His shoelace was dragging on the ground behind him as he trudged up the stairs on his way home from school. "Hey, little man! What did you learn today?"
His Mum smiled down with her warm, steady smile and held her arms open to the little boy in front of her. His mouth was turned down and his eyes were diverted and sad. "Honey, what's wrong?"
"Franklin died today. At recess."
His mother let all of the air out of her body with a long, reflective sigh. She closed her eyes and breathed a silent prayer for her son's little heart. Franklin was a chickadee that the kindergarten class had adopted after an intermediate student found it with a wounded leg, back in the spring. This was the first time that her boy had to face the loss of a life. Slowly she knelt down in front of her son, until they were eye-to-eye. She took the book-bag from his back and set it aside. "How do you feel?"
The little boy dropped his gaze as his lips began to quiver. "Oh, baby. My little man. Come here." She pulled him into a hug, wrapping her love around his five-year-old frame. He accepted and returned the embrace but he did not cry. He was already learning to balance compassion with bravery. Every day she was blown away and humbled by her beautiful man-child.
She leaned back and put a hand on his shoulder. "Mum," he said after drawing in a shaky breath, "do you think Franklin is in heaven?"
Oh the thoughts he could think. She smiled. "Let's find out what Jesus says."
She stood up and walked into the living room, reaching for her big leather Bible and his red-bound children's version and they sat together on the floor in the middle of their thick braided rug - as they always did with questions.
"Let's start at the beginning." Together they flipped to Genesis 1:1, as they so often began their family Bible studies. She read aloud from the first verse until she came to the fifth day, where she paused and pointed to his Bible, lying open on the floor. "Day five. Ready for this?" She read from hers first and then moved to his version, reading slowly and pointing to each word as she went. "'On the fifth day God made creatures to fill up the new oceans and the new skies. He invented all kinds of fish, great big ones and littler ones, and he designed every kind of bird. Then He told them to fill up the world with more swimming and flying animals like them. God blessed his creations and saw that they were good.'" Her son looked up expectantly. "Well," she said, "What do we know about birds from these verses?" She could see the wheels turning in this mind as he thought over the question. "God made birds..." he started, "so... God made Franklin?" She smiled. "He sure did, baby. Let's read another part."
The next passage was already in her mind and although she knew how to find it, she flipped to the back of her Bible and scrolled through the simple concordance under the word bird, teaching with every moment she had. "Ah ha," she said. "Matthew, chapter six. I thought so, but I wanted to double check." She gave him a wink and he blinked back. Again she read the passage from her Bible and then switched to his. "'Take a look at the birds - they do not work hard to plant or harvest from the earth, but your Heavenly Father feeds them. And you are much more important to God than birds are.' This part of the Bible is talking about people who worry and stress out about parts of their lives that they should just trust to God, but it also tells us about birds." She read the verse again. "Not only did God make the birds, but he also takes care of them and feeds them." Her boy looked hurt. "But Franklin died, Mum." "I know baby. Keep going, we'll find His answer."
This was about more than a dead chickadee. This was about all death - the why, the why now, the what after. She needed to take her time with this and explain it right. And bring it back to Jesus. Bring this back to you, Lord, she prayed, guide me through guiding him through.
They flipped to a few more bird passages, talking about the bird that signalled the end of the flood to Noah, and the ravens that God sent to save the Israelites from starving. They looked into all four gospels and noticed that the Spirit of God came on Jesus like a dove, and they read about how God often asked for birds to be part of the people’s worship services and sacrifices – that He favoured them, even over really big animals, because they were considered pure and innocent. “God definitely likes birds,” his Mum concluded. “He created them and He talks about them a lot! But that doesn’t really answer our question, does it?” The little boy shook his head, but not sadly. He had forgotten most of his sadness with the excitement of learning more and digging in to a challenge, very much a trait of his father, but he was not yet satisfied.
“I have a question for you now,” she smiled, a little wryly. “A bit of a test from Sunday school and from all the other times we have sat down. What does the word sin mean?” The little boy laughed his airy, melodic laugh. “Mum! That’s easy!” It wasn’t easy for everyone to define something like sin, but he had been taught these things from the cradle, so in an almost jesting way he sat up and assumed the position of a teacher with his hands stretched out in front of him to do the actions that went along with the routine explanation. “Sin is anything you say, think or do that breaks God’s laws, and it’s when you don’t do good things that you know you should do.” He was a little smarty-pants, but she loved him for it all the more. “Right on. This one’s tougher: if I wanted to find out about the very first time God told people about the consequences of sin, where would I have to look?” Immediately he flipped back to Genesis chapter two and pointed to the familiar passage. She read from his version.
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden in the land of Eden so that he could work the ground and keep everything healthy and in order. Then God said to the man, ‘You can eat any of this fruit – I give everything in the garden to you except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Do not eat from that tree –if you do, you will die.’ But what did they do?” “They stole and ate the fruit.” “Does it matter who told them to?” “Nope. They did it and that’s what counts.” “So what happened?” “They got kicked out – and God said when Eve had a baby it was going to HURT! AHHH!” He grabbed at his belly and screamed in mock labour, falling over and rolling around on the floor. She had a second of flashback to his birth… it was a pretty accurate representation, all things considered. “How do you know what it’s like to have a baby?” she asked. “Dad told me.” Figures. She smiled and pointed back to the book. “There were more consequences, more after-shocks of their disobedience. What was the one that God said right off the bat?” He took her 'serious' cue and settled back down a bit. “He said they would die.”
His Mum took about three minutes to simply explain why God couldn’t put up with human sin and why death had to be the price for the trespass. She ran through key verses in his Bible, many of them already underlined from previous talks. She flipped to Numbers 15 and paraphrased a large section. “The Israelites had one priest who was allowed to go between God an His people. The priest, called the High Priest, made sacrifices for the people for the sins they committed, whether or not their sin was on purpose. Even if only one person sin by accident the sin still had to be paid for with death. When the price that God set out for disobedience right from the beginning was paid, it is called atonement, like at-one-ment, and the people were put back into a perfect relationship with God, with nothing in the way, no sin between them. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, this was a band-aid fix. It only worked until the next time somebody sinned then they had to do the whole thing all over again.” The boy scrunched up his brow. “That’s a whole lot of band-aids.” “You’re right,” she smiled. “And it wasn’t really working for anybody, and God wasn’t satisfied with it either. So he came up with a solution – a master plan.” She drummed her fingers together sneakily. “Do you know what that plan was?” He nodded that he did, but she was on a roll and the whole thing came out anyway. “Jesus came into time and space and history to become the High Priest and the Sacrifice all at the same time. He had a physical body and physical blood, but he also had an eternal spirit – a lifeblood that didn’t have a beginning and doesn’t have an end. When Jesus died he took on the sins of ALL people forever and because he was an eternal sacrifice, and his lifeblood became a replacement for our lifeblood that never had to be renewed. He became a substitute sin offering for the past and the present and our present and the future. No matter when we live in history, all we have to do is claim his blood as our blood – his sacrifice as our atonement (or at-one-ment) sacrifice, and God accepts us as perfect and clean again – at one with His perfect Love, with nothing in between us – with no sin.”
She took a minute to breathe and let what she had just said sink into the air and into both of their hearts. She was always surprised at how much God could teach her through His Word, even in moments of her own explanation. “So, Jesus became our sacrifice, paid for our sins and came between God and His people once and for all. But unlike the animals of the Old Testament, Jesus did not stay dead – not even physically.” She flipped to Hebrews chapter 10 and he followed. She paraphrased: “The laws from the Old Testament told the people to sacrifice animals to atone their sin – but this wasn’t God’s ideal plan – it wasn’t what He really wanted. This passage explains that those sacrifices were only temporary and that Jesus alone was the ultimate, lasting solution – but then it says this part…” She pointed to the eleventh verse in his Bible and read the next three aloud. “The priests in the temple over sacrifices over and over again every day – but they do not remove the sins, and they have become only habits and duties. But this priest (Jesus) offered one sin sacrifice for all time, and then he sat down right beside God, at his right hand. Since that time he waits – he is waiting for his enemies to become his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made the people who are being made holy perfect forever.”
The conversation had already been a long one at almost 20 minutes and her son was doing very well with only mild fidgeting and wandering gazes but she knew she didn’t have long to keep his attention. Time to get back on track with his agenda.
She flipped to Isaiah 44. “This is a prophesy,” she said, “which means it’s a part of the Bible that was written about something that was going to happen in the future, something revealed by God. This book was written about 700 years before Jesus lived as a man on earth but even though it is so much earlier, it still talks about him and about his work. Listen to verse 22 and 23: ‘I have swept away your crimes like a cloud and your sins like a morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. Sing for joy oh heavens, for the Lord has done this; shout aloud, O earth beneath! Burst into song, you mountains, you forests and all you trees, for the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and he displays his glory in Israel.’ Did you catch that? Not just people were getting fired up because there was freedom for God’s people… all of creation was getting involved! Even the trees and the forests and the mountains! Guess why?” She started moving fast, flipping pages like crazy, praying wild, silent little prayers all the time. God, I don’t even know how I know this stuff - thank you for highlighting my memory! Thank you for teaching me these lessons before now and for making this all so fresh in my mind!
She flipped to Romans 8 and read from his Bible, from the 19th to the 21st verse. “All of creation is waiting for God’s sons to show up! The whole world was brought under the curse when humans sinned – not by its own choice – but it was cursed only for a time, and now creation itself waits to be liberated in the same freedom from death and destruction that has been given to the children of God!” She was beaming and growing a little louder as her lesson began to reach its climax. She flipped once more into Isaiah, chapter 11. “Listen to the description of heaven that is given as prophesy here: ‘The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the colt together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.’”
She could barely contain herself, but she slowed her pace for the sake of her son. Working through something like this makes her heart race and it’s hard to temper that kind of passion. “So here’s what the Bible says. God made all animals, birds included, and he loves them and cares for them. Even though creation apart from people has not sinned against God and broken his rules the whole world, maybe the whole universe, has suffered the consequences of human disobedience. For a long time God allowed people to make a temporary atonement with him by using an animal’s blood to replace their own blood, but Jesus came and sacrificed his eternal lifeblood, offering us permanent at-one-ness with the Father and with himself. By doing this, Jesus brings not just the people who choose to love him back into a right relationship with God, but also all of creation is redeemed or atoned for… the whole world, at the end of time, will be at one with God! And how will we know this? The animals! There will be peace among the wild animals and the barn animals – they won’t be fighting with each other or eating each other. There will be perfect harmony between all animals and between animals and people, even children. A viper is a huge, poisonous snake with long, hollow fangs that could stab right through your arm in a second flat! You sure don’t want to mess with one of those right now, but in heaven, when Jesus comes to finally restore peace to this whole planet and to make everything right in his own way, there will be no need to fear anything – not even a viper.”
The little boy’s eyes had grown larger and larger at her description of the snake and it took a few seconds for him to follow through with the rest of her statement. “But there will be animals in heaven?” It wasn’t really a question, so much as clarification, but it was good to know that he’d been able to keep up with her. “Sure sounds like it to me,” she said, closing her Bible for the first time since they had sat down on the floor together. “The Bible doesn’t tell us directly what happens to animals after they die. Animals are different than people – they don’t have the same kind of mind or heart or soul as we do – they can’t choose whether or not to love God and obey him. People and angels are the only two elements of God’s creation that God gave the choice to say yes or no to His Love. But you know what? God is very just and fair. If he has given all creatures an eternal nature – if they go anywhere after they die – I don’t believe he would send them to hell. God doesn’t give us all of the answers to all of our questions – if he did, we wouldn’t need to trust him with anything, would we? But he does answer all the really, really big questions and for the rest of it, he gives us enough information in the Bible to make a good guess at what he might do. This is one of those cases – we don’t really know, but I think we can guess. The animals in heaven just might be the same ones that have lived on earth already… but to be really, very sure we’ll just have to wait and see.”
The front door swung open with a creak and they both turned to watch Dad walk in carrying something that smelled a whole lot like dinner. In a flash the little boy jumped up and ran over to the man, wrapping his little arms around his legs. “Dad! You’ll never guess what we just learned… vipers have hollow fangs and can snap right through your arm like this!” The boy clamped his hands around his Dad’s arm and pretended to bite down but quit a second later in a fit of giggles.
“What have you been teaching our son?” She smiled, and he gave his wife a welcoming kiss. She laughed, “You should have heard him talking about childbirth a little while ago.”
With the smell of chicken floating in from the kitchen and with tears quite dry and the bird almost forgotten the family of three sat down together and prayed over the meal. “God, thank you for being so real and so good. Thank you for your Word and the lessons that you teach us every single day. Help us to Love you with every part of our minds and our hearts and our actions… and our bellies. We praise you for everything you have made and everything you are. We pray together in the name and authority of your son, Jesus. Amen.”
Monday, 8 March 2010
Thursday, 25 February 2010
An Ode to the Best
My best friend is one of my favourite things in all of God's vast creation: the sun is awesome, but one of her hugs can warm just as well; the seas are unthinkably full of life, but a single tear from this girl and I'm overwhelmed and weeping along with her, whether in grief or in joy; though there are many beautiful plants and animals on our planet, nothing makes me smile faster or truer than her smile.
Jaleesa, this is for you.
You are beautiful in heart, mind, soul, spirit, personality, attitude and body. You are not flawless, but you make imperfection attractive. You are a striver, an organized whirlwind, a pursuer of better things, a simplifier of the unnecessarily complicated. You paint beauty onto blanked canvas, you create art with the full knowledge that you can only ever imitate His art. You credit where credit is due and often restore that perspective to my life when we speak. You lift my spirit, you brighten all our lives, you are so strong - but you are not afraid of sharing your weaknesses with those you love and trust. You inspire the writer's block, you clear the clutter of my thoughts, you wrestle out questions that no other would even notice or wonder over - and you do all this even from a distance, even when you are only present in the presence of a memory of you.
You are deeply missed in my life.
When I think back on the things we used to be able to do when life was simpler and the distance between us not so large, I am nearly overcome by such a strong mix of emotions that the only response I can muster is to write it all out. I wish we could go back the photography of our Monday dates, but I wouldn't wish for the experiences we've gone through since to be erased. I wish we could go back to murder mysteries and spinning around with our arms outstretched in the basement of that church that looks so different now, but if we had not moved on from the relative innocence of that time I could not be here, trying wildly at a computer that is too out-in-the-open for this remembering to be as consuming as it usually is, and you could not be wherever you are - with your Love, in the city that holds so much promise and hope for your future, even on days when you feel you should just move in to that sewing lab and have your possessions and meals delivered.
You, my friend, are going places. You are going to be changing this world. I believe that you will find a way to bring your love for Jesus and your heart for stylistically relevant and modest men and women into the fashion world. You will be making a statement to this slave-labour oblivious culture of ours, and you will be able to help people. You will be able to help people that you don't even know.
So, Jay, my best of friends from now until forever and a day, take courage in you. I take courage in you often, far more frequently than the times I take to tell you. You are loved, fiercely, by many, many, many, many, many, many, many people.
Of which I am only one.
