obedience, so yeah.... I just quit before trying..... but yeah, I can't think of one 'holy' person who's really changed my life.... but I've met broken people, sinful people, people ruined by life, or people just trying to get by the best they know how... but they've been people who've had the courage to love - some of whom have had the courage to love me with all my prickly bits. It's been these people who have shook me, who have changed me, who have reflected to me the life of the Holy One - the One who was and is the raging hurricane of love, the one who feels everything we feel, the One who loves all perfectly, unconditionally, passionately.... and yeah, I think that it is this love that truly shows us as 'Christians', as Christ's, far more than our 'lack' of sin.

What it is to love truly - plug for Nicky Mehta's CD

Picked up Nicky Mehta's CD "Weathervane" again... (had it loaned it out, didn't get it back, got impatient & (since it's helping support and indie artist) bought another copy of the CD... (www.spiritriver.com or www.nickymetha.ca)

it's, well, it's hard to describe... it's the most beautifully depressing CD I've ever listened to... so many of her songs deal with death & funerals & such, or divorce, growing up, losing/finding yourself, loss/gain of faith... the CD tackles incredibly heavy topics but yet in each lyric, each line, each melody, there is so much hope woven in the middle of the sadness... the album succeeds to make tragic things beautiful, to fill you with thoughts of rich hope & love in the middle of feeling the pain of sadness, the sting of loss....

My favorite track is the sole live track on the album called "Truly".... I think it's about the Air India bombings (or at least I'm pretty sure it's about some airplane being blown up):

"It may be when you find a man in a field
Sitting upright still belted in his seat
More than angels fall from the sky
Though they were surely angels on that flight
Or it may be when you pull a suitcase from the sea
Or when things are sorted in a makeshift infirmary
Though no one will be walking up that frigid beach
You fold the clothes neatly for safekeeping

It may be when you realize their last moments
And you feel their lives in yours for just one second
And the strangest thing is to arrive half-beckoned
You think you may know finally, what it is to love truly

It may be when a man lets it go for half a second
Grieves beyond the details ever mentioned
Or when we're done wondering how these things ever got by
Our careful, constant vigilance, our ever-watchful eye
Cause she was a girl in dance school and a boy we never found
He was a silent, hurting father and a mother unrenowned
Well no one is coming back to this empty house
They closed the door behind them and we're forever locked out

It may be when you realize their last moments
And you feel their lives in yours for just one second
And when you choose to surrender all of this anger
You may just know finally what it is to love truly

Some were awake...Some were sleeping
Some will always wonder what their husbands were thinking
And our children will never know the gift of love's painful teaching
We received

It may be when you realize their last moments
And you feel their lives in yours for just one second
And when you choose to live instead of all this suiciding
You may just know finally, what it is to love truly "

The words, as powerful as they are, are nothing compared to hearing the song, the melody of instrument and voice combined to further shake your heart. It took me months of listening through the album before I could listen to the song without tears... and yeah, listening it today brings back all those tears - maybe it's the week I'm having, maybe I'm just tired, maybe it's just the song.... but yeah, I'm trying to mop up the tears here & hope no one wanders into my cubicle at work & wonders if I'm losing my mind...

but I love the idea of "what it is to love truly"... and just how real love sneaks up on you.... that you sort of don't realize how much someone matters to you until you watch them leave... and then suddenly it's this rush of emotions that you never knew you had & you're craving one last minute with them, one more chance to soak up their presence.... and you realize that all the stuff that you thought you didn't 'love' about them really doesn't matter - that all that matters is them and you wouldn't change them if you could just have them back again....

I lost an uncle recently (month or two ago). He died in a farming accident. And yeah, it was kind of shocking for me to see how it affected me way more than I figured... I hardly hung out with him 'cause of the distance, but when he died there were all these memories of hanging out with him as a kid & just all kinds of moments where you wished you'd have talked with him that much more.