And I think God gets three of those credits. And Evan, and your Mom and Dad, and the rest of your innumerable family members, and all of your friends from all walks of life, and my friends who know very little about you except that I love you (and I know that, if you ever meet them, their love would be quick to grow). I'm just reminding you of the truth - there's a lot of Jaleesa focused love going around, and it's my pleasure to bring it to your attention once more.
I love you, my Best. Know that truth today - and smile.
With a prayer,
Nikki
Jaleesa, this is for you.
You are beautiful in heart, mind, soul, spirit, personality, attitude and body. You are not flawless, but you make imperfection attractive. You are a striver, an organized whirlwind, a pursuer of better things, a simplifier of the unnecessarily complicated. You paint beauty onto blanked canvas, you create art with the full knowledge that you can only ever imitate His art. You credit where credit is due and often restore that perspective to my life when we speak. You lift my spirit, you brighten all our lives, you are so strong - but you are not afraid of sharing your weaknesses with those you love and trust. You inspire the writer's block, you clear the clutter of my thoughts, you wrestle out questions that no other would even notice or wonder over - and you do all this even from a distance, even when you are only present in the presence of a memory of you.
You are deeply missed in my life.
When I think back on the things we used to be able to do when life was simpler and the distance between us not so large, I am nearly overcome by such a strong mix of emotions that the only response I can muster is to write it all out. I wish we could go back the photography of our Monday dates, but I wouldn't wish for the experiences we've gone through since to be erased. I wish we could go back to murder mysteries and spinning around with our arms outstretched in the basement of that church that looks so different now, but if we had not moved on from the relative innocence of that time I could not be here, trying wildly at a computer that is too out-in-the-open for this remembering to be as consuming as it usually is, and you could not be wherever you are - with your Love, in the city that holds so much promise and hope for your future, even on days when you feel you should just move in to that sewing lab and have your possessions and meals delivered.
You, my friend, are going places. You are going to be changing this world. I believe that you will find a way to bring your love for Jesus and your heart for stylistically relevant and modest men and women into the fashion world. You will be making a statement to this slave-labour oblivious culture of ours, and you will be able to help people. You will be able to help people that you don't even know.
So, Jay, my best of friends from now until forever and a day, take courage in you. I take courage in you often, far more frequently than the times I take to tell you. You are loved, fiercely, by many, many, many, many, many, many, many people.
Of which I am only one.
And I think God gets three of those credits. And Evan, and your Mom and Dad, and the rest of your innumerable family members, and all of your friends from all walks of life, and my friends who know very little about you except that I love you (and I know that, if you ever meet them, their love would be quick to grow). I'm just reminding you of the truth - there's a lot of Jaleesa focused love going around, and it's my pleasure to bring it to your attention once more.
I love you, my Best. Know that truth today - and smile.
With a prayer,
Nikki
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Greater Expectations
School is piling up.
While walking down the hallway today I saw a poster for time management services - a poor student with a frightening armload of books stacked up so high that his (or her?) entire torso and face were hidden behind his (or her...) homework.
I'm beginning to feel like this unfortunate student.
The problem is that I just don't care.
It's not that I don't value the education that I am receiving while I'm here at university, because I do - I'm even interested in the information that I am collecting in class. It's not that I feel incapable of completing assignments and papers, because I could - I have the skills and the smarts to pull everything together and deliver a strong argument. It's not even that I'm finding the timing of the workload completely overwhelming, even though I do have four projects due in the morning. It's that this work doesn't really matter.
Let me draw you a parallel. In the summertime I run a program for youth completely based on a points system. If one of my kids does something positive (win a game, memorize a verse, lend a hand without being asked), they are rewarded with a point value between 50 and 1000 points. Similarly, if one of the students breaks a rule or is caught in a lie or acts out in physical violence, etc, they face the consequence of losing points - both individually and for their team. It's a system that has been incredibly effective for keeping them focused and in-line by creating a healthy, competitive atmosphere. It works the same way in university. If I write a good paper and present my thoughts clearly and efficiently, I am awarded with a point value somewhere between 70 and 90. If my paper shows off a poor effort and makes it clear that I really couldn't care less about my topic I can expect a score that falls in the range of 40 or 50. But here's the part that I really can't get over in my mind:
Points don't mean anything.
You cannot eat a grade. You can not trade them or spend them or share them. Scores, like points, are in and of themselves completely useless. They are non-valuable. They are nothing - just numbers on paper. Meaningless.
I am having a hard time putting my heart and soul into a system that reaps no physical fruits. Will this paper on Ancient Athenian democracy and the execution of Socrates (assuming that he did indeed exist at all) have a lasting impact on my life? It will not. When I write my Children's Literature essay for tomorrow that explores and compares the significance of large houses in two modern novels, will my entire paradigm of writing youth fiction be rocked into a new reality? It is not very likely.
I am feeling the call once more to a world overseas where the money I borrow is spent on more than attaining invisible, intellectual status. My heart, now more than ever before is being pulled to other places, to the work that my hands could be doing, to the mouths I could feed and the little bodies I could teach and hold and love. I so much want to be freed from the restrictions that are placed on the skills that I have and I want to be released to chase my imagination with a criticless pen and few sheets of paper. I want to tell stories that matter. I want to do things that mean something. I want to change somebody's world, but I don't think I can do that while sitting in a lecture hall. How can I balance the call of greater expectations with the life I must presently live?
I know I am here for a purpose... I just don't think my purpose is going to be here for long.
While walking down the hallway today I saw a poster for time management services - a poor student with a frightening armload of books stacked up so high that his (or her?) entire torso and face were hidden behind his (or her...) homework.
I'm beginning to feel like this unfortunate student.
The problem is that I just don't care.
It's not that I don't value the education that I am receiving while I'm here at university, because I do - I'm even interested in the information that I am collecting in class. It's not that I feel incapable of completing assignments and papers, because I could - I have the skills and the smarts to pull everything together and deliver a strong argument. It's not even that I'm finding the timing of the workload completely overwhelming, even though I do have four projects due in the morning. It's that this work doesn't really matter.
Let me draw you a parallel. In the summertime I run a program for youth completely based on a points system. If one of my kids does something positive (win a game, memorize a verse, lend a hand without being asked), they are rewarded with a point value between 50 and 1000 points. Similarly, if one of the students breaks a rule or is caught in a lie or acts out in physical violence, etc, they face the consequence of losing points - both individually and for their team. It's a system that has been incredibly effective for keeping them focused and in-line by creating a healthy, competitive atmosphere. It works the same way in university. If I write a good paper and present my thoughts clearly and efficiently, I am awarded with a point value somewhere between 70 and 90. If my paper shows off a poor effort and makes it clear that I really couldn't care less about my topic I can expect a score that falls in the range of 40 or 50. But here's the part that I really can't get over in my mind:
Points don't mean anything.
You cannot eat a grade. You can not trade them or spend them or share them. Scores, like points, are in and of themselves completely useless. They are non-valuable. They are nothing - just numbers on paper. Meaningless.
I am having a hard time putting my heart and soul into a system that reaps no physical fruits. Will this paper on Ancient Athenian democracy and the execution of Socrates (assuming that he did indeed exist at all) have a lasting impact on my life? It will not. When I write my Children's Literature essay for tomorrow that explores and compares the significance of large houses in two modern novels, will my entire paradigm of writing youth fiction be rocked into a new reality? It is not very likely.
I am feeling the call once more to a world overseas where the money I borrow is spent on more than attaining invisible, intellectual status. My heart, now more than ever before is being pulled to other places, to the work that my hands could be doing, to the mouths I could feed and the little bodies I could teach and hold and love. I so much want to be freed from the restrictions that are placed on the skills that I have and I want to be released to chase my imagination with a criticless pen and few sheets of paper. I want to tell stories that matter. I want to do things that mean something. I want to change somebody's world, but I don't think I can do that while sitting in a lecture hall. How can I balance the call of greater expectations with the life I must presently live?
I know I am here for a purpose... I just don't think my purpose is going to be here for long.
Sunday, 14 February 2010
I Can('t) See It Now
Close your eyes, relax and tell me about your childhood...
"Picture your favourite childhood memory. Got it?"
Yes. I remember a scene around the campfire at Snow Lake, where several girls are, rather innocently, roasting sunfish alive - but I don't explain the memory yet.
"What do you see?"
Well... I remember the fire and who is present and roughly where we are, the lake, the hunt camp, the outhouse behind us, the trucks... but what do I see?
"Do you see in colour?"
No, not exactly... actually, no, not at all. I don't see anything. I can remember, but I can't see.
Turns out, I am not normal. My mind has been BLOWN.
Did you know that some people can see their memories? They can close their eyes and actually SEE pictures, scenes, faces, views...
If you can do this, I have news for you. In my mind, you are very abnormal and very, very lucky.
I cannot see my memories. I see the black nothingness of the back of my eyelids. No matter how hard I try, I cannot draw up a visual image associated with anyone or anything I have seen with my eyes open. I have always thought I have a very visual mind (the art, the photography, even the creativity in pictures I can "paint" with my words), but now I must question what I really understand as visual.
I'm still tripping about this - you can close your eyes and see?
According to Carolyn (who opened my eyes to this reality, so to speak), both of us are part of the 5% of people who can't recall visually. Though I have visual dreams and Carolyn does not (she describes hers much like a detailed story), both us us "draw a blank" when we consciously try to remember anything no matter how specific. I can describe it, yes, but I just don't see the light!
"Picture your favourite childhood memory. Got it?"
Yes. I remember a scene around the campfire at Snow Lake, where several girls are, rather innocently, roasting sunfish alive - but I don't explain the memory yet.
"What do you see?"
Well... I remember the fire and who is present and roughly where we are, the lake, the hunt camp, the outhouse behind us, the trucks... but what do I see?
"Do you see in colour?"
No, not exactly... actually, no, not at all. I don't see anything. I can remember, but I can't see.
Turns out, I am not normal. My mind has been BLOWN.
Did you know that some people can see their memories? They can close their eyes and actually SEE pictures, scenes, faces, views...
If you can do this, I have news for you. In my mind, you are very abnormal and very, very lucky.
I cannot see my memories. I see the black nothingness of the back of my eyelids. No matter how hard I try, I cannot draw up a visual image associated with anyone or anything I have seen with my eyes open. I have always thought I have a very visual mind (the art, the photography, even the creativity in pictures I can "paint" with my words), but now I must question what I really understand as visual.
I'm still tripping about this - you can close your eyes and see?
According to Carolyn (who opened my eyes to this reality, so to speak), both of us are part of the 5% of people who can't recall visually. Though I have visual dreams and Carolyn does not (she describes hers much like a detailed story), both us us "draw a blank" when we consciously try to remember anything no matter how specific. I can describe it, yes, but I just don't see the light!
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Ponder, Ponder...
Some lessons are very quickly learned. For example: music is absolutely EVERYWHERE and I think not all secular media is bad.
I'm in a familiar place. I commit to do something and I quickly discover that "maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all." I think we're allowed to have these moments. I think that it's in these times of consideration and reconsideration that we learn a little more about reality. So, now I'm trying to figure out exactly what I really want to accomplish by a "detox." Here is some of what I'm thinking through... and, considering my audience of friends who are close enough to care about all of the random things my artsy fingers can plunk out and family that is obliged to such attention, I'm looking for feedback if you're willing to offer it because I think I'm not really sure what I think.
I want to be like Jesus. And a lot of the Bible is pretty clear cut about how to accomplish such goals: "Whoever says 'I know him' but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked" (1 John 2:4-6). And further along in the same chapter, verses 15-17: "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world — the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions — is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever."
I'm at a loss, guys. How do I balance this? I need some insights.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've already sought some of this advice. I've been challenged to keep my one-month commitment, if only for the purpose that I have said that I would. It was a decision quickly made, but every commitment deserves completion (and it will re-teach me the lesson to really think through these commitments before I decide to express them). Am I going to stick my fingers in my ears and yell "LALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING" when someone else is playing their music? No. But I'm going to clean out my iPod (...when I find it...) and I'm going to skip out on movie nights for the next few weeks. Excellent timing, what with reading break and home only a few hours away, but I'm going to stick with it.
Do you think I'm wrong? Do you think I'm right?
Either way I welcome advice and commentary.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well I've been challenged yet again, and it's just confirming my conviction. If you use iTunes, look up Pastor Tim Lucas and his series on Porn. Then we can talk about our culture and our minds.
I'm in a familiar place. I commit to do something and I quickly discover that "maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all." I think we're allowed to have these moments. I think that it's in these times of consideration and reconsideration that we learn a little more about reality. So, now I'm trying to figure out exactly what I really want to accomplish by a "detox." Here is some of what I'm thinking through... and, considering my audience of friends who are close enough to care about all of the random things my artsy fingers can plunk out and family that is obliged to such attention, I'm looking for feedback if you're willing to offer it because I think I'm not really sure what I think.
I want to be like Jesus. And a lot of the Bible is pretty clear cut about how to accomplish such goals: "Whoever says 'I know him' but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked" (1 John 2:4-6). And further along in the same chapter, verses 15-17: "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world — the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions — is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever."
I'm at a loss, guys. How do I balance this? I need some insights.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've already sought some of this advice. I've been challenged to keep my one-month commitment, if only for the purpose that I have said that I would. It was a decision quickly made, but every commitment deserves completion (and it will re-teach me the lesson to really think through these commitments before I decide to express them). Am I going to stick my fingers in my ears and yell "LALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING" when someone else is playing their music? No. But I'm going to clean out my iPod (...when I find it...) and I'm going to skip out on movie nights for the next few weeks. Excellent timing, what with reading break and home only a few hours away, but I'm going to stick with it.
Do you think I'm wrong? Do you think I'm right?
Either way I welcome advice and commentary.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well I've been challenged yet again, and it's just confirming my conviction. If you use iTunes, look up Pastor Tim Lucas and his series on Porn. Then we can talk about our culture and our minds.
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Filter the Incoming
I'm sure you've had one of those moments... the kind when you know you're getting a talking to. Sometimes the person doing the talking doesn't really know that they're speaking such a direct and sharp word into your life, but you know it and once the fact is realized there is no escaping the conviction that grips your heart in the hearing.
On Sunday morning my pastor was preaching at me - right between the eyes. I've had this experience before, especially with pastors, where their message is so applicable that it's not even funny. It's like God sat him down and they went over exactly what I needed to hear and then together they delivered the blow.
Usually my pride takes a hit in such heavenly ambushes. I am a terribly proud woman - of my skills, of my thoughts and sometimes of my actions - and the vast majority of the right-at-me lessons I take in from church follow this simple yet poignant pattern: "Hey girl. You need to step back and remember who you are and who I AM. You are a girl, a small, weak, limited little thing. You are no better than that person or that person. Child, I am God. Now, I love you, but you had better check that attitude of yours mighty quick or there's gonna be trouble." (In my mind, God has the voice and vocabulary of a black man, rumbling and deep, like that of James Earl Jones, right to the point, no side stepping the matter at hand, just laying it all out in the open in a gentle, friendly sort of way.) That's my Father for you - and so I respond, bite my tongue, say I'm sorry and temper my ego. But today's lesson was not about pride. Today was about the filter... or lack there of.
Allow me to briefly summarize and paraphrase part of Pastor Tim's lesson: "Consider airport security. Why do they check you on the way in? You go through metal detectors and x-ray machines, they root through your luggage, they give you "the look" and you run the gauntlet of precautionary measures. If there's a threat, it's met on the way into the plane and immediately eliminated, blocked out, guarded against. But when you get off the plane, you're free to go - you can walk right into a giant crowd of people and disappear without so much as a once-over. There is no check-out checking. Why? Well, the answer is, perhaps, obvious: by the time you're on the plane, it's too late to check for problems and threats. By the time you get off, the damage you could have inflicted to the passengers of the plane would already be done and so there is no need to re-scan and re-secure the exiting passengers. Whatever has gone into the plane has come off again, and as long as the security was tight upon entrance then you don't need to worry about what comes out again - it is clean, bomb-free, secure, good. And it's the same thing with the heart."
So, the old adage of "garbage in, garbage out" proves true even in the practical circumstances of life. Jesus says it this way: "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45). Your heart (mind and emotion) feeds your action. How healthy is your heart?
I thought my heart was healthy, but God has shown me otherwise.
I think I can compare my metaphorical heart to the physical heart of an athlete who trains regularly and eats well and does much to care for himself, but also has a drinking problem. The athlete looks really good until you discover his one weakness and when you get an eye-full of that, you start to realize just how much it affects the rest of his lives. My parallel runner is healthy... except for his booze. I am healthy too... except for my lust: mental, sexual and emotional.
Feel free to take a moment and knock down that pedestal you've put me atop. I am not the spiritually righteous person you have believed me to be. And please don't excuse my behaviour and my failure because I will tell you openly that much of my sin has been absolutely, deliberately defiant. I have seen the escape from temptation that God promised and I have slammed the door in his face so many times. I have given the devil a hold in my life that I very much want to shake him from and part of that process starts with confession... even if it's the awkward blog kind.
Let's jump back to the airport imagery. What I've been doing in my life is scanning the exit. I carefully control every thought that leaves my mind, every action that is performed, every word that escapes my lips and when I find something that I know shouldn't get out I thrown it back onto the plane by the collar... where it does who-knows-what to the other thoughts, potential actions and yet unspoken words that are waiting to get out and do some good. On the entrance side of things I'm pretty welcoming to all sorts and kinds of input. Without questioning I let in the good stuff - the Bible lessons, the sermons, the love, the friendships, the prayer, the school (sometimes), but with them I'm also saving seats for their opposites: the supersexual music videos, the violent television shows, the angry music, the cursing, the perversion of our culture... all of those things that I hypocritically criticize and then secretly indulge in, the things that are slowly poisoning the clean thoughts and the pure ideas and the godly influences of my life. It seems inescapable and easily justifiable, but is it really? Is sex so unavoidable? Is it truly impossible to block it out?
I don't think so. I think it is going to be stinking hard to fix my filtering system and it might take some very dramatic measures to move my security guards back to the in-cues without letting the filth I've been collecting in my heart and my mind to get off the plane. I have this mental image of my burly body-guards pushing their way between the seats, dragging the crap with them as they go while giving the good thoughts a brush-off and a straighten-up. Then my guards will chuck the slimy, lusty, disgusting and shameful memories out of my heart, over the barricades and back to the cue on the outside of the airport. It doesn't mean they will go away... but it might give me the time I need to get my feet under me again, to re-organize my filtering systems and to mop up the plane, as it were. Unfortunately I do not have microscopic security guards who are going to do this for me... it's just me in my mind and so the plan has to be something I can do on my own.
I am going to fast Secular Media.
I don't know if this is going to work, but I think it's worth a try. With the exception of anything directly assigned for a class, I am locking out all television, all explorations of YouTube and all music that does not honour and glorify Jesus. Sadly, this will include girly, "harmless" pop. More sadly, this includes country.
I don't know how long I need to detox my spirit. I'm going to start with a month and see how I feel and how I think after that. Maybe this needs to be permanent, I don't know, but I do know that I need some pretty dramatic change in my life and this is step one for me.
What is step one for you? What are you letting sit on the plane that should be locked out of the port? You don't have to expose your heart to the world and confess your vice in the open, but open your eyes to your own downfalls. Acknowledge your weaknesses and stop giving in to them. Choose to fight. Choose to guard. Choose to filter the incoming.
On Sunday morning my pastor was preaching at me - right between the eyes. I've had this experience before, especially with pastors, where their message is so applicable that it's not even funny. It's like God sat him down and they went over exactly what I needed to hear and then together they delivered the blow.
Usually my pride takes a hit in such heavenly ambushes. I am a terribly proud woman - of my skills, of my thoughts and sometimes of my actions - and the vast majority of the right-at-me lessons I take in from church follow this simple yet poignant pattern: "Hey girl. You need to step back and remember who you are and who I AM. You are a girl, a small, weak, limited little thing. You are no better than that person or that person. Child, I am God. Now, I love you, but you had better check that attitude of yours mighty quick or there's gonna be trouble." (In my mind, God has the voice and vocabulary of a black man, rumbling and deep, like that of James Earl Jones, right to the point, no side stepping the matter at hand, just laying it all out in the open in a gentle, friendly sort of way.) That's my Father for you - and so I respond, bite my tongue, say I'm sorry and temper my ego. But today's lesson was not about pride. Today was about the filter... or lack there of.
Allow me to briefly summarize and paraphrase part of Pastor Tim's lesson: "Consider airport security. Why do they check you on the way in? You go through metal detectors and x-ray machines, they root through your luggage, they give you "the look" and you run the gauntlet of precautionary measures. If there's a threat, it's met on the way into the plane and immediately eliminated, blocked out, guarded against. But when you get off the plane, you're free to go - you can walk right into a giant crowd of people and disappear without so much as a once-over. There is no check-out checking. Why? Well, the answer is, perhaps, obvious: by the time you're on the plane, it's too late to check for problems and threats. By the time you get off, the damage you could have inflicted to the passengers of the plane would already be done and so there is no need to re-scan and re-secure the exiting passengers. Whatever has gone into the plane has come off again, and as long as the security was tight upon entrance then you don't need to worry about what comes out again - it is clean, bomb-free, secure, good. And it's the same thing with the heart."
So, the old adage of "garbage in, garbage out" proves true even in the practical circumstances of life. Jesus says it this way: "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45). Your heart (mind and emotion) feeds your action. How healthy is your heart?
I thought my heart was healthy, but God has shown me otherwise.
I think I can compare my metaphorical heart to the physical heart of an athlete who trains regularly and eats well and does much to care for himself, but also has a drinking problem. The athlete looks really good until you discover his one weakness and when you get an eye-full of that, you start to realize just how much it affects the rest of his lives. My parallel runner is healthy... except for his booze. I am healthy too... except for my lust: mental, sexual and emotional.
Feel free to take a moment and knock down that pedestal you've put me atop. I am not the spiritually righteous person you have believed me to be. And please don't excuse my behaviour and my failure because I will tell you openly that much of my sin has been absolutely, deliberately defiant. I have seen the escape from temptation that God promised and I have slammed the door in his face so many times. I have given the devil a hold in my life that I very much want to shake him from and part of that process starts with confession... even if it's the awkward blog kind.
Let's jump back to the airport imagery. What I've been doing in my life is scanning the exit. I carefully control every thought that leaves my mind, every action that is performed, every word that escapes my lips and when I find something that I know shouldn't get out I thrown it back onto the plane by the collar... where it does who-knows-what to the other thoughts, potential actions and yet unspoken words that are waiting to get out and do some good. On the entrance side of things I'm pretty welcoming to all sorts and kinds of input. Without questioning I let in the good stuff - the Bible lessons, the sermons, the love, the friendships, the prayer, the school (sometimes), but with them I'm also saving seats for their opposites: the supersexual music videos, the violent television shows, the angry music, the cursing, the perversion of our culture... all of those things that I hypocritically criticize and then secretly indulge in, the things that are slowly poisoning the clean thoughts and the pure ideas and the godly influences of my life. It seems inescapable and easily justifiable, but is it really? Is sex so unavoidable? Is it truly impossible to block it out?
I don't think so. I think it is going to be stinking hard to fix my filtering system and it might take some very dramatic measures to move my security guards back to the in-cues without letting the filth I've been collecting in my heart and my mind to get off the plane. I have this mental image of my burly body-guards pushing their way between the seats, dragging the crap with them as they go while giving the good thoughts a brush-off and a straighten-up. Then my guards will chuck the slimy, lusty, disgusting and shameful memories out of my heart, over the barricades and back to the cue on the outside of the airport. It doesn't mean they will go away... but it might give me the time I need to get my feet under me again, to re-organize my filtering systems and to mop up the plane, as it were. Unfortunately I do not have microscopic security guards who are going to do this for me... it's just me in my mind and so the plan has to be something I can do on my own.
I am going to fast Secular Media.
I don't know if this is going to work, but I think it's worth a try. With the exception of anything directly assigned for a class, I am locking out all television, all explorations of YouTube and all music that does not honour and glorify Jesus. Sadly, this will include girly, "harmless" pop. More sadly, this includes country.
I don't know how long I need to detox my spirit. I'm going to start with a month and see how I feel and how I think after that. Maybe this needs to be permanent, I don't know, but I do know that I need some pretty dramatic change in my life and this is step one for me.
What is step one for you? What are you letting sit on the plane that should be locked out of the port? You don't have to expose your heart to the world and confess your vice in the open, but open your eyes to your own downfalls. Acknowledge your weaknesses and stop giving in to them. Choose to fight. Choose to guard. Choose to filter the incoming.
Monday, 8 February 2010
Loser Has To
Have you ever experienced a memory so wonderfully clear that you can close your eyes and re-live not only the visual mapping of whatever moment in time your mind has flashed back to, but but also the physical, spacial sensations? For one blissful, joyful, overwhelmingly nostalgic moment I was standing on the side of a mountain in the late evening with a group of close and crazy friends and witnessing a game of loser has to.
I've been thinking a lot about Costa Rica lately, but my memories are not usually as strong or as lasting as this one a few moments ago. I could feel a temperature difference, a change of lighting, the smells of lemon and jungle and life, the flickering of fireflies up the road towards the cattle and that very unusual chicken farm. This memory started on Facebook with a video of the actual race: Melissa and Frankie facing off in a very bold challenge of eating half a wild lemon each. First to complete got the bragging rights and the loser had to jump in the pool (fully clothed, of course), even though we should have been on our way to bed - and it was pretty chilly, at least compared to the daytime blazes. The video lasted just over a minute, but even now as I write a bit of this out I'm there in my heart - the hills, the beaches, the creatures, the people, even the lemons! There is something about that time in my life that I will never be able to forget or part from however many years I am removed from such adventures. One day I will go back there and walk Campamento Roblealto's tropical trails again. I will be braver upon my return; I have grown so much, learned so much, become so much more. The past three years have been incredible in many ways and because of many, many people - but it all started there, in Costa, in Boundless. My faith is rooted there. My heart is rooted there.
I've been thinking a lot about Costa Rica lately, but my memories are not usually as strong or as lasting as this one a few moments ago. I could feel a temperature difference, a change of lighting, the smells of lemon and jungle and life, the flickering of fireflies up the road towards the cattle and that very unusual chicken farm. This memory started on Facebook with a video of the actual race: Melissa and Frankie facing off in a very bold challenge of eating half a wild lemon each. First to complete got the bragging rights and the loser had to jump in the pool (fully clothed, of course), even though we should have been on our way to bed - and it was pretty chilly, at least compared to the daytime blazes. The video lasted just over a minute, but even now as I write a bit of this out I'm there in my heart - the hills, the beaches, the creatures, the people, even the lemons! There is something about that time in my life that I will never be able to forget or part from however many years I am removed from such adventures. One day I will go back there and walk Campamento Roblealto's tropical trails again. I will be braver upon my return; I have grown so much, learned so much, become so much more. The past three years have been incredible in many ways and because of many, many people - but it all started there, in Costa, in Boundless. My faith is rooted there. My heart is rooted there.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Oh, the Weather Outside...
Winter itself has been acting a little bipolar this year, and so is it any surprise that my moods have daily been following suit? This morning was bright and clear as I woke up with a comfortable kind of stretch and a snuggle back to sleep like a cat in the sun. By the time I opened my eyes again (at 8:00 for my 8:30 class) I was in a bit of a flurry to prepare and (thanking God for my chipper cabby) the wind picked up the snow and blew me right to my seat with a minute to spare. An hour later I was lost in the world of heavy flakes and white skies as the wonderland beyond my desk told me stories of wintry walks in a Narnian kind of place. The parking lot has never seemed so adventurous. Now as I sit indoors, en route to class in a moment or two, I stare out at my peers as they frolic in the fresh fallen flakes with a blended felling of melancholy, envy and contentment that is quite suited to the huge, soppy clumps of snow that are blanketing my northern world. The weather changes quickly – as fast as life itself – and keeping pace can be a difficult thing, even in the simplest of ways.
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
B. Ball Academy
Rick, Sam and Alex were three-way best friends and the three best players on their school’s basketball team. Successful sports had been the school’s pride and joy for the past three years and unfortunately for the rest of the school, the athletic program was really the only thing that the school ever put any money into. Before long, the school had an amazing gymnasium, brand new uniforms, a wonderful basketball team and a building full of classrooms that were totally falling apart. After a while the board shut down their school and all of the kids had to find new places to study. Big schools from the city came and collected students for enrolment, and one of these schools was the B. Ball Academy for Boys.
Sir Benjamin Ball, the man that the school was named after, was a huge fan of basketball. Down every hallway of his school there were gigantic trophy cases filled to the brim with all kinds of metals and pictures and awards. Mr. Nezz, the basketball team coach at B. Ball Academy, was always looking for more players to help him win. He had the best basketball team in the whole province and he hadn’t lost a single game all season. As soon as he heard about a school closing its doors, he made sure he was right in the middle of the chaos to scoop up all of the really great players.
Rick, Sam and Alex were at the very top of Mr. Nezz’s list. Before they even realized what was going on they were suited up in the Academy uniforms at their first practice. “Welcome to the team, boys!” said Mr. Nezz as everyone got together before their work began. “As many of you know, this year we are finally in the running for national championships! And this is what we are going to be working for...”
Mr. Nezz unrolled a giant poster of the national championship trophy. It was a huge, shiny, golden masterpiece of metal. “Okay boys, here’s what we’re going to do. Ten minutes before every game we play this season, I’m going to start this CD and for the first three songs we are going to sit in front of this poster and visualize.”
Mr. Nezz explained that visualizing meant that they were going to picture themselves winning the final game and holding this trophy above their heads. Then they were supposed to think hard about how much the trophy meant to each person and to the team as a whole. After the third song was over they would get up and chant “Champions! Champions! Champions!” until the game began.
“Anyone who does not do this as part of the team I will assume does not want to part of the team at all. I won’t kick you off, however you won’t be allowed to play for the rest of the season. Instead, you will become a waterboy and equipment manager, in charge of doing the laundry and washing the change rooms. Make your choice and make it quickly. Our first game starts tomorrow morning.”
The next day the team gathered together in the locker room. The poster of the trophy had been framed and put up on the wall above the drinking fountain. The whole team sat in a circle and ten minutes before the game began, Mr. Nezz started his music. The team closed their eyes and started to visualize.