Mike Mason in his book, "The Mystery of Marriage" has a chapter on "death" and how death can be used to help strengthen a marriage. Odd concept at first glance, but he explains how we have this tendancy to take people for granted and forget that our time with them is short. He talks about how at funerals we end up saying our eulogies to the dead - often they are all the things we wished we said in life... in the book he encourages the readers to "eulogize the living" - to not wait until death to tell people the things we want to say to them (good or bad). he talks about how the meditation on death, the realization that we are all finite, should help fuel our desire to love, should help increase our capacity to give love & receive love, to learn "what it is to love truly"....

.... and yeah, oddly enough people look at you like you're weird when you start telling them just how much they really mean to you - not that it can ever be really described 'cause it's more this weight of emotion... in the moments where I realize how much someone matters to me, it becomes this huge lump in my stomach/chest and then as I try to speak the words it's like trying to push that lump out of your mouth & it usually gets stuck somewhere on the way out...and you're more choked with tears & emotion than to say anything cohesive an intelligible...

but yeah, it's easy to look, in moments like these at all the places where love hasn't been expressed, where the pettiness, the selfishness, the impatience, etc. etc. has crept in and where I forget what people mean to me... and, as I walk away from the song, I'll likely do the same thing - even the phone call interrupting me in the writing of this, I didn't say what I maybe wanted - didn't communicate my excitement at hearing my friend's voice on a low day...

I wonder what it would've been like to see Jesus in the flesh and to see how He loved truly... the way he embraced the little kids, the way he touched the lepers, the way he hung out with the prostitutes & 'sinners', the way he talked to Judas, the way He walked with his disciples, the ways he looked at you, or spoke to you... I wonder what it must've been like to hear him talking about his own death... and how it felt to watch him on a cross after arguing about who would be greatest in the kingdom or when he'd bring his kingdom to earth & realize that none of that really mattered, all that mattered was this friend, this beloved, this Lord who was now dying...

...and yeah, I hope to learn how to love truly - hopefully before tragedy hits... but yeah, makes me realize how we're made for love... and how the selfishness culture of north america chokes out so much of what is good - we're made to love & yet we trade that for 'self-satisfaction'(which doesn't really satisfy).

Letters to Angels: Misunderstanding Prayer

Realized (perhaps again), that I'm not really understanding prayer right now.... tonight at church we had a lady from Serve Nepal in again. They're an organization that works with the sex trade workers in Nepal to help provide intervention services & various mechanisms to help women & kids get out of prostitution. This includes small businesses to provide the women with jobs and an economic solution to help give them a source of income so they don't need to go to prostitution to pay the bills. Lots of it is absolutely brilliant &, while small, they arepositioning themselves in all the right ways to make an impact in their area.....

...but yeah, when she was done talking we were instructed to pray about it all & to deal with the "spiritual warfare" around the whole thing... and yeah, I ended up flipping in my Bible to Isaiah 58 where it says stuff like [this is all out of the Message - still not sold on the poetry of the message, but it's maybe easier to catch than the shakespeare stuff I'm used to] "But they also complain, "Why do we fast and you don't look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?' "Well, here's why: "The bottom line on your "fast days' is profit. You drive your employees much too hard.You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist. The kind of fasting you do won't get your prayers off the ground."...."This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts.What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families..... "If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people's sins,"

Jewel, in her song "A Life Uncommon" put it like this, "There are plenty of people who pray for peace/But if praying were enough it would have come to be/Let your words enslave no one and the heavens will hush themselves/To hear out voices ring out clear with sounds of freedom" and I used to think that was horribly blasphemous, but I've listened to it again recently & thought, maybe she's not as far off as I thought...

there's an aspect where I still believe that it's important to talk to God about stuff - not because it changes things, but just 'cause I like talking with God about stuff... He's pretty fantastic & I like Him &, while He's not always a great conversationalist in the traditional sense of the word, He listens well... and lots of times now I get the feeling that as I start to vent to him & panic about the world around me & the turmoil in me, that He just puts a finger lovingly over my lips & whispers, "Hush, Love"... and I keep being reminded of the sense that He's aware of it all already.....

..but yeah, i think I've created an 'idol' of prayer - this false image of what prayer is meant to be - of me somehow causing something to happen with my prayers - that they are not conversation, but magic incantations that, if done right, evoke this great & terrible genie to come out of the bottle & grant me my wishes.... and oddly enough, the incantations have failed & God remains at large, outside of my control & not captive to my whims.... (which, ultimately, I think is a good thing 'cause I have some weird ideas some days).....