Rick, Sam and Alex did not shut their eyes or bow their heads in visualization. Instead, they stood up and walked over to Mr. Nezz who was mumbling “championship” under his breath. Alex tapped him on the shoulder. “Umm, sir? We really don’t want to do this... it’s... wrong. Can we please leave?”
Mr. Nezz looked frustrated. “Are you sick? Are you going to throw up?” Rick shook his head. “No, sir. We just think it’s wrong to focus on the trophy like this. We don’t want to visualize. We just want to play basketball.” Rick and Sam nodded.
Mr. Nezz stood up and cleared his throat. Everyone looked up from their visualization. “Well boys, looks like we found ourselves a couple of waterboys already! Let’s get these kids to work!” Two of the older kids got up and grabbed Alex under the armpits and lifted him up off the ground. A few other boys came and picked up Sam and Rick the same way. Then the bigger players carried Rick, Sam and Alex through the locker room and into the change rooms where the laundry was kept. Rick, Sam and Alex were thrown into the bins along with the dirty uniforms and smelly gym socks.
“Have fun cleaning, boys!” Mr. Nezz and the rest of the team walked out to the gymnasium to play the game. All that could be heard was the chanting of “Champions! Champions!” as the door to the change rooms swung closed.
Rick, Sam and Alex climbed out of the laundry hamper. They looked around the room, expecting to see a huge mess but instead they saw sparkling floors and tidy equipment. They looked back in the laundry hamper they had just climbed out of. The laundry was mysteriously clean and folded. They looked towards the door that the team had just walked out of. There, leaning against the wall with a mop in hand was a kid in a strange uniform.
“Enjoy your night, boys! I'm pretty proud of you for standing up for yourselves and for what you believe in. Well done.” At that moment the door opened and Mr. Nezz came back in. He was reaching out for his whistle when he froze and stared at the floor. It was all... sparkly. His jaw dropped as he looked around the room and then up into the faces of Rick, Sam, Alex and the mysterious new kid. He blinked hard and gave his head a bit of a shake. When he opened his eyes again, the fourth kid was gone. “What just happened here?!”
“That kid...” Rick was having a hard time making sense of it himself. “He just... did everything so fast and he saved us like... hours and hours of work! Then he just... disappeared!”
Mr. Nezz was in shock. “Wow, I... don’t know... I mean, that kid! ...You know? Okay, boys. I don’t know what just happened, but if you can clean this fast you must be like Speedy Gonzalez on the court! You’re back on the team for sure. And no more of this crazy visualization stuff anymore. Clearly you don’t need it! It’s probably not a great idea anyway. Maybe it’s even wrong. I’m sorry I tried to force you. Will you come and play now?”
Rick, Sam and Alex played an amazing game that night and Sam was even made captain a few weeks later. The coach made sure they never had to visualize anything about that trophy ever again... and they still won the championship!
Monday, 25 January 2010
Classics Notes...
I'm sure this is bad form but I'm not sure what else to do. Until this evening I've had no complaints about my lovely new MacBook - but now, as I sit in my lecture hall with naught but this computer, I'm at a loss - I do not have my notebook which I didn't expect to be a problem, but surprise! It really is. Why? I have a Mac... and Macs do not have Word.
So, here I am with Internet but without Word and so I'm going to take my notes here, for the world to see. Welcome to CLAS 2146 and forty-five minutes in the academic life of yours truly.
Kypselid Policy
Many tyrants in Ancient Greece funded one of four major, acknowledged Games (i.e. the Olympic Games) to show off and increase their own reputation. They favoured the lower classes over the aristocracy (gain control over and support of the majority of the population) and established their rule by extensive, violent military power.
In Corinth, Kypselos (a tyrant) exiled the Corinthians and those he did not banish he castrated (a generation of eunuchs ends their population). When he finished his rule, his son took over and for a time was not so violent but he ended up being even worse, killing any suspicious or outstanding and potentially threatening people under his control. Together they ruled for about 70 years.
Corinth became a very, very important cultural and economic centre under the Kypselid Dynasty. Why did it end? Basically Periander (the son) ticked off enough of his enemies that they banded together, expelled him and took over, establishing an oligarchy (aristocratic rule).
Tyranny of Sicyon
Reminder: history is sketchy in the archaic period because we don't have any recorded evidence until nearly 200 years later... It's a lot of interpretation and guess work which is what makes it difficult to trust what I'm learning, or personally invest my mind here.
Sicyon was a victor at the Games and expanded them while he was in rule... he replaced the flute-singing competition and added the chariot race. Attaboy, get those horses going and ditch the arts... a macho move, but an effective one for raising his popularity scores.
Polyrates/Samos Tyranny
535 BC(E) power is taken over by three brothers (until Polyrates kills one brother and exiles the other) and the island is set up as a military naval power. He sets up political ties with the king of Egypt and gets building and expanding (plundered and captured a whole load of people - a pirate king of the Mediterranean... and captures the Lesbians?).
Built a huge tunnel/aqueduct on the island (900 feet under a mountain?!) which still survives.
Death of: he was crucified with his men by Magnesia and the Persians free the people (disposed of the leaders) and then take over.
Gela on Sicily
505 BC(E) mercenaries (lead by Cleander) from the outside take over and rule until he was assassinated in 498 and is followed up by his brother (Hyppokrates) who rules in his stead and tries to expand (where he is killed trying to conquer another city). When the city finds out their tyrant is dead, chaos is temoratily restored until Gelon takes over and establishes his tyranny until 478 BC(E).
Gosh this shrinking BC-AD timeline is confusing. And my prof is moving SO fast!!
Herodotus: "Gelon pretends to protect his son but then he basically turned on everyone and took over. When a tyranny is established the polis (city) begins to flourish... but the people are not fond of him and it's a mutual distaste."
Gelon: "You're a jerk, men of Hellas, and I can't trust you. You're asking me to help but last time I helped you you bailed on me hardcore. But I'm better than you and I will help - I will send you men and provisions... but you have to let me be the ruler of everything." (They said "Thanks but no thanks.")
Question to the class: "Is there something about the surviving accounts of Greek Tyrants that causes you to be cautious?" Potential biases of their sources: there are huge gaps (roughly 200 years) between the actual event and the records. They are very similar in pattern and so it is very mythologized: a prophesy of the oracle, come to power with good intentions, suffer from hubris (arrogant pride), they are corrupted and they fall and order is restored by another power.
Tyranny leads to irresponsible abuse of power? Can't be assumed but there sure are a lot of examples. However, "if anybody goes against the demos (people) he is to be overthrown immediately by the boule (judges?) and the tyrant and his decendants are to be stripped of all rights forever," at least in Athens.
The Balanced Perspective
Tyranny is very close to democracy - popular of the common people and takes them into account. Brings a more even distribution of wealth, relieve debt and make improvements to the economy. "You harm your enemies and help your friends."
Euergetism (structural growth of the city, etc) and tyranny go hand in hand... To come? Sparta! Class over! Run away!
Well, I hope you've enjoyed dipping your toes into Ancient Greece. I've learned that it is unspeakably difficult to take notes on the computer and pay attention to the visual stimuli in my lecture. I can't type without my hunt-and-peck when under the pressure of keeping up with someone else's thoughts... so, next class I will be back to my good old pen and pad.
Soon I will write a note worth reading. Until then, I leave you with this one little-known-fact that I picked up in my biblical studies today. When locusts swarm there are as many as 40 million to 80 million locusts in one square kilometre! Makes you think twice about the eighth plague, eh? Not fun for Egypt. Not fun at all.
So, here I am with Internet but without Word and so I'm going to take my notes here, for the world to see. Welcome to CLAS 2146 and forty-five minutes in the academic life of yours truly.
Kypselid Policy
Many tyrants in Ancient Greece funded one of four major, acknowledged Games (i.e. the Olympic Games) to show off and increase their own reputation. They favoured the lower classes over the aristocracy (gain control over and support of the majority of the population) and established their rule by extensive, violent military power.
In Corinth, Kypselos (a tyrant) exiled the Corinthians and those he did not banish he castrated (a generation of eunuchs ends their population). When he finished his rule, his son took over and for a time was not so violent but he ended up being even worse, killing any suspicious or outstanding and potentially threatening people under his control. Together they ruled for about 70 years.
Corinth became a very, very important cultural and economic centre under the Kypselid Dynasty. Why did it end? Basically Periander (the son) ticked off enough of his enemies that they banded together, expelled him and took over, establishing an oligarchy (aristocratic rule).
Tyranny of Sicyon
Reminder: history is sketchy in the archaic period because we don't have any recorded evidence until nearly 200 years later... It's a lot of interpretation and guess work which is what makes it difficult to trust what I'm learning, or personally invest my mind here.
Sicyon was a victor at the Games and expanded them while he was in rule... he replaced the flute-singing competition and added the chariot race. Attaboy, get those horses going and ditch the arts... a macho move, but an effective one for raising his popularity scores.
Polyrates/Samos Tyranny
535 BC(E) power is taken over by three brothers (until Polyrates kills one brother and exiles the other) and the island is set up as a military naval power. He sets up political ties with the king of Egypt and gets building and expanding (plundered and captured a whole load of people - a pirate king of the Mediterranean... and captures the Lesbians?).
Built a huge tunnel/aqueduct on the island (900 feet under a mountain?!) which still survives.
Death of: he was crucified with his men by Magnesia and the Persians free the people (disposed of the leaders) and then take over.
Gela on Sicily
505 BC(E) mercenaries (lead by Cleander) from the outside take over and rule until he was assassinated in 498 and is followed up by his brother (Hyppokrates) who rules in his stead and tries to expand (where he is killed trying to conquer another city). When the city finds out their tyrant is dead, chaos is temoratily restored until Gelon takes over and establishes his tyranny until 478 BC(E).
Gosh this shrinking BC-AD timeline is confusing. And my prof is moving SO fast!!
Herodotus: "Gelon pretends to protect his son but then he basically turned on everyone and took over. When a tyranny is established the polis (city) begins to flourish... but the people are not fond of him and it's a mutual distaste."
Gelon: "You're a jerk, men of Hellas, and I can't trust you. You're asking me to help but last time I helped you you bailed on me hardcore. But I'm better than you and I will help - I will send you men and provisions... but you have to let me be the ruler of everything." (They said "Thanks but no thanks.")
Question to the class: "Is there something about the surviving accounts of Greek Tyrants that causes you to be cautious?" Potential biases of their sources: there are huge gaps (roughly 200 years) between the actual event and the records. They are very similar in pattern and so it is very mythologized: a prophesy of the oracle, come to power with good intentions, suffer from hubris (arrogant pride), they are corrupted and they fall and order is restored by another power.
Tyranny leads to irresponsible abuse of power? Can't be assumed but there sure are a lot of examples. However, "if anybody goes against the demos (people) he is to be overthrown immediately by the boule (judges?) and the tyrant and his decendants are to be stripped of all rights forever," at least in Athens.
The Balanced Perspective
Tyranny is very close to democracy - popular of the common people and takes them into account. Brings a more even distribution of wealth, relieve debt and make improvements to the economy. "You harm your enemies and help your friends."
Euergetism (structural growth of the city, etc) and tyranny go hand in hand... To come? Sparta! Class over! Run away!
Well, I hope you've enjoyed dipping your toes into Ancient Greece. I've learned that it is unspeakably difficult to take notes on the computer and pay attention to the visual stimuli in my lecture. I can't type without my hunt-and-peck when under the pressure of keeping up with someone else's thoughts... so, next class I will be back to my good old pen and pad.
Soon I will write a note worth reading. Until then, I leave you with this one little-known-fact that I picked up in my biblical studies today. When locusts swarm there are as many as 40 million to 80 million locusts in one square kilometre! Makes you think twice about the eighth plague, eh? Not fun for Egypt. Not fun at all.
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Lies and Love
My smile is a lie today. Can you tell? I'm not trying to hide it but neither am I broadcasting my soul to the world. If you are looking you will see it but if you choose to pass by once again with a hollow and meaningless "Hey, how's it going," then you will, once again, miss the opportunity to hear my heart and numb my pain.
I woke up ugly today. My mirror was vicious and relentlessly cruel - but I could not cover her mocking face and piercing words. Neither could I please her, though I tried. All of my eye-lining, blushing, curling, straightening and glossing was of no use. My dressing, undressing, redressing, redressing, redressing... nothing could satisfy, nothing could temper. I left the house nearly two hours late and with a very heavy heart. But could you see this?
Even now as I look around at the women in my life - other women sitting at computers so much like this one, other women with smiling faces and bright eyes - I am in a war - a civil war - between my mind and my heart. Ugly, worthless, stupid, lazy, immature, too young, too old, aimless, wandering, free-loading, idle, depressed and depressing to others, loveless, naive, dirty... Truth is trying to fight back but it is struggling to gain ground today. Truth needs reinforcements. Truth needs physical help. But here I sit, avoiding eye contact with my friends, typing silently, hoping against hope that someone will break through the walls I am building and rescue me... which is, I suppose, the purpose of Truth itself.
It seems so unusual that emotion can entirely dominate over what we know. Feelings are overwhelming and disarming, which explains the insufficiency of self-thought and self-affirmation. On good days I can tell myself I am beautiful. On good days I can quote God's love by memory and apply those passages in a practical way... but this is not a good day. This is a bad day and I need to hear those words and feel that love from an external source. But, can you see that? Can you do that?
I think you might be surprised how frequently I battle through days like this. I am incredibly melancholy so much of the time despite my apparent glee and shine but few can recognize the warning signs of such deep, internal shadow. Today I'm counting on those special, loved few to pull me aside and let me cry, to tell me I'm beautiful and smart and to give me a hug from the heart of God Himself. I know He loves me - I know I am loved - but today, knowing is not enough.
I woke up ugly today. My mirror was vicious and relentlessly cruel - but I could not cover her mocking face and piercing words. Neither could I please her, though I tried. All of my eye-lining, blushing, curling, straightening and glossing was of no use. My dressing, undressing, redressing, redressing, redressing... nothing could satisfy, nothing could temper. I left the house nearly two hours late and with a very heavy heart. But could you see this?
Even now as I look around at the women in my life - other women sitting at computers so much like this one, other women with smiling faces and bright eyes - I am in a war - a civil war - between my mind and my heart. Ugly, worthless, stupid, lazy, immature, too young, too old, aimless, wandering, free-loading, idle, depressed and depressing to others, loveless, naive, dirty... Truth is trying to fight back but it is struggling to gain ground today. Truth needs reinforcements. Truth needs physical help. But here I sit, avoiding eye contact with my friends, typing silently, hoping against hope that someone will break through the walls I am building and rescue me... which is, I suppose, the purpose of Truth itself.
It seems so unusual that emotion can entirely dominate over what we know. Feelings are overwhelming and disarming, which explains the insufficiency of self-thought and self-affirmation. On good days I can tell myself I am beautiful. On good days I can quote God's love by memory and apply those passages in a practical way... but this is not a good day. This is a bad day and I need to hear those words and feel that love from an external source. But, can you see that? Can you do that?
I think you might be surprised how frequently I battle through days like this. I am incredibly melancholy so much of the time despite my apparent glee and shine but few can recognize the warning signs of such deep, internal shadow. Today I'm counting on those special, loved few to pull me aside and let me cry, to tell me I'm beautiful and smart and to give me a hug from the heart of God Himself. I know He loves me - I know I am loved - but today, knowing is not enough.
Yes Click, No Click
There are many clicks to be clicked in this world, but as with everything the simple fact that you are able doesn’t mean that you should. The click is a very serious thing; it is irreversible as you cannot, however much you might want to, unclick something. Because of this (perhaps obvious) reality, I am taking it upon myself to educate, warn, guide and direct your clicks so that you may discover the wonders and avoid the perils of this oh-so-clickable planet.
The CAMERA: If you’re set up for a photo-shoot with four modest-meets-beautiful-meets-gothic-clown-meets-backcombing-meets-sugar clad young women, I encourage you to YES, CLICK. The opportunity for such joyful fun comes but once in a blue moon and unfortunately less and less frequently as girls grow up up and away – so take advantage of such moments and do all that you can to capture them in time and photography. If, however, you find yourself in a particularly awkward or compromising situation whether for yourself or another, NO CLICK I tell you! Don’t do something you’ll regret. Save face the honest way and close that shutter.
The LINK: These newly invented digital punctuation marks are absolutely brilliant – please feel free to YES, CLICK here for a cool Pomplamoose song (quickly becoming one of my favourite bands), or here to download a free audiobook of nearly any genre, or here to learn a new guitar chord or even here which will just be a mystery unless you try it. But I stretch out my bright yellow reflective caution tape because not all links are good! For example, most of the links that have been showing up in the comment sections on this blog are NO CLICK links! (GAH! I am not popular enough to have to deal with spam!) So, how can you tell if a comment is author-approved? I’ll go on record with my criterion: ads for dieting and weight loss are spam and you are super beautiful, links in Chinese or other character-based languages are spam and I’m almost sure if I could understand what such posts say I would be either embarrassed or offended, and finally links that have anything to do with sex are spam. Sex is for married people, not for bloggin’ so NO CLICKin’ either... but if you want to hit the link below called “comment” and say something encouraging or profound from time to time that would be maahhhvelous and might help to emotionally balance out the spam. Just saying.
The REMOTE: When the television is doing something you don’t want it to be doing (for example, any one of the carbon-copy CSI episodes) then absolutely, YES CLICK to something more interesting even of the same general genre (for example, Castles). The only time you should NO CLICK the remote when there is something less than educational or entertaining on the screen is if someone who you respect and/or is bigger and/or stronger than you has chosen to view it. In such an event I suggest you find something else to do with you time – like find a book or brush your teeth or bake some cookies. (If you do the latter please save me one.)
The RETRACTABLE PEN: I need to be very clear with this one, especially as it is my last: NO CLICK!
And there you have it, folks; the thumbs-up and thumbs-down of responsible button usage.
Just as an addendum to Jami: I know you were hoping for more than a vague nod towards our Christmastime adventures and that being one of four unnamed girls mentioned so briefly above hardly satisfies the efforts you made to “get on the blog,” so this is really only a taste to tide you over until I can come home again – and then the three or four of us girls who are kicking around will have to have an adventure that merits its very own entry. Something with umbrellas, perhaps... and chocolate milk. How does that sound for a deal?
The CAMERA: If you’re set up for a photo-shoot with four modest-meets-beautiful-meets-gothic-clown-meets-backcombing-meets-sugar clad young women, I encourage you to YES, CLICK. The opportunity for such joyful fun comes but once in a blue moon and unfortunately less and less frequently as girls grow up up and away – so take advantage of such moments and do all that you can to capture them in time and photography. If, however, you find yourself in a particularly awkward or compromising situation whether for yourself or another, NO CLICK I tell you! Don’t do something you’ll regret. Save face the honest way and close that shutter.
The LINK: These newly invented digital punctuation marks are absolutely brilliant – please feel free to YES, CLICK here for a cool Pomplamoose song (quickly becoming one of my favourite bands), or here to download a free audiobook of nearly any genre, or here to learn a new guitar chord or even here which will just be a mystery unless you try it. But I stretch out my bright yellow reflective caution tape because not all links are good! For example, most of the links that have been showing up in the comment sections on this blog are NO CLICK links! (GAH! I am not popular enough to have to deal with spam!) So, how can you tell if a comment is author-approved? I’ll go on record with my criterion: ads for dieting and weight loss are spam and you are super beautiful, links in Chinese or other character-based languages are spam and I’m almost sure if I could understand what such posts say I would be either embarrassed or offended, and finally links that have anything to do with sex are spam. Sex is for married people, not for bloggin’ so NO CLICKin’ either... but if you want to hit the link below called “comment” and say something encouraging or profound from time to time that would be maahhhvelous and might help to emotionally balance out the spam. Just saying.
The REMOTE: When the television is doing something you don’t want it to be doing (for example, any one of the carbon-copy CSI episodes) then absolutely, YES CLICK to something more interesting even of the same general genre (for example, Castles). The only time you should NO CLICK the remote when there is something less than educational or entertaining on the screen is if someone who you respect and/or is bigger and/or stronger than you has chosen to view it. In such an event I suggest you find something else to do with you time – like find a book or brush your teeth or bake some cookies. (If you do the latter please save me one.)
The RETRACTABLE PEN: I need to be very clear with this one, especially as it is my last: NO CLICK!
And there you have it, folks; the thumbs-up and thumbs-down of responsible button usage.
Just as an addendum to Jami: I know you were hoping for more than a vague nod towards our Christmastime adventures and that being one of four unnamed girls mentioned so briefly above hardly satisfies the efforts you made to “get on the blog,” so this is really only a taste to tide you over until I can come home again – and then the three or four of us girls who are kicking around will have to have an adventure that merits its very own entry. Something with umbrellas, perhaps... and chocolate milk. How does that sound for a deal?
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Heart in Hand
I scrape out my heart, and cup it in my hands
Please, won’t somebody take it?
I look down at the blood, the emotion, the ache
Won’t somebody take it from me?
It beats so loudly, it longs to be known
Won’t somebody take it from me?
It cannot keep still, yet it withers alone
Please, somebody, take it.
I stand on the street with my beat up old heart
Tattered by years of distress
I hold it out in the light to the men who pass by
But each one refuses my best.
“I know it looks rough.” I choke back the tears.
“But this broken heart can love.”
Yet one after the next, they walk by and scoff.
Please, tell me I am enough.
Each day it grows darker like meat at a market,
Colder and harder inside...
No wonder they pass by and divert their eyes
And no one will take it from me.
I drop to the ground and lean back to a wall.
My heart feels dead in my hands.
As pulseless as stone, as worthless as ice
As shattered and sharp as glass.
“I will take it,” he said. “I want to take it from you.”
I look up with death in my eyes.
A man. He looks down at my shredded, gray heart
And stretches out his hand.
I scramble up to my feet and hold my heart out
“Please!” I beg, “Take it from me!”
“What is the price for this heart?” he asks.
“Nothing, just love, just love...”
His eyes grow heavy in memory of sorrow.
“No, not nothing,” he said.
“But it was paid for by Great, Incredible Love.”
And again reaches out his hand.
There was already blood on his palm.
Each finger stained.
Dark red scars wrapped up the length of his arm.
And his eyes... His eyes...
He cupped his hands over mine and
My heart lept. It was newborn:
No hardness, no bruises, no cuts, no gray.
Reborn, both tender and strong.
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;
I will remove your heart of stone
And give you a heart of flesh,” He said slowly.
“And I will put my Spirit in you.”
He did not take my heart – He filled it.
He planted it back in my chest
And sealed it there, with Love I can’t understand
And he held my hands.
“Your heart is exceedingly precious to me.
Do not give it away.
It is filled with My Love, and that you must share,
Openly, every day.
“But your heart as a whole is mine to keep
And mine is shared with you
So do not fear, but rejoice and draw near.
Because you have got work to do.”
And His Spirit remains, holding my heart in hand
And His eyes watch over me.
As I move through my life I will share out His Love
That fills and overflows my soul.
My hands are now empty and lifted to Jesus
The replacer and healer of hearts.
They are Yours as I am Yours, stained with Your Love.
Use me. Fill me. Take me.
Please, won’t somebody take it?
I look down at the blood, the emotion, the ache
Won’t somebody take it from me?
It beats so loudly, it longs to be known
Won’t somebody take it from me?
It cannot keep still, yet it withers alone
Please, somebody, take it.
I stand on the street with my beat up old heart
Tattered by years of distress
I hold it out in the light to the men who pass by
But each one refuses my best.
“I know it looks rough.” I choke back the tears.
“But this broken heart can love.”
Yet one after the next, they walk by and scoff.
Please, tell me I am enough.
Each day it grows darker like meat at a market,
Colder and harder inside...
No wonder they pass by and divert their eyes
And no one will take it from me.
I drop to the ground and lean back to a wall.
My heart feels dead in my hands.
As pulseless as stone, as worthless as ice
As shattered and sharp as glass.
“I will take it,” he said. “I want to take it from you.”
I look up with death in my eyes.
A man. He looks down at my shredded, gray heart
And stretches out his hand.
I scramble up to my feet and hold my heart out
“Please!” I beg, “Take it from me!”
“What is the price for this heart?” he asks.
“Nothing, just love, just love...”
His eyes grow heavy in memory of sorrow.
“No, not nothing,” he said.
“But it was paid for by Great, Incredible Love.”
And again reaches out his hand.
There was already blood on his palm.
Each finger stained.
Dark red scars wrapped up the length of his arm.
And his eyes... His eyes...
He cupped his hands over mine and
My heart lept. It was newborn:
No hardness, no bruises, no cuts, no gray.
Reborn, both tender and strong.
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;
I will remove your heart of stone
And give you a heart of flesh,” He said slowly.
“And I will put my Spirit in you.”
He did not take my heart – He filled it.
He planted it back in my chest
And sealed it there, with Love I can’t understand
And he held my hands.
“Your heart is exceedingly precious to me.
Do not give it away.
It is filled with My Love, and that you must share,
Openly, every day.
“But your heart as a whole is mine to keep
And mine is shared with you
So do not fear, but rejoice and draw near.
Because you have got work to do.”
And His Spirit remains, holding my heart in hand
And His eyes watch over me.
As I move through my life I will share out His Love
That fills and overflows my soul.
My hands are now empty and lifted to Jesus
The replacer and healer of hearts.
They are Yours as I am Yours, stained with Your Love.
Use me. Fill me. Take me.
Friday, 25 December 2009
A Mary Christmas Eve
I woke up this morning to a comfortable room in a bed piled high with blankets and pillows. My house was still and warm as my family dozed on and off for the next few hours, happy and cozy and safe, all once again under the same roof. I love coming home for Christmas: hugs that somehow turn into headlocks and far more meals than necessary, the pulling out of old instruments and the wrapping of gifts, silly photo shoots and there is bound to be a snowball fight... home, family, love, affection. This is Christmas.
But as I woke up this morning I had another kind of thought that was a little less like mistletoe and chocolate... it was of the first “Merry Christmas Eve.” And tonight I had the pleasure of living something quite akin.
Every Christmas Eve since before I can remember we have been one of two places: in a room packed with cousins at extended family Christmas, or at Church for the candlelight service. Tonight was the latter option and the gymnasium that doubles for our chapel was full of people from the Sunday-morning-and-night regulars to families that rarely see the inside of a church but make exceptions for such special occasions. Kids that I haven’t seen since they were reaching up to grasshopper’s knee are now looking me square in the eye and old friends who have moved on and moved away reunite with wonderful hugs and smiles that pour out love to all generously. The service began late, as it always does, allowing time for the stragglers and those who had a distant parking place to make their way to the seats that have been carefully and apologetically saved for them in the business of settling down. The lights dimmed, the music began and right on cue the babies cried. And cried... and cried.
A few of the little voices behind us were familiar in nature. I looked over my shoulder a few times before passing a note down the row to my Mum: “Should I go and take him out?” She shook her head but a minute later, Care began to move and the two of us slipped out the chapel’s side door, looking to help if we could.
When we got to the Nursery there were already a few sets of parents running around after their kids. They were all dressed up and we could tell that they wanted to be in the service much more than either of us did so we opened an unofficial, impromptu childcare service and the two of us did our best to entertain the seven babies and toddlers who were living on the tipping edge of too-much-sugar and past-your-bedtime. It was exactly the emotional change of pace I needed – a personal connection to that first of Christmastime anniversaries. This, children running and playing and listening to stories and singing and laughing and enjoying the simplicity of company, this is Christmas. This was Mary’s kind. Well, this was Mary’s kind post-labour and after a long nap... maybe it was more like this the year after His birth... haha.
When the service ended we were paid well with many appreciative smiles and “Thank you”s full of blessing. I think the half hour we spent with those kids is likely the most important gift I will give this Christmas, and definitely the one that most harkens back to the Christ child – the gift-wrapped Redeemer, the little swaddled Saviour, who would, in the blink of His mother’s eye, grow up and take on the world.
So, as I head off to a night of home-made tradition and celebration and a day of such activities to follow in haste, I wish you all a very Mary Christmas. May God bless you with hope and love this year and all of those to come.
But as I woke up this morning I had another kind of thought that was a little less like mistletoe and chocolate... it was of the first “Merry Christmas Eve.” And tonight I had the pleasure of living something quite akin.
Every Christmas Eve since before I can remember we have been one of two places: in a room packed with cousins at extended family Christmas, or at Church for the candlelight service. Tonight was the latter option and the gymnasium that doubles for our chapel was full of people from the Sunday-morning-and-night regulars to families that rarely see the inside of a church but make exceptions for such special occasions. Kids that I haven’t seen since they were reaching up to grasshopper’s knee are now looking me square in the eye and old friends who have moved on and moved away reunite with wonderful hugs and smiles that pour out love to all generously. The service began late, as it always does, allowing time for the stragglers and those who had a distant parking place to make their way to the seats that have been carefully and apologetically saved for them in the business of settling down. The lights dimmed, the music began and right on cue the babies cried. And cried... and cried.
A few of the little voices behind us were familiar in nature. I looked over my shoulder a few times before passing a note down the row to my Mum: “Should I go and take him out?” She shook her head but a minute later, Care began to move and the two of us slipped out the chapel’s side door, looking to help if we could.
When we got to the Nursery there were already a few sets of parents running around after their kids. They were all dressed up and we could tell that they wanted to be in the service much more than either of us did so we opened an unofficial, impromptu childcare service and the two of us did our best to entertain the seven babies and toddlers who were living on the tipping edge of too-much-sugar and past-your-bedtime. It was exactly the emotional change of pace I needed – a personal connection to that first of Christmastime anniversaries. This, children running and playing and listening to stories and singing and laughing and enjoying the simplicity of company, this is Christmas. This was Mary’s kind. Well, this was Mary’s kind post-labour and after a long nap... maybe it was more like this the year after His birth... haha.
When the service ended we were paid well with many appreciative smiles and “Thank you”s full of blessing. I think the half hour we spent with those kids is likely the most important gift I will give this Christmas, and definitely the one that most harkens back to the Christ child – the gift-wrapped Redeemer, the little swaddled Saviour, who would, in the blink of His mother’s eye, grow up and take on the world.
So, as I head off to a night of home-made tradition and celebration and a day of such activities to follow in haste, I wish you all a very Mary Christmas. May God bless you with hope and love this year and all of those to come.