....but yeah, I think, like Jewel, that there are places where we become the answers to our prayers... which is maybe sometimes why God asks us to pray... we ask Him to change the world & then He points us to love someone... and then we snub them in our selfishness & piety & go off to pray more & God brings us another person to love & the cycle continues... every so often the cycle gets broken & we learn to love, but yeah, it's a slow & stubborn process for a slow & stubborn people....

and yeah, I think there are places where the issues get too big for us to handle & we can't be answers to prayers... or at least not the complete answer... it was cool to hear this lady's story & how she saw what was going on in Nepal & asked this lady who was working there already how she could help & the lady told her, "it doesn't matter what you do, you just have to do SOMETHING" (the lady said it better, but it was her story after all)... and yeah, it makes me wonder - I'm not sure i have the courage to do anything some days.... some days praying is maybe the most courageous thing I can do, but yeah, I'll back away from that, too....

The hard part about prayer, the part that has left me most burned/jaded/whatever, are the places where the prayers really counted for something... crucial moments where you needed a divine intervention... the worst are when its the people you love who are at risk, when it's their lives or hearts on the line & you've got no resources to help & you watch powerlessly as the wolves come & look like they're going to tear them to shreds.... these are the places where God is often most needed & also the moments where His apparent lack of presence, lack of response are most noticeable.... it's asking for mountains to move, believing that God can do anything & then seeing the mountain, defiantly staying put, it's Mary & Martha asking Jesus, "where were you? If you came when we called you, our brother wouldn't have had to die".... we long to rescue those we love, long to shelter them from the storms.... we'd trade our own souls, our own lives for theirs, but yeah, instead we'll often watch as those we love go through the hardest times....

...and yeah, I guess though, in hindsight - and, in some cases, the hindsight is still coming... it's these places that shape the people we love.... in time the rains & snow erode the mountains, pebble by pebble... in time Lazarus is raised, in time we see those we love walk out from their trials, shining, refined, radiant.... they come out as beautiful gems, beautiful gold, pure radiance & light... they come out as swords, forged in the furnace, ready to battle for what was taken from them.... they walk out stronger, the sense of having survived the fires leaving them with a fire in their eyes & a sense that they can over come anything since they've endured the worst.... they walk out softer, with scars they'll carry for the rest of their days, but yet made more whole, more at peace with who they are & with the God who walks with them through the fires as He did with Daniel's friends, as He did on the cross & through the tomb... wearing the scars He bore in His passion to walk with us wrapped in our skin

What I wished I said....

It's funny with me, I choke on my words at the times when I most want to say something. I can sit down & write stuff & have it all make sense (at least to me), but when I'm trying to carry on a conversation, it all seems to fall apart.... especially when it's trying to say things to people I care about... and yeah, it's funny - what I really want to say to people is that they are loved & don't need to carry any burdens around, or try to prove something to someone... but yeah, it doesn't come out right & what I'm trying to get at gets lost in all the umms & errrs....

Spent a chunk of time tonight at church just looking around - looking for people, looking at people. Lots of times I'd see people & wave at them with a big grin on my face. It was one of those nights where I 'saw' people, where seeing them would make my heart leap - that I'd realized how much they mattered, how precious they were to me, to someone, to God... and there are moments when the veil that covers people's faces drops away & you see for a moment how beautiful & brilliant & radiant all of us are... you see for a moment just how loved each of us is, how cherished each of us is... and it's something that I wish I could somehow show people, somehow make people see it...

..though at the same time I know the ways I've been addicted to self-hatred, how there have been places where I've choked on my own desires to prove myself to others, to prove I'm worthy of being loved, etc.... and yeah, i know the ways I've had people & God try to tell me I'm loved & don't need to prove myself & I have pushed them away saying, "that's nice, but I just have to do this one more thing to prove myself this one more time, and then I'll believe it's true"... and like a junkie looking for his next fix, I've tried to control it all, instead of just receiving it - trying to earn the embrace, instead of receiving the embrace just as I am....