Thursday, 17 December 2009
Unstuffed
The life of a pillowcase is not as glamorous as the Sears catalogue makes it out to be.
Pressed and lacy atop an unwrinkled bed is not the life that most of them experience. In fact, such pillowcases are not even really pillowcases... they're airbrushed and starched phonies. And some of them aren't even stuffed. The true test of a pillowcase, the surest way to find out what it's really made of is right around Christmastime: runny noses, phlegm-filled coughs, leaky eyes, too much sugar. If a pillowcase can withstand that much wear, it should be set for life. Or, at least that is what they are told....
For Lumpy, however, life was filled with more beatings than bedtimes. Even for restless little dreamers, something about Lumpy was a little too off center. He was rejected for the guestroom, rejected from the living room chesterfield and even the family dog refused to sleep with him... and so, Lumpy was demoted to the lowest possible position a pillowcase could find himself in.
Lumpy became the road-trip barf-bag.
Shouts of "I'm gonna BLOW!" gave Lumpy the shakes, which, unfortunately, only seemed to make the children more nauseous. Last night's pasta dinner and this morning's bran cereal fire-hosed out of the mouths and nostrils that gagged in his face. Lumpy hated this game. This game made Lumpy want to hurl.
One night driving home from hockey practice on the windy Northern roads, Chris (the third of four children in this family, and "King of Regurgitation") had second thoughts about his Chinese/McDonald's third quarter snack. Lumpy had known all along that this was a bad plan, and couldn't believe his seams when Chris' mother agreed to "pick something like that up" for her boys. Lumpy tried to warn her, but to no avail. People never listen to their laundry. And so, on the way home, Chris' stomach began to turn. Little burps sputtered out between his lips and the phrases "excuse me" and "I don't feel so good" seemed to limit his vocabulary. Chris' mom was taking the turns just a little too fast and Chris' seatbelt was just a little too high and a little too tight... before long Lumpy was staring up the young boy's nose in horror.
"NO!" cried Lumpy, his mouth yanked open so hard he thought he might pop a stitch, "Please! For Tailor's sake! Hold it in!"
But he did not. He could not. Noodles and partially digested ground beef filled an inch and a half of the poor pillowcase's self. Lumpy choked back a gag. And then it occurred to him... a brilliant plan, so simple, so devilish, so perfect...
Lumpy drew in a great breath. He stretched himself back, pulling against the boy's grip down to the ground, to the floor of the SUV and as soon as the boy took notice of this change, Lumpy catapulted himself inside out, blowing the chunks right back into Chris' face! Chris tried to scream and realized too late that his mouth was once again full of his vomit... but not for long...
Chris refilled Lumpy and Lumpy flung it out again! This time it hit Chris' mom on the side of her face! "CHRIS!" she hollered. "AIM FOR THE BAG!!" Chris could say nothing. He was as green as the Grinch. It was worse than the time his sister spit into her hand and rubbed it in his eye. This was the worst moment of his life.
That was not the case for Lumpy. Lumpy finally had taken his revenge. He would be a legend in the linen closet for years to come. He would be awarded some kind of prize for this. This night’s actions would go down in fabric history. And indeed they did.
When Chris got home he had to clean the whole vehicle by himself. Lumpy got washed -- thoroughly -- and to everyone's surprise, promoted. Apparently the only thing that will hide barf stains is car polish. And so our hero spent the rest of his days buffing and shining both family vehicles, far out of reach of snotty nose and leaking tears and all kinds of vomit. And, if you ask me, he does the job very, very well.
Pressed and lacy atop an unwrinkled bed is not the life that most of them experience. In fact, such pillowcases are not even really pillowcases... they're airbrushed and starched phonies. And some of them aren't even stuffed. The true test of a pillowcase, the surest way to find out what it's really made of is right around Christmastime: runny noses, phlegm-filled coughs, leaky eyes, too much sugar. If a pillowcase can withstand that much wear, it should be set for life. Or, at least that is what they are told....
For Lumpy, however, life was filled with more beatings than bedtimes. Even for restless little dreamers, something about Lumpy was a little too off center. He was rejected for the guestroom, rejected from the living room chesterfield and even the family dog refused to sleep with him... and so, Lumpy was demoted to the lowest possible position a pillowcase could find himself in.
Lumpy became the road-trip barf-bag.
Shouts of "I'm gonna BLOW!" gave Lumpy the shakes, which, unfortunately, only seemed to make the children more nauseous. Last night's pasta dinner and this morning's bran cereal fire-hosed out of the mouths and nostrils that gagged in his face. Lumpy hated this game. This game made Lumpy want to hurl.
One night driving home from hockey practice on the windy Northern roads, Chris (the third of four children in this family, and "King of Regurgitation") had second thoughts about his Chinese/McDonald's third quarter snack. Lumpy had known all along that this was a bad plan, and couldn't believe his seams when Chris' mother agreed to "pick something like that up" for her boys. Lumpy tried to warn her, but to no avail. People never listen to their laundry. And so, on the way home, Chris' stomach began to turn. Little burps sputtered out between his lips and the phrases "excuse me" and "I don't feel so good" seemed to limit his vocabulary. Chris' mom was taking the turns just a little too fast and Chris' seatbelt was just a little too high and a little too tight... before long Lumpy was staring up the young boy's nose in horror.
"NO!" cried Lumpy, his mouth yanked open so hard he thought he might pop a stitch, "Please! For Tailor's sake! Hold it in!"
But he did not. He could not. Noodles and partially digested ground beef filled an inch and a half of the poor pillowcase's self. Lumpy choked back a gag. And then it occurred to him... a brilliant plan, so simple, so devilish, so perfect...
Lumpy drew in a great breath. He stretched himself back, pulling against the boy's grip down to the ground, to the floor of the SUV and as soon as the boy took notice of this change, Lumpy catapulted himself inside out, blowing the chunks right back into Chris' face! Chris tried to scream and realized too late that his mouth was once again full of his vomit... but not for long...
Chris refilled Lumpy and Lumpy flung it out again! This time it hit Chris' mom on the side of her face! "CHRIS!" she hollered. "AIM FOR THE BAG!!" Chris could say nothing. He was as green as the Grinch. It was worse than the time his sister spit into her hand and rubbed it in his eye. This was the worst moment of his life.
That was not the case for Lumpy. Lumpy finally had taken his revenge. He would be a legend in the linen closet for years to come. He would be awarded some kind of prize for this. This night’s actions would go down in fabric history. And indeed they did.
When Chris got home he had to clean the whole vehicle by himself. Lumpy got washed -- thoroughly -- and to everyone's surprise, promoted. Apparently the only thing that will hide barf stains is car polish. And so our hero spent the rest of his days buffing and shining both family vehicles, far out of reach of snotty nose and leaking tears and all kinds of vomit. And, if you ask me, he does the job very, very well.
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Adventures of Chai Spice
I had to laugh at myself tonight. I thought I would give you the opportunity to join me in the light-hearted mockery and quickly relay my tale.
As I began to settle in for another long night of work (and distraction), I set my kettle to boil. From time to time I change up my ritual hot chocolate for something a little lighter and a little less like the warm, soothing segue into dream that cocoa is, especially on wintry nights. Usually I'm a peppermint girl when it comes time for tea. I love the smell, the taste and the feeling of peppermint - it too has a soothing effect but without the automatic reaction of my sinking eyelids. Even my sugarless peppermint, however, has had very little effect on my ability to stay up later than usual, recently. And tonight I learned why.
Did you know that some teas are not caffeinated? Did you know that some actually announce "no caffeine" on their labels? Some tea tins even make it brilliantly obvious, in a different colour and an interesting font that practically begs to be read. Maybe if I'd have been more awake I would have noticed... but then I wouldn't have needed the tea.
So, tonight my peppermint is not overly helpful, and it's "no caffeine" twin in cinnamon will also remain in my cupboard. Luckily (or perhaps fiendishly), my Mom once left a bag of Home-groceries here in my home and one of the magical inheritances I stashed away was a box of "Chai Spice Black Tea," quite appropriately from the "Stash Premium" collection. I was a little skeptical at first (it was a box of individually packaged paper bags, the kind of box I associate more with hotel continental breakfasts than my little kitchen table), but after unwrapping and steeping my first mug of tea, I must admit I'm very impressed.
Good taste, Mom... I think I'll keep the rest of the box...
As I began to settle in for another long night of work (and distraction), I set my kettle to boil. From time to time I change up my ritual hot chocolate for something a little lighter and a little less like the warm, soothing segue into dream that cocoa is, especially on wintry nights. Usually I'm a peppermint girl when it comes time for tea. I love the smell, the taste and the feeling of peppermint - it too has a soothing effect but without the automatic reaction of my sinking eyelids. Even my sugarless peppermint, however, has had very little effect on my ability to stay up later than usual, recently. And tonight I learned why.
Did you know that some teas are not caffeinated? Did you know that some actually announce "no caffeine" on their labels? Some tea tins even make it brilliantly obvious, in a different colour and an interesting font that practically begs to be read. Maybe if I'd have been more awake I would have noticed... but then I wouldn't have needed the tea.
So, tonight my peppermint is not overly helpful, and it's "no caffeine" twin in cinnamon will also remain in my cupboard. Luckily (or perhaps fiendishly), my Mom once left a bag of Home-groceries here in my home and one of the magical inheritances I stashed away was a box of "Chai Spice Black Tea," quite appropriately from the "Stash Premium" collection. I was a little skeptical at first (it was a box of individually packaged paper bags, the kind of box I associate more with hotel continental breakfasts than my little kitchen table), but after unwrapping and steeping my first mug of tea, I must admit I'm very impressed.
Good taste, Mom... I think I'll keep the rest of the box...
Monday, 14 December 2009
It does not mix!
Lessons from my weekend:
1)Beautiful gowns and long gloves do not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
2)The making and eating of caramel corn does not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
3)The making and eating of quesadillas does not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
4)My guitar and a fat binder of worship music do not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
5)TV, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and my blogs do not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
6)Comfortable seating and warm rooms do not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
7)Uncomfortable seating and cold rooms also do not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
8)Unsupervised study time does not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
9)Study time spent in the company of others does not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
10)Blank Word documents do not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
11)The internal distraction of things that are eternally more important than Language and
Rhetoric does not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
12)Visual access to any kind of clock does not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
13)Everything does not mix with Language and Rhetoric!
When there is this much snow outside, when the pretty lights are up, when I have Christmas cards to write, a blanket to finish, my room to clean and pack and when home is so close... school just feels meaningless, like the first chunk of Ecclesiastes.
Please! I just want to go home!
1)Beautiful gowns and long gloves do not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
2)The making and eating of caramel corn does not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
3)The making and eating of quesadillas does not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
4)My guitar and a fat binder of worship music do not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
5)TV, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and my blogs do not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
6)Comfortable seating and warm rooms do not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
7)Uncomfortable seating and cold rooms also do not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
8)Unsupervised study time does not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
9)Study time spent in the company of others does not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
10)Blank Word documents do not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
11)The internal distraction of things that are eternally more important than Language and
Rhetoric does not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
12)Visual access to any kind of clock does not mix with Language and Rhetoric.
13)Everything does not mix with Language and Rhetoric!
When there is this much snow outside, when the pretty lights are up, when I have Christmas cards to write, a blanket to finish, my room to clean and pack and when home is so close... school just feels meaningless, like the first chunk of Ecclesiastes.
Please! I just want to go home!
Saturday, 12 December 2009
A Million Directions
I feel like I'm standing inside of a dark sphere. The globe that surrounds me is gray, like lead, like the graphite line of a pencil marked by a sure hand with intentional pressure. The sides of this space feel like carpet and as I lightly pass my hand over the soft, bristly wall it ripples around in every direction. It moves like water and like light. It seems nearly alive, but it is something far more mysterious even than life... it is potential.
This dome, this place, this room... it is the ultimate crossroads. Each speck on the wall, each point of the room is a choice. I am standing in choice. When I leave this place I will follow one of these lines. I will choose one path and I will go to one place. It is here, now, that I am setting my course. It is here and now that I must make my decision.
I single out a single route, separating it from the others and holding it between my fingertips. Each strand no wider than the breadth of a hair, nigh invisible amongst the others and yet as dark and gray and full of promise as the sphere itself. What does this path hold? A life of security and luxury and comfort. I set it back and move a few steps to my left. Again I select one line from the wall of lines and press it between my forefinger and thumb. Where will this road take me? A life of adventure and tragedy. The next, a life of poverty and love. The next of influence, the next of risks and purpose, the next of sun, the next of snow. How do I choose? How do I move from this place?
Hopelessness overwhelms me. I feel as though every direction is out of my reach, that I have no way of knowing the right path and that I am bound to failure. I sit down in the bowl of this room and drop my face into my hands and close my eyes. I feel nothing. I feel numb. Numbness is worse than sadness and hopelessness worse than defeat because they are motiveless and static.
Then somebody gives me a hug. A voice, deep and warm fills my ears and my heart... It wraps around me like the thickest and softest of furs, comforting in a way than nothing else can and filling me with sound so rich and so full that I am completely disarmed and yet held, somehow, in perfect peace and safety.
"Choose with confidence," He says, "and I will be there. Wherever you go I will protect you. Whatever you do I will guide you. I will comfort you in tragedy and humble you in wealth. I will watch over you in danger and equip you in risk. I will provide for you in poverty. I will sing over you when you fear. I will arm you and guard you, I will be with you in sickness and I will fill your heart with hope and with love. I love you. You are my girl. And I will care for you always."
Relief floods my soul. He is at the end of every path. He is there in every step along it. I do not have to fear these choices because whatever I do, if I do it seeking Him and His heart, He will make good of it and He will use me.
I open my eyes to thank Him, the Voice of Truth and Hope and Peace...
And what I see takes my breath away.
A million faces look back at me. Children unknown and unnoticed, teenagers alone and afraid, young men fighting for their country and their hearts, young women struggling with image and expectation, men crying out for leadership, women crying out for justice, every different age and colour and culture, all of them looking at me, looking to me... and then, suddenly something changes. One by one in a ripple that turns into a mighty wave, each face is changed. A smile, a look of hope, an expression of peace and joy. This is the change that God can make. But it doesn't change all at once. It ripples out. It ripples out from one path.
The Voice returns for a moment and echoes His own great Word: "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter — when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings."
I reach out to the place where the ripples began. I will, with trembling hand and willing heart, take that path of change. I don't know what it brings for me. I don't know how long it is or where or how I will live, but I will take it.
Jesus, take it with me. Help me find my way in Your Way and lead me to You in every step. I love you back, and I am ready.
This dome, this place, this room... it is the ultimate crossroads. Each speck on the wall, each point of the room is a choice. I am standing in choice. When I leave this place I will follow one of these lines. I will choose one path and I will go to one place. It is here, now, that I am setting my course. It is here and now that I must make my decision.
I single out a single route, separating it from the others and holding it between my fingertips. Each strand no wider than the breadth of a hair, nigh invisible amongst the others and yet as dark and gray and full of promise as the sphere itself. What does this path hold? A life of security and luxury and comfort. I set it back and move a few steps to my left. Again I select one line from the wall of lines and press it between my forefinger and thumb. Where will this road take me? A life of adventure and tragedy. The next, a life of poverty and love. The next of influence, the next of risks and purpose, the next of sun, the next of snow. How do I choose? How do I move from this place?
Hopelessness overwhelms me. I feel as though every direction is out of my reach, that I have no way of knowing the right path and that I am bound to failure. I sit down in the bowl of this room and drop my face into my hands and close my eyes. I feel nothing. I feel numb. Numbness is worse than sadness and hopelessness worse than defeat because they are motiveless and static.
Then somebody gives me a hug. A voice, deep and warm fills my ears and my heart... It wraps around me like the thickest and softest of furs, comforting in a way than nothing else can and filling me with sound so rich and so full that I am completely disarmed and yet held, somehow, in perfect peace and safety.
"Choose with confidence," He says, "and I will be there. Wherever you go I will protect you. Whatever you do I will guide you. I will comfort you in tragedy and humble you in wealth. I will watch over you in danger and equip you in risk. I will provide for you in poverty. I will sing over you when you fear. I will arm you and guard you, I will be with you in sickness and I will fill your heart with hope and with love. I love you. You are my girl. And I will care for you always."
Relief floods my soul. He is at the end of every path. He is there in every step along it. I do not have to fear these choices because whatever I do, if I do it seeking Him and His heart, He will make good of it and He will use me.
I open my eyes to thank Him, the Voice of Truth and Hope and Peace...
And what I see takes my breath away.
A million faces look back at me. Children unknown and unnoticed, teenagers alone and afraid, young men fighting for their country and their hearts, young women struggling with image and expectation, men crying out for leadership, women crying out for justice, every different age and colour and culture, all of them looking at me, looking to me... and then, suddenly something changes. One by one in a ripple that turns into a mighty wave, each face is changed. A smile, a look of hope, an expression of peace and joy. This is the change that God can make. But it doesn't change all at once. It ripples out. It ripples out from one path.
The Voice returns for a moment and echoes His own great Word: "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter — when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings."
I reach out to the place where the ripples began. I will, with trembling hand and willing heart, take that path of change. I don't know what it brings for me. I don't know how long it is or where or how I will live, but I will take it.
Jesus, take it with me. Help me find my way in Your Way and lead me to You in every step. I love you back, and I am ready.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Chronicles of My (Almost) 61 Hr Day
7:54 Mistake number one? Leaving six final projects unfinished until the last two days of school. Mistake number two? Not even starting six final projects until the last two days of school. Please don’t take this as a horrifying testimony to my character (and Mom, please don’t let this stress you out. By the time you read this it will all be a thing of the past. You said it best... I work best and almost only under pressure). It will get done! It will all get done on time! And this little chronicle will help me prove it.
I woke up at about nine o’clock this morning. As I figure it, if I can make use of all of tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night I will have all of my work done for each respective class and retain time to prep for my group presentation on Wednesday night. I have played this game before and I have learned a few tricks. For all of you would-be crammers and procrastinators, take a lesson from a professional and DON’T! It’s really not worth it. But if you must, here are a few tips:
First: Don’t try to push past your attention span. When the writing is a struggle and you can’t think straight, move on to something else. Try another project or watch a short YouTube video, write a letter, read a comic, do push-ups or jumping jacks or take a shower or go by some Macs Milk... something to give your brain a change or a rest... then come back to your work. That’s a very key part.
Second: Don’t nap! Trust me on this one. Napping quickly turns into hibernation, especially when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Personally, I think it’s internal mafia action... your brain and your body override your conscience and work ethic and then it’s lights out for everybody. Resist your pillow’s seduction by all means possible. It’s a trap.
Third: Look forward to the sunrise. If you don’t see them often, it’s worth staying up just for that. Last time I played this game the sun woke up around 5:00 but something tells me it’s later in the wintertime. We shall see!
So for now I’m off to work. I have to read a whack for my Language and Rhetoric project... actually, I need to find the outline for that project first... so I think that’s job number one. And here we go!
9:03 Well... you can’t expect every hour to be a productive one, but I have hoped that the first one would have more to show for it. I did find two course syllabi and the sketch of a horse from a while back and some pirate stickers, but then I checked facebook and looked up one (okay, seven) song(s) on YouTube... The plan is a good one, I swear, but getting the work and the distractions in the right order is proving a sliver trickier than I had hoped. Let’s try this again...
9:10 Huzzah! The outline has been recovered. And good news, I don’t actually need a thesis for this one.
9:58 Shakespeare (assuming you are not one of the “there is no such man, it’s all a clever ruse” conspiracy theorists who doubt everything ever attributed to the playwright), composed a whopping 154 sonnets. A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines that follows a very specific rhythm and rhyme scheme... so my question is, has Billy done an incredible feat of literary genius, or is this collection simply one good system that has been beaten into the ground for all it’s worth? What is more impressive: Shakespeare and his 154 sonnets (of echoing structure) and his 38 plays (of borrowed and stolen plot), or the collection of 86 Relient K songs that express an array of emotion not only through form but with the added layer of vocal harmony and creative instrumental movement? A course on layered lyrics... now that’s a class worth taking!
10:41 I hereby present the award for Best and Worst Invention of All Time to The Internet! Clap, clap, clap...
11:26 I’m toying with the idea of sleep. This challenge would top the charts of LAME if I didn’t follow through after getting this far in. And, if I quit I’m going to have a brutal life tomorrow not handing in my work... so I guess I have to hit these books a little harder. I’m currently setting aside the Language and Rhetoric phonemics project in favour of my Children’s Lit assignment: “In the original Puss in Boots, the cat was female. How does this change affect the story?” Right up my alley!
12:31 I think this will be easier when everybody else goes to bed. I just watched a Caesarean on YouTube (who posts such videos?!) with my nursing roommate. Then we looked into bunion surgery... I think I’ll keep my mutant feet. I also refilled my champagne glass (of Sprite... we just love stemware) and now I’m back to work, making slow progress... but progress nonetheless! One more thing: Phil Wickham’s “You’re Beautiful” is an amazing song. Go look it up. You can’t help but smile and feel empowered to praise!
7:43 F-A-I-L. My roommate just woke me up. Blasted pillows! How, how, do they pull me in every time?! So tricky.
2:01 I need a chiropractor! I don’t know whether it’s the stress or aftermath of my pumpernickel breakfast, but something is not right in my body today! I feel the need to find a corner and assume the fetal position. Please, Friday! Come quickly!
3:39 Who wants to bet that I'll focus better at home than here at school? Yeah, I don't really think so either. But I did get some work done for my Dad. Why didn't I go into marketing and creative design? It sounds like a LOT more fun than my grammar project right now! Ah well. One exam out of the way and five more major cumulative assignments still due... But who's counting.
9:50 Hopefully tonight will go a little better for me. I have a lot of work to do, but I’m feeling a lot more focused. Let’s knock a few of these off my list! (Geography lab, Children’s Lit essay, Genre presentation, Genre essay, LangRhet project. And go!) Ps. Heather’s humming very loudly in the kitchen. It’s a happy sound. A little... Pirates of the Caribbean, maybe?
11:29 Okay. So, this one lab is going to take a little longer than I anticipated. I really hope all of my projects don’t follow the same pattern! I secretly do want to sleep tonight!
12:39 I really need a back and shoulder and neck massage. I don’t even remember a time I’ve felt sorer and I’m growing a headache (but that’s probably from the Sprite; I don’t have pop often and it messes with my body when I do). Where is that affectionate boyfriend of mine when I need him? Oh right. I don’t have one...
12:52 Sleeeeeeepp... How I long for thee. Time for a change of scenery... more Bible perhaps? Yes, I think I will.
1:42 Success! One project out of the way! Take that, Geography! Never again shall I struggle through your endless tedious map-reading and number-crunching. From now on I throw the directions out the window! Navigation by rock-paper-scissors and when in doubt turn left: that’s my philosophy.
2:32 Wow. I could really use a nap to follow my shower. I always think it will wake me up, but it always seems to have the opposite effect. I was so pumped a half hour ago... now I’m fighting with gravity to keep my eyes open. What a bad plan!
9:44 So, I did have that nap. And I did fall asleep. Shocker. So, what am I going to do today? I’m not exactly sure yet...
10:41 There is hope for me yet! I now have a thesis for both of my papers and an with an outline for my presentation it shouldn’t take long. Now I’m heading into the school to my last Geography class ever (I’m really broken up about it. I’ll miss this course so much! *I’m getting all choked up over here, blink back the tears*). Hopefully I’ll finish everything but the LangRhet project at school today and hand it all in, then with that one project left (not really due until Friday) I will be able to come home and watch Glee tonight in relative peace. Now that is a goal I can work towards! I’m almost out of this madness! YES!
1:08 So, I’m sitting in the library, staring at a creative first paragraph for the paper that is due in only five hours. “Electronic hypertext is a world of fragments. Each thought is its own text and each word has a unique history and a potential future. For the reader, a well constructed electronic hypertext is the beginning of a new reality, one of never ending trails to wander into, a tangled snare designed to help you lose your mind and gain, in exchange, something completely different: a self-aware social consciousness.” Not bad for a first draft, but it has nothing to do with my thesis. Some days I really hate assignments. I want to create! I don’t want to be limited by the ideals of another! I’m sick of writing to please my professors instead of writing to simply express or learn or teach. These lines seem so… dead. This work is petty! Useless! How is this going to help me teach children? Can this further my relationships or foster a love for anything? Can I find God in this area of study? Can it be applied to any realm of my life? Is this education ultimately worth anything? School is about jumping through hoops as much as it is training for a career and a life outside of these (often prison-bare) corridors and classrooms. I’m over the novelty of university and all I see now is futility. I need a hobby… I need a more involving ministry. I need a better reason than classes to stay in North Bay. The world is calling my name! My heart wants to be in Mexico or Argentina or India or Egypt or Iran or Africa, really making a difference in the lives of the people who God has called me to love. I need to be a physical help to someone. I need to have more impact on this world than an academic opinion that means and says nothing because it is a passionless organization of regurgitated information. God has given me gifts, but I don’t know how to use them in this place. Maybe that’s my problem… I just need to learn how to make my life eternally important here. God, show me how.
1:49 My friend Andrew has given me some tips that are apparently proven effective for staying up all night. He’s pretty sleep deprived, so I’m betting they come from experience:
First: “Find yourself a support group.” MSN chatting with others is a good way to keep accountable… or distracted. The only risk is falling into an actual conversation, which I tend to do. Maybe I’ll try this one out though… I just need to find some friends who are successful night-owls.
Secondly: no comfortable furniture. “The trick is to take all the cushions off your couch and just sit on the springs.” It seems like it would be a more successful plan than my futon or my bed… those plans led to failure quickly.
2:37 Peppermint Patties are my new favourite chocolates. I’m addicted. There’s no going back.
3:11 BAH, this computer doesn’t have Internet access!! How am I supposed to source this without the sources??
3:22 I wrote a verse up on the whiteboard earlier. I do it pretty frequently. Before I went to the bathroom I had a conversation with a woman I didn’t know about how she loves reading them and seeing them up on the wall. When I came back to my computer there were three people on the opposite side of my computer bank talking about it too… they’re currently looking up Bible verses about hell and wrath to counter it. Isn’t it amazing how a simple verse of encouragement can spark such a reaction? There is no middle ground with God – you have to choose a side – but this is the most dramatic clash I’ve seen here yet. Will it stop me from writing up there? Nope. In fact, it makes me want to do it more. God is moving and I want to be part of that.
3:44 25% done this paper and freaking out a bit! Any time that adrenaline wants to kick in, that would be amazing.
4:20 Pretty much half done. I need to find at least one source though.
11:45 Well. I did get almost everything done, but I have to say this was far less successful than I had hoped. I finished my essay, and I presented my presentation. With only two things left on my agenda I’m feeling a lot more peace. Christmas is almost here! And on that note I leave you – but keep your eyes peeled for a lot more posts in the next few weeks. With more time off I’ll be able to finish all those stories I’ve been half writing this term! And working on some pre-January homework, of course.
I wish I could think of something epic to end this with. A joke perhaps? Or just a punchline?
“And then the florist said, ‘But I only paid a dollar fifty!’”
BAHAHAHAHAHA!
I woke up at about nine o’clock this morning. As I figure it, if I can make use of all of tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night I will have all of my work done for each respective class and retain time to prep for my group presentation on Wednesday night. I have played this game before and I have learned a few tricks. For all of you would-be crammers and procrastinators, take a lesson from a professional and DON’T! It’s really not worth it. But if you must, here are a few tips:
First: Don’t try to push past your attention span. When the writing is a struggle and you can’t think straight, move on to something else. Try another project or watch a short YouTube video, write a letter, read a comic, do push-ups or jumping jacks or take a shower or go by some Macs Milk... something to give your brain a change or a rest... then come back to your work. That’s a very key part.
Second: Don’t nap! Trust me on this one. Napping quickly turns into hibernation, especially when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Personally, I think it’s internal mafia action... your brain and your body override your conscience and work ethic and then it’s lights out for everybody. Resist your pillow’s seduction by all means possible. It’s a trap.
Third: Look forward to the sunrise. If you don’t see them often, it’s worth staying up just for that. Last time I played this game the sun woke up around 5:00 but something tells me it’s later in the wintertime. We shall see!
So for now I’m off to work. I have to read a whack for my Language and Rhetoric project... actually, I need to find the outline for that project first... so I think that’s job number one. And here we go!
9:03 Well... you can’t expect every hour to be a productive one, but I have hoped that the first one would have more to show for it. I did find two course syllabi and the sketch of a horse from a while back and some pirate stickers, but then I checked facebook and looked up one (okay, seven) song(s) on YouTube... The plan is a good one, I swear, but getting the work and the distractions in the right order is proving a sliver trickier than I had hoped. Let’s try this again...
9:10 Huzzah! The outline has been recovered. And good news, I don’t actually need a thesis for this one.
9:58 Shakespeare (assuming you are not one of the “there is no such man, it’s all a clever ruse” conspiracy theorists who doubt everything ever attributed to the playwright), composed a whopping 154 sonnets. A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines that follows a very specific rhythm and rhyme scheme... so my question is, has Billy done an incredible feat of literary genius, or is this collection simply one good system that has been beaten into the ground for all it’s worth? What is more impressive: Shakespeare and his 154 sonnets (of echoing structure) and his 38 plays (of borrowed and stolen plot), or the collection of 86 Relient K songs that express an array of emotion not only through form but with the added layer of vocal harmony and creative instrumental movement? A course on layered lyrics... now that’s a class worth taking!
10:41 I hereby present the award for Best and Worst Invention of All Time to The Internet! Clap, clap, clap...
11:26 I’m toying with the idea of sleep. This challenge would top the charts of LAME if I didn’t follow through after getting this far in. And, if I quit I’m going to have a brutal life tomorrow not handing in my work... so I guess I have to hit these books a little harder. I’m currently setting aside the Language and Rhetoric phonemics project in favour of my Children’s Lit assignment: “In the original Puss in Boots, the cat was female. How does this change affect the story?” Right up my alley!
12:31 I think this will be easier when everybody else goes to bed. I just watched a Caesarean on YouTube (who posts such videos?!) with my nursing roommate. Then we looked into bunion surgery... I think I’ll keep my mutant feet. I also refilled my champagne glass (of Sprite... we just love stemware) and now I’m back to work, making slow progress... but progress nonetheless! One more thing: Phil Wickham’s “You’re Beautiful” is an amazing song. Go look it up. You can’t help but smile and feel empowered to praise!
7:43 F-A-I-L. My roommate just woke me up. Blasted pillows! How, how, do they pull me in every time?! So tricky.
2:01 I need a chiropractor! I don’t know whether it’s the stress or aftermath of my pumpernickel breakfast, but something is not right in my body today! I feel the need to find a corner and assume the fetal position. Please, Friday! Come quickly!
3:39 Who wants to bet that I'll focus better at home than here at school? Yeah, I don't really think so either. But I did get some work done for my Dad. Why didn't I go into marketing and creative design? It sounds like a LOT more fun than my grammar project right now! Ah well. One exam out of the way and five more major cumulative assignments still due... But who's counting.
9:50 Hopefully tonight will go a little better for me. I have a lot of work to do, but I’m feeling a lot more focused. Let’s knock a few of these off my list! (Geography lab, Children’s Lit essay, Genre presentation, Genre essay, LangRhet project. And go!) Ps. Heather’s humming very loudly in the kitchen. It’s a happy sound. A little... Pirates of the Caribbean, maybe?
11:29 Okay. So, this one lab is going to take a little longer than I anticipated. I really hope all of my projects don’t follow the same pattern! I secretly do want to sleep tonight!
12:39 I really need a back and shoulder and neck massage. I don’t even remember a time I’ve felt sorer and I’m growing a headache (but that’s probably from the Sprite; I don’t have pop often and it messes with my body when I do). Where is that affectionate boyfriend of mine when I need him? Oh right. I don’t have one...
12:52 Sleeeeeeepp... How I long for thee. Time for a change of scenery... more Bible perhaps? Yes, I think I will.
1:42 Success! One project out of the way! Take that, Geography! Never again shall I struggle through your endless tedious map-reading and number-crunching. From now on I throw the directions out the window! Navigation by rock-paper-scissors and when in doubt turn left: that’s my philosophy.
2:32 Wow. I could really use a nap to follow my shower. I always think it will wake me up, but it always seems to have the opposite effect. I was so pumped a half hour ago... now I’m fighting with gravity to keep my eyes open. What a bad plan!
9:44 So, I did have that nap. And I did fall asleep. Shocker. So, what am I going to do today? I’m not exactly sure yet...
10:41 There is hope for me yet! I now have a thesis for both of my papers and an with an outline for my presentation it shouldn’t take long. Now I’m heading into the school to my last Geography class ever (I’m really broken up about it. I’ll miss this course so much! *I’m getting all choked up over here, blink back the tears*). Hopefully I’ll finish everything but the LangRhet project at school today and hand it all in, then with that one project left (not really due until Friday) I will be able to come home and watch Glee tonight in relative peace. Now that is a goal I can work towards! I’m almost out of this madness! YES!
1:08 So, I’m sitting in the library, staring at a creative first paragraph for the paper that is due in only five hours. “Electronic hypertext is a world of fragments. Each thought is its own text and each word has a unique history and a potential future. For the reader, a well constructed electronic hypertext is the beginning of a new reality, one of never ending trails to wander into, a tangled snare designed to help you lose your mind and gain, in exchange, something completely different: a self-aware social consciousness.” Not bad for a first draft, but it has nothing to do with my thesis. Some days I really hate assignments. I want to create! I don’t want to be limited by the ideals of another! I’m sick of writing to please my professors instead of writing to simply express or learn or teach. These lines seem so… dead. This work is petty! Useless! How is this going to help me teach children? Can this further my relationships or foster a love for anything? Can I find God in this area of study? Can it be applied to any realm of my life? Is this education ultimately worth anything? School is about jumping through hoops as much as it is training for a career and a life outside of these (often prison-bare) corridors and classrooms. I’m over the novelty of university and all I see now is futility. I need a hobby… I need a more involving ministry. I need a better reason than classes to stay in North Bay. The world is calling my name! My heart wants to be in Mexico or Argentina or India or Egypt or Iran or Africa, really making a difference in the lives of the people who God has called me to love. I need to be a physical help to someone. I need to have more impact on this world than an academic opinion that means and says nothing because it is a passionless organization of regurgitated information. God has given me gifts, but I don’t know how to use them in this place. Maybe that’s my problem… I just need to learn how to make my life eternally important here. God, show me how.
1:49 My friend Andrew has given me some tips that are apparently proven effective for staying up all night. He’s pretty sleep deprived, so I’m betting they come from experience:
First: “Find yourself a support group.” MSN chatting with others is a good way to keep accountable… or distracted. The only risk is falling into an actual conversation, which I tend to do. Maybe I’ll try this one out though… I just need to find some friends who are successful night-owls.
Secondly: no comfortable furniture. “The trick is to take all the cushions off your couch and just sit on the springs.” It seems like it would be a more successful plan than my futon or my bed… those plans led to failure quickly.
2:37 Peppermint Patties are my new favourite chocolates. I’m addicted. There’s no going back.
3:11 BAH, this computer doesn’t have Internet access!! How am I supposed to source this without the sources??
3:22 I wrote a verse up on the whiteboard earlier. I do it pretty frequently. Before I went to the bathroom I had a conversation with a woman I didn’t know about how she loves reading them and seeing them up on the wall. When I came back to my computer there were three people on the opposite side of my computer bank talking about it too… they’re currently looking up Bible verses about hell and wrath to counter it. Isn’t it amazing how a simple verse of encouragement can spark such a reaction? There is no middle ground with God – you have to choose a side – but this is the most dramatic clash I’ve seen here yet. Will it stop me from writing up there? Nope. In fact, it makes me want to do it more. God is moving and I want to be part of that.
3:44 25% done this paper and freaking out a bit! Any time that adrenaline wants to kick in, that would be amazing.
4:20 Pretty much half done. I need to find at least one source though.
11:45 Well. I did get almost everything done, but I have to say this was far less successful than I had hoped. I finished my essay, and I presented my presentation. With only two things left on my agenda I’m feeling a lot more peace. Christmas is almost here! And on that note I leave you – but keep your eyes peeled for a lot more posts in the next few weeks. With more time off I’ll be able to finish all those stories I’ve been half writing this term! And working on some pre-January homework, of course.
I wish I could think of something epic to end this with. A joke perhaps? Or just a punchline?
“And then the florist said, ‘But I only paid a dollar fifty!’”
BAHAHAHAHAHA!
Friday, 4 December 2009
Dead Man's Path
It is often said that when seeking to understand another's point of view you must walk for a while in his shoes. Of course, this is not often assumed to be a literal suggestion. It's a metaphor, an idea, a change of perspective that does not actually require the physical experience... but what if you did take it seriously? What if you could walk a mile in another's shoes... or socks?
I have told you before of my well-loved, second-hand wardrobe. I often marvel at second-hand things because, without knowing what the histories of the objects are, I know they have a rich past and I'm sure if my inanimate possessions suddenly became sentient each would have a wonderful story to tell. I often wander Sally Ann or Value Village looking for something that is simply too unique and special to be found in chain stores and that simply must be added to my (admittedly and proudly odd) collection; let's take last week as an example.
Nine days ago I spent the best eight dollars I have ever spent in Salvation Army: snow pants, but not just any snow pants... empire waist, bright red-orange Korean snow pants complete with suspenders and armpit-side-panel stretchy bands and one single pocket that is angled awkwardly backwards to the right hip. They are incredible. (Really, you don't even know. I love them. You will probably read more about my adventures with these snow pants and winter gets deeper. I spent longer than I should have jumping up and down in the change room celebrating and grinning madly to myself over my find.)
That day I also picked up some things that I don't usually get second-hand. You see, in the bin of headscarves (I found two that day... 50 cents each! How can Walmart compare?) were three pairs of socks. Most of my socks I either buy at a department store or I steal them from my Mom or my sisters when I go home, but I've been losing socks at a ridiculous rate lately (I blame the gremlinens... I'll write you a story about them soon) so on a whim I picked them all up and tossed them in with my other purchases (the glorious snow pants, three old books, a gold ball gown for Missa, etc).
I didn't think much of them at first. All three pairs made themselves home comfortably in my top drawer and I let them be for a while (enamoured by the snow pants and distracted by other things in my life). Then Friday came.
This past weekend was my extended family Christmas. We skipped the reunion in 2008 so there was two full years of catching up to be done this time 'round the tree. Naturally I left minor preparatory details like packing and laundry until the bitter end (signified by my Dad standing in my bedroom doorway ready to take me back Home). With nothing ready I was forced to do what I always seem forced to do... the three-minute-run-and-pack-everything-dance. Needless to say, in the flurry of my chaotic bag-stuffing adventure all three pairs of second-hand-store socks made their way into my suitcase.
Friday night was a ball! After I stealthily squirreled away my Christmas gifts (muahahaha, family! Good luck with the treasure hunt this year! It's going to be epic!), Mom and I re-discovered the mutated Scrabble-esque game called Banannagrams and I dominated, as usual. Tim came down for the weekend as well and braved the evening and trip down without his fair maiden to keep him company in the madness that our home can be at times. He was in for a mess of harassment for being the first beau to show up at Christmas with a third generation girl. (They actually let him off way too easy in my opinion. But then, they didn't have any snow banks to make use of this year...) And all this time my socks stayed nestled away in my bag... but not for long.
Saturday. My cold feet drove me to pair of socks number one... the infamous pair, the cottony climax of my story. They seemed nothing unusual. They seemed generally average. They were just a tick too long, but not so much that I was consciously unsettled, and they had a small tag by the arch of my foot. I probably should have read that tag. But I did not. I believe it was Carolyn who first muttered the accusatory, frightening phrase: "Nik... whose socks are you wearing?"
Not mine.
The name, clearly labelled and stitched into the very fabric of the knitted hosiery, was not my name. How long did my family laugh at me? How long did I spend keeled-over in hysterics? A long, long time. It was kind of wonderful.
So I have a pair of someone else's socks. I don't know, of course, but I suppose someone who takes the time to sew tags onto a pair of brown socks in good condition probably doesn't give them up without cause. I suppose he's probably dead. He may be alive and well, but I think the odds are high.
Where have these socks been? Who was it that wore them before? What is their past, their history, their story? Suddenly the questions that were always a mildly vague afterthought to second-hand wonders have been wearing on me. I guess it’s silly. It’s all pretty silly. But, then again, maybe it’s not. Can God use even something as silly as an old pair of stockings to capture my attentions and drag wandering thoughts back to Himself? Of course He can. So, stranger-friend of mine, I don’t know anything more than your name and room number, but today you and your family are getting some prayer. Your hand-me-down socks have reminded me that people I don’t know need as much prayer and attention of intention as my friends and family.
Pick a stranger, someone, anyone, no matter their mood. Pray for them. Take a minute and step into their socks… and offer a smile of encouragement and a prayer of help as you cross paths. God only knows how much they could use a little holy intervention today.
I have told you before of my well-loved, second-hand wardrobe. I often marvel at second-hand things because, without knowing what the histories of the objects are, I know they have a rich past and I'm sure if my inanimate possessions suddenly became sentient each would have a wonderful story to tell. I often wander Sally Ann or Value Village looking for something that is simply too unique and special to be found in chain stores and that simply must be added to my (admittedly and proudly odd) collection; let's take last week as an example.
Nine days ago I spent the best eight dollars I have ever spent in Salvation Army: snow pants, but not just any snow pants... empire waist, bright red-orange Korean snow pants complete with suspenders and armpit-side-panel stretchy bands and one single pocket that is angled awkwardly backwards to the right hip. They are incredible. (Really, you don't even know. I love them. You will probably read more about my adventures with these snow pants and winter gets deeper. I spent longer than I should have jumping up and down in the change room celebrating and grinning madly to myself over my find.)
That day I also picked up some things that I don't usually get second-hand. You see, in the bin of headscarves (I found two that day... 50 cents each! How can Walmart compare?) were three pairs of socks. Most of my socks I either buy at a department store or I steal them from my Mom or my sisters when I go home, but I've been losing socks at a ridiculous rate lately (I blame the gremlinens... I'll write you a story about them soon) so on a whim I picked them all up and tossed them in with my other purchases (the glorious snow pants, three old books, a gold ball gown for Missa, etc).
I didn't think much of them at first. All three pairs made themselves home comfortably in my top drawer and I let them be for a while (enamoured by the snow pants and distracted by other things in my life). Then Friday came.
This past weekend was my extended family Christmas. We skipped the reunion in 2008 so there was two full years of catching up to be done this time 'round the tree. Naturally I left minor preparatory details like packing and laundry until the bitter end (signified by my Dad standing in my bedroom doorway ready to take me back Home). With nothing ready I was forced to do what I always seem forced to do... the three-minute-run-and-pack-everything-dance. Needless to say, in the flurry of my chaotic bag-stuffing adventure all three pairs of second-hand-store socks made their way into my suitcase.
Friday night was a ball! After I stealthily squirreled away my Christmas gifts (muahahaha, family! Good luck with the treasure hunt this year! It's going to be epic!), Mom and I re-discovered the mutated Scrabble-esque game called Banannagrams and I dominated, as usual. Tim came down for the weekend as well and braved the evening and trip down without his fair maiden to keep him company in the madness that our home can be at times. He was in for a mess of harassment for being the first beau to show up at Christmas with a third generation girl. (They actually let him off way too easy in my opinion. But then, they didn't have any snow banks to make use of this year...) And all this time my socks stayed nestled away in my bag... but not for long.
Saturday. My cold feet drove me to pair of socks number one... the infamous pair, the cottony climax of my story. They seemed nothing unusual. They seemed generally average. They were just a tick too long, but not so much that I was consciously unsettled, and they had a small tag by the arch of my foot. I probably should have read that tag. But I did not. I believe it was Carolyn who first muttered the accusatory, frightening phrase: "Nik... whose socks are you wearing?"
Not mine.
The name, clearly labelled and stitched into the very fabric of the knitted hosiery, was not my name. How long did my family laugh at me? How long did I spend keeled-over in hysterics? A long, long time. It was kind of wonderful.
So I have a pair of someone else's socks. I don't know, of course, but I suppose someone who takes the time to sew tags onto a pair of brown socks in good condition probably doesn't give them up without cause. I suppose he's probably dead. He may be alive and well, but I think the odds are high.
Where have these socks been? Who was it that wore them before? What is their past, their history, their story? Suddenly the questions that were always a mildly vague afterthought to second-hand wonders have been wearing on me. I guess it’s silly. It’s all pretty silly. But, then again, maybe it’s not. Can God use even something as silly as an old pair of stockings to capture my attentions and drag wandering thoughts back to Himself? Of course He can. So, stranger-friend of mine, I don’t know anything more than your name and room number, but today you and your family are getting some prayer. Your hand-me-down socks have reminded me that people I don’t know need as much prayer and attention of intention as my friends and family.
Pick a stranger, someone, anyone, no matter their mood. Pray for them. Take a minute and step into their socks… and offer a smile of encouragement and a prayer of help as you cross paths. God only knows how much they could use a little holy intervention today.
